Artist drive at Death Valley

Artist drive in Death Valley, CA. This is a fantastic drive that curves through colorful sections of the Death Valley. Red, green, orange, yellow, Cyan hues can be easily seen anywhere on this drive. The almost sharp transition of colors across this drive, and as seen in this photo, is really astonishing. Different colors stem from the different minerals that form each layer of the rocks here. Depending on the constituent mineral, the absorption onsets will be different, hence certain colors will be absorbed once they are illuminated by the white light generated by sun. The colors that are not absorbed will be reflected back to our eyes, making us see what we see here. That is why the color that we perceive is really dependent on the illumination source that we have! A banana will not be yellow if you try to illuminate it with a blue laser!!

Artist palette and drive at Death Valley

Artist drive and palette in Death Valley, CA. The drive curls through colorful sections of the Death Valley. But my goodness, the artist palette, shown at the right of this panorama, is something out of the ordinary. I tried to capture the beauty of the whole hike through the palette in this panorama. It is just beautiful to see the green next to the yellow, orange, and the very dark brown on the other side of the road. In the distance, we can see the Telescope Peak capped with snow. A beautiful show of colors I had not seen before!

Dante’s peak from the Badwater Basin

Dante’s peak as seen from the Badwater Basin. I was 2 miles in at the lowest point in the North America, 282 feet below the sea level, and saw the moon rising above Dante’s peak that is 5485 feet above the sea level. So, basically, the height difference was about 5700 feet. That gives you a measure of how gigantic the mountain in this image is. You can probably see people in the distance walking on the salt flats! Beautiful magenta color, complemented by the deep blue sky and a moon rise made for one of memorable places in the Death Valley.

Manly Beacon and Cathedral peaks at Death Valley

Another crazy scene at Death Valley with yet another show of color. This is the favorite landscape photograph that I took in the Death Valley trip. Manly Beacon on the left, Cathedral peaks right next to it stretched all the way to the right of the image that is Zabriskie’s point with its yellow-painted scenery, just next to brown, rolling hills, and a moon that is rising yet again over the desert. If you can’t easily see the moon, it’s because this panorama is massive. But if you look closely, you can see a small white circle on top of the magenta-colored mountains in the back. In uncompressed raw format of this photo, which by the way is 1 GB, I can zoom in all the way and see every possible detail on the moon. But when I prepared the photo for the website, that capability was almost gone!

Mesquite flat sand dunes at Death Valley

Mesquite flat sand dunes in their full glory! The combination of beautiful yellow and orange against the magenta and purple colored mountains all against a beautiful blue sky gave rise to a colorful photo! I love the ever-changing textures of the sand dunes and how sharp they can look. It is actually so amazing that sands get moved all over the place with wind, yet they come to form some of the best textures that you can see! I am humble enough to admit that I cannot make such a beautiful texture. If you come here in the middle of the day, the sand dunes will not look as beautiful. But as you get closer to the sunset, you see much more beautiful colors that you can imagine! At night, these sand dunes will look white as opposed to yellow and orange. These dunes are actually massive and very hard to climb! To get an appreciation of the size, look at the two people that are hiking up to the top of the dunes in the center of the photo! The sharp transitions of color in the mountains on the back are very interesting! This is amazing because in general, nature does not like discontinuity. I have to admit that I am not sure what those black regions on the dunes are. They look weird!

Texas Springs campground at Death Valley

A 360-degree panorama of the Milky Way, flattened out as a single image. I had hard time uploading this image because this 300-mega-pixel panorama was around 1 GB. So, I had to downgrade the file quality by a lot which unfortunately severely impacted the photo’s dynamic range. Yet, this photo always haunts me, because it was the first 360-degree panorama that I took of the Milky Way. I camped at the Texas Springs campground in the Death Valley and woke up around 3 AM to go and take this shot. It was cold (mid March) but so beautiful. I waited for the moon to set, which was so magical (I wish I had another camera to capture the moonset). The bottom right of the image is actually where the moon set (geographical west). And I had about an hour to take my shots before astronomical twilight kicks in. I went up a hill, set up my camera, and took shots one by one, and here it is, the Milky Way in the middle of the desert with patches of clouds, beautiful Hydrogen Alpha emission seen as the red tint all across the sky, Venus rising, moon setting on the west, and the sun which will rise in an hour (an educated observation from the bright yellow tint on the East, close to Venus). A camper had their light on to study at 4 AM and a car driving on the road next to the Ranch at Death Valley hotel are proofs that you are never alone! Surreal!

Mount Whitney

And here it comes to an end, my journey into the Death Valley! I took this panorama as I was returning home from the Death Valley trip. I saw mount Whitney, Johnson peak, and the rest of the mountain peaks in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, towering over the desert. It is only fitting that very tall mountains almost always surround very dry deserts! In essence, they block easy passage of moisture, creating these huge arid areas right across from them. I believe the salt lake captured in this image is the Owens lake that has been dry for decades.