Book Review: Death Valley Photographer's Guide by Dan Suzio

I don’t normally do book reviews, they remind me of book reports in school which inevitably leads me to hum “A book report on Peter Rabbit” over and over for days.  (If you’ve never seen/heard the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown you are missing out.)

So what could possibly change my mind and get me jazzed enough to hum for weeks? Why Death Valley of course!

Death Valley is the largest National Park in the lower 48 covering more than 3 million acres, just under 4,700 square miles.  It is the hottest, driest and lowest point in the United States.  With such a vast area and extreme climate it is easy for visitors to become overwhelmed and miss out on photographic opportunities.  Every person who visits Death Valley takes photos of Badwater, the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and the view from Zabriskie Point but did you know there is a waterfall in Death Valley?  Do you know what time of year the endangered pupfish are most easily seen?  Do you know how to dance with a chuckwalla?

Photographer Dan Suzio does and he shares all in his new book Death Valley Photographer’s Guide published by Nolina Press.  Dan has been photographing in Death Valley for the past 35 years and he still makes new discoveries with every visit.  For those of you keeping track, yes that means many of his images were shot with… FILM!  It’s a treat to see the film images holding their own against Dan’s more recent DSLR work.

The book is divided into three sections: an overview, location listings broken out by general area and finally an easy to navigate reference chart.  It’s always tempting to quickly flip through the overview to get to the good bits of a photo guide but I recommend against that for this book.  The overview contains not only wonderfully amusing anecdotes to enjoy but also a lot of information that will help to keep you safe when you venture forth.  Whether you are relying too heavily on your GPS, running out of fuel or sticking your hand into crevices occupied by the local snakes, one mistake in the desert can cost you dearly.

At first glance this book appears to be a lightweight, easy to carry paperback but dive into the location listings and you’ll find there is nothing lightweight about the information!  Within the first paragraph of every location you immediately and clearly find out what to expect to see in the location, when the light is best for photography, what wildlife and flowers to look out for, the elevation and how to get there.  Read further for some surprising gems of knowledge that can only be gleaned by someone who has put in the time to explore.  Healthy doses of inspiring photographs grace the pages though it’s obvious from the collection that Dan’s first love is reserved for the reptiles.  Check out the beauty on page 46 and you’ll understand what I mean.

Personally I’ve been exploring Death Valley for around 8 years and I thought I was getting to know the park pretty well.  After reading Dan’s guide I realize I’ve yet to scratch the surface!  I can’t wait to get back out there armed with all of Dan’s generous knowledge.

Pick up a copy of the Death Valley Photographer’s Guide before your next trip and leave the crowds behind.  Available at: http://www.deathvalleyphotographersguide.com or on Amazon.

Back from Death Valley

Crescent Moon Setting Over Badwater

I'm just home from co-hosting a photo tour in Death Valley National Park.  It was a fabulous few days despite the fact I was recovering from a cold.  I went through a bottle and a half of Purell in an attempt to keep my cold to myself - fingers crossed I was successful.

While most of my time was spent setting camp, driving guests to locations, preparing meals and offering advice on what/how to capture the scenes unfolding in front of us, I did find time to capture a few images of my own.

I photographed the crescent moon setting while I waited for guests to return from the middle of the salt flats with Jim Goldstein.  One of the guests, Tom suggested we shoot this as a timelapse so in a few days I'll get that sequence together to share!  Thanks Tom!

Another of our guests was none other than Russell Brown.  Russell is the Senior Creative Director at Adobe and boy does he know the products inside and out!  One of our main desires in visiting the remote Racetrack Playa in Death Valley was the opportunity to photograph the stars with minimal light pollution.  Russell offered up one of his amazing scripts to help us composite our star trails.  It worked like a charm (even though my intervalometer stopped working one hour into a three hour shoot).  The script creates layers from multiple exposures, sets the blending mode and even gives you masks which make it super easy to get rid of pesky air planes from the night sky.  As someone who manually performed all of those tasks for her first star trail image... it took HOURS... I can tell you this script is worth it's weight in gold!! Visit http://www.russellbrown.com/ to get your copy of Dr. Brown’s Stack-A-Matic 2.2.3.

