Shooting the Shooter - Badwater Edition

As you’ve already seen, Ann made some interesting images of me while on our Death Valley trip.  And while the previous shooting the shooter showed off Ann’s composition skills for leading the eye, this one takes a very different approach and takes advantage of photography’s technical potential.

The images were taken during our early morning in Badwater, where we hiked a mile or so into the salt flats waiting for sunrise.  The thing about photography (in particular digital sensors) is that it doesn’t take much light to record an image.  Though it does take increasing amounts of time in order to record an image in low-light conditions.  Sometimes it takes quite some time to make these exposures.  

And when people, animals and/or the wind are involved, you sometimes get some very strange effects.

Fairly often Ann says I’m not quite all there . . . maybe she’s right?

In the early morning hours like that, when no one else is around, it’s like you’re on an alien planet. Just you (and Ann), the quiet, the cold and the wind. And of course, the landscape.  At Badwater, the textured salt surface seemed to run on forever, until it hit the mountains in the distance.  And the blue pre-dawn light gives a feeling as cold as it was that morning, particularly with the dark, ominous skies in the west.

As you can see from Ann’s image, the skies to the east, while overcast, were thinner and had some openings, which gave enough light to lighten the salt white flats and add some life to a foreboding image. What a morning it was!