Death Valley: The Great Sand Dunes & The Racetrack
My first so-called achievement in the world of photography was having some of my landscape images on Death Valley published in UK’s Digital Photo magazine in 2005.
There were three images that amounts to a whole spread. What a joy it was to see this in print in an international photography magazine - some sort of validation to my vision.
Two people walking on top of The Great Sand Dunes of Death Valley.
The beauty of the untouched sands of the dune.
And an even more beautiful scene of what nature (the winds) did to the sand.
These were taken in Death Valley, specifically in The Great Sand Dunes, which my friend Ray and I had to climb to get our pictures. Climbing sand dunes isn’t that fun, when you think about every single step you take sinks down 3/4 of the way. For perspective, the sand dunes were about as tall as a three-story building, and we were carrying our backpacks with full camera gear and a steel tripod.
When we finished exploring and taking photographs of the sand dunes, we turned around and couldn’t see our car. Apparently we walked so much that the car is a mere dot in our vision. Obviously, we found the car.
The Racetrack, Death Valley.
The above picture was taken at a place called The Racetrack, which was a sight to see because it defies common sense. Big rocks seem to slide through the dry cracks of the ground. Very odd indeed.
I received a payment $100 for this spread, and at the time, I have spent over $20,000 for my photography equipment - quite a lot for a hobbyist with a slightly lower than average wages as an engineer.
We realized at that point that the math didn’t add up, so we (eventually) went into wedding photography (so we can justify our future purchases 🤣)
I was never into landscape photography but I said yes to this trip. I had to wake up at 3am to get ready and be in place as soon as the light shows up, and you only have 10-15 minutes per location where you have the best light, and you’re done until the next golden hour.
“Landscape photography is so inefficient”, I thought at the time 😅
But in the end, it was fun, and I learned lots.
Including saying yes to the things that I normally would not be interested in.
My mentor would say “You’ll be glad you did it”.