A warm thank you to the rest of the gang: Maurice, Dave and Glenn - you made it a wonderful trip despite the frigid desert night.  I hope you've all thawed out by now!!

Loved to Death

Carol Leigh, a photographer based in Oregon, has run and maintained the "California Wildflower Hotsheet" since 1996. The hotsheet was a goldmine of information about where and when to see wildflowers at their best. Whether you were looking for fields of California Poppies or sightings of the delicate Calypso Orchid, Carol had the scoop and gleefully and generously shared the information with the world.

Unfortunately, the world can be rough, inconsiderate and rude without even knowing it. Carol has made the decision to discontinue the hotsheet due to the poor behavior of a few who have disrespected boundaries of private property, trampled fields of wildflowers and even perpetrated vandalism. I definitely feel for her, it had to be a hard decision. What can be more romantic than a picnic lunch on a blanket in a field of wildflowers? How much can one blanket hurt? Or two? With an audience of the entire world wide web the numbers increase. How about two hundred blankets a weekend? Each with running children and dogs digging holes...

People just don't seem to look beyond themselves and their own desires these days. I was reminded of this on my trip to Death Valley. A car parked on the side of the road on top of a large growth of purple flowers when not 50 feet ahead was a barren turn off. The Racetrack area has become more accessible with a good grading of the track. The first year I visited the Racetrack and the amazing moving rocks the track was bumpy and broken... even washed out in places. I carried a tire pump and two kinds of patch and made certain we had two vehicles in tandem in case we got into trouble. We ran into a handful of other visitors all with high clearance 4-wheel drives. This time, there were dozens of cars traveling in around the clock. Most completely ignorant of the risk of flat tire from the sharp rocks and even more who had no idea of off-road etiquette. Broken glass litters the campsite past the Racetrack. Tents were pitched in no-pitch areas along the road with cars pulled alongside making it difficult to pass and even more distressing were the number of foot prints etched into the lake bed surface and rocks taken from their trails.


These places can and will heal if we give them a chance but too much love, too much excitement and a desire not to miss out can smother flowers, places and people... we need to learn to walk softly again. To take only pictures and leave NO footprints so that those who come behind us can experience the same grandeur.

**Update:
Ron Niebrugge To Share or Not to Share
Jim Goldstein Hotsheet in the Hot Seat

Off to Death Valley

Packing up the car and heading out of town with some good friends in tow! I'm so excited to get out there and camp... get some dirt under my fingernails and some photos with my newly reconfigured gear. Every time I'm in the desert I come away with something completely different and I am hoping for some exciting new images out of this trip. Last time we had some pretty amazing skies as you can see from the pano of Zabriskie Point. Who knows what we'll find next...

Desert Stars

On a recent trip to Death Valley I had the opportunity to set my camera up outside my tent without fear of it being stolen in the night. Over the course of the night my camera recorded 545 individual 20 second exposures of the night sky. While I wasn't awake to wish on it, the camera was able to capture a Shooting Star as well as a multitude of airplanes and satellites. The sky is pretty busy up there!

I pointed my camera toward where I thought the equatorial plane may be based on my knowledge of the location of the North Star. As I processed the image and added layer upon layer I was delighted to see the final trails emerging. What I had not anticipated was the variation in color of the trails... As a photographer I should know... light is not always the same. Yet somehow, as I look up into the sky at night, all I see are white and occasionally red stars. The trails tell a different story! They are alive with whites, blues, gold, pink and even teal! I can't wait to get back out there and experiment more!

Moving on

We spent this morning at Zabriski Point again finding different angles and enjoying the sunrise. Ran into Photographer, Donald Hall, a lovely gentleman whom I had briefly met at the Art Wolfe International Conservation Photography Awards. He was kind enough to have worn a bright red jacket on his trek up the hills. I worked him into several panoramic shots of the point in a "Where's Waldo" kind of way. I can't wait to get home to stitch these panos together! We chatted for a bit and he gave me several ideas for my next trip to Death Valley. THANK YOU, Don!

We left Zabriski and headed toward Badwater with the intent of shooting macros of the salt. Along the way we found another coorporative raven and spent about an hour parked on the side of the road on our bellies photographing him as he hopped from rock to rock. I'm sure people wondered what in the world we were doing laying in the dirt on the side of the road while they were rushing by to see the next big view. We finally made it to Badwater and worked the salt for a while. We had to be certain to be back at the hotel to get the remainder of our gear from our rooms before check out time.

After lunch we headed West out of the park and turned South on Trona-Wildrose Road. We stopped at the Ballarat Ghost Town. A small collection of mud houses in disrepair. The mood of a ghost town was completely absent from this place... there were RV's parked nearby, signs for the showers, a large gift shop... So we headed back onto the road after a quick look.

We reached the Trona Pinnacles around 3pm and the light was flat and ugly. I could see images everywhere I looked but nothing that would work without the light. We explored the area, waiting for the storm clouds to break just a little bit to give us a hint of light. From time to time we got a 30 second window, just quick enough to set up the tripod and snap one image before another cloud moved in. There was a film crew there, setting up to shoot something so we steered well clear. Only two oher vehicles showed up in the time we were there.

Finally, about 20 minutes before the sun would be hidden by the horizon the clouds broke and we were treated to light on the Pinnacles. The difference the light made was amazing. The entire landscape came to life and all of the potential images I had been frustrated in not capturing properly, came to life.

The Trona Pinnacles are a National Natural Landmark managed by the BLM. Comprised of over 500 Tufa spires (calcium carbonate), some as high as 140 feet, the Trona Pinnacles are a spectacular sight to see. The spires were formed between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago when Searles Lake formed a link in a chain of Pleistocene lakes that ranged between Mono Lake and Death Valley. The Pinnacles have been used as a filming location for episodes of Lost in Space and Star Trek and movies like "Planet of the Apes".

Tomorrow we reach Joshua Tree. We'll finally get out the camping gear and stay a few nights on the ground which I can't wait for! Unfortunately... or fotunately depending on your view point, there won't be internet acess from there so you will all have to wait to see what comes out of the next few days! Be safe everyone and get outside and enjoy nature!! =0))

Weather Cursed or Charmed?

I seem to be a weather magnet... In Zion I started the hike to Angels Landing with several friends on a beautiful warm day boasting of a clear blue sky... by the time we reached the top black angry clouds had rolled in, lightning was striking and it looked like Armageddon!

This was not an isolated incident... tornadoes in upstate New York and Texas, a week of camping in the rain in Maine, the tail end of a hurricane on Midway Atoll... Weather seems to follow me.

So is this a curse or a blessing? For the photographer I tend to think blessing. Death Valley is a wonderful place to photograph but throw a couple of storm clouds up and WOW does it pop! Add pools of water in an area that hardly ever sees rain and you have something special. So while we didn't get to visit all of the iconic spots, we definitely came away with some some unique images.

The road crews are working tirelessly to get all of the roads back open and so by Tuesday morning we had an entirely new stretch of road to explore. We shot Zabriski Point at sunrise which turned out to also be moonset. We weren't in the prime position to take full advantage of the moonset but we managed to come up with some nice compositions which included the moon and the unique features of the landscape.

From there we started scouting our sunset location. We drove to Badwater and hiked out onto the salt flats looking for the wide, flat, white, salt rings for which the area is famous. No such luck - the rain has made the ground swell. Badwater looked more like the Devil's Golfcourse with thick high ridges of broken ground. So after a nice walk we headed out to scout other locations. A quick hike in Golden Canyon where we met a wonderfully cooporative raven and then we explored West Side Drive. At the lowest point in the road we found a wonderful mud area and decided this would be our sunset spot. Walking the gravel edge we had to be very careful not to sink into the deep mud... I had a few moments when my tripod slowly stopped being level... after checking the legs were infact locked I had to laugh at myself when I realized the offending leg had actually sunk into the mud. I'm looking forward to heading back to Death Valley to explore some of the side canyons off West Side Drive. We only saw one other vehicle down there, all the other cars stuck to the main highway. In other locations tourists poured off buses and milled around the parking areas.... lining up outside the bathrooms, venturing a few feet out into the desert before retreating to the safety of their metal shell. No thank you! Right now my shoes are covered with a thick mixture of salt and orange clay mud, my jeans are spattered with mud, the knees are thick with salt, I have cactus scratches on the backs of my hands and dirt under my nails. I couldn't be more happy.