PREFACE: This is the introductory essay for ebook portfolios covering my extended 2021-22 trip to Death Valley National Park. You can download these ebooks, for free, here to see the full collection of photographs.
With our Airstream RV trailer, we are able to work remotely for long stretches, so we packed up for the desert and arrived in Death Valley National Park right before Christmas, 2021. We stayed through late February, 2022, giving us about eight weeks in the park. Aside from two weeks of formal work (teaching workshops), I photographed, hiked, or both almost every day. This portfolio is the result of those efforts.
By the time we left to return home, the list of Death Valley canyons I have visited had many new entries, for a total of fifty-four. I can now say I have backpacked across Death Valley’s floor, an experience that makes the incredible vastness of the park feel much more profound than contemplating those same distances from the roadside. The scenery, as always, was endlessly enchanting. Solitude was easy to find. With photography friends coming and going, the trip felt a little like summer camp. As with every trip to this park, the list of new things I want to see is much longer than the list I had when I arrived. With the weather getting increasingly warm in late February, I knew it was time to head home but still tried to convince Ron that we should stay for just one more week. Just one more.
The last light of the day fades off of a collection of erratic sand ripples in Death Valley National Park.
How can this landscape keep me so engaged, year after year, when it simultaneously seems to repel other photographers and even invite derision?
If you spent much time last spring in the online places where nature photographers congregate, it is likely you saw some … less than positive comments about Death Valley National Park, including themes like these: If you have seen one mud crack photo, you have seen them all. Is every.single.photographer on the planet in Death Valley? I’ll be fine if I never see another photo from Death Valley again. I’m sure it felt good to be in the herd of sheep at Zabriskie Point! That sort of thing, on repeat. On Landscape, one of the finest nature photography publications around, even published an article by Chris Murray titled, “Dune Fatigue: Seek Solitude in the Neglected and the Overlooked.” In the article, which I agree with in terms of some of the conclusions but not the premise itself, Chris says:
“It borders on ludicrous the number of images of sand dunes I have seen over the last few years, a trend that shows no signs of abating. It would seem the Mesquite Dunes in Death Valley National Park may be the most photographed piece of natural real estate in the world, and Death Valley the most photographed national park. It’s not to say many if not most of the images aren’t beautiful, they certainly are. But, it’s the worn out subject matter that has me tired and questioning. Why are so many photographers limiting themselves to such popular subject matter and places?”
The last light of the afternoon fades from repeating ridges of sand dunes in Death Valley National Park.
My answer to Chris’s question is simple: because photographing the popular Mesquite Sand Dunes (and Death Valley National Park in general) is an incredible experience, and often photography is as much about the experience as it is about the result. Being surrounded by textured, rolling dunes that are part of a vast, surrealistic landscape is a delight, and can be even more enticing when a dynamic weather system is passing through the park, with the associated winds whipping up the sand to create dreamy atmospheric conditions. I have had some of my best moments in all my years of photographing nature during sandstorms on these dunes, with the intensity of the experience making me feel more connected with the landscape than almost any other time I have had outside.
For anyone who enjoys desert landscapes, it seems foolish to pass on having this experience and trying your hand at photographing this area just because others are tired of seeing the photographs or because the location is popular among nature photographers. The Mesquite Sand Dunes cover around fourteen square miles of land. If you are physically capable of walking, it is easy to find solitude, despite the main access area being one of the busiest in the park. Extending this same idea to another expansive iconic area, I would be shortchanging myself to say, “I am never visiting or photographing Badwater Basin because it is so overdone.” I have had some of my most memorable and even joyous experiences on Death Valley’s salt flats and I am glad that I did not let other people’s perceptions of these places as overdone keep me from visiting them in the first place, and then returning over and over again.
As I say in a forthcoming article in ELEMENTS Magazine with regard to this topic general, “If I cannot find something fresh, meaningful, or unique to photograph across more than three million acres of land, I believe this says more about my skill and open-mindedness as a photographer than it does about the landscape itself.”
The last light of the day fades off of a collection of erratic sand ripples in Death Valley National Park.
THE PHOTO LOCATION GOLDEN AGE
I started seriously pursuing nature photography in 2008, which I would consider to be near the end of what I will call the Photo Location Golden Age. During this Golden Age, a nature photographer could visit a place like Zabriskie Point or the Mesquite Sand Dunes in the morning and expect to be alone. Using another example, a retired friend told me about his experience visiting Antelope Canyon with a Navajo guide. Some of the only photographers who had passed through the canyon before him were on assignment for National Geographic. That is the epitome of the Photo Location Golden Age. I started exploring the American Southwest at the time when there were no readily available, accurate directions to Zebra Canyon or Peek-a-boo Canyon in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Horseshoe Bend still had a tiny dirt parking lot, but Antelope Canyon was already a popular, very busy location—a brief transition time between the Photo Location Golden Age and the Instagram Era.
Water ripples form into mountain shapes in a small creek in Death Valley National Park.
Now, many wonderfully beautiful and inspiring places have been discovered by the masses. I agree that the presence of lots of people and lots of other photographers can take much of the pleasure out of the photographic experience in these busy areas. And, photographs from these places can seem common, boring, and tired, especially for jaded photographers who spend significant time online.
I did not have the good fortune of visiting the Mesquite Sand Dunes during the Photo Location Golden Age. Yet, I find desert landscapes to be an incredible source of inspiration and fulfillment. So, I have a choice: do I avoid this landscape because it is well-known and frequently photographed, or do I try my best to come away with something meaningful to me that represents my (quite positive) experiences, and possibly even shares a fresh take? I have chosen the latter: engagement with this popular landscape, and many other popular landscapes, as well. Why should I let unfortunate timing, another person’s opinion about a place, or even the prevailing opinion of a community, influence my feelings about it? My advice on this topic: If you enjoy photographing a place, be confident in your love for that landscape, even if other people love it, too. Personally meaningful photography can be created in any location. And, fresh, creative photography can be, and very often is, made in well-known locations.
Tall canyon walls with soft afternoon light in Death Valley National Park's backcountry.
Looking beyond Death Valley, we can consider a national park to the north as another instructive example: Yosemite. Historically, the Yosemite area served as a sort of basecamp for the development of nature photography. Yosemite Valley covers a small geographic area and the park is quite popular overall. This is another place that is often characterized as over-photographed yet a number of photographers, including Michael Frye, Charlotte Gibb, Franka Gabler, William Neill, and Robb Hirsch, are creating fresh interpretations of this landscape today. Using these photographers as case studies, they provide good evidence that making personally expressive, original photography is much more about the mindset, approach, curiosity, open-mindedness, and vision that a photographer brings to their work than it is about the location itself.
A lovely desert plant found in a remote part of Death Valley National Park.
CREATING EXPRESSIVE PHOTOGRAPHS
Going back to the topic of sand dunes, is it possible to create a personally expressive photograph of a thoroughly photographed subject? I think the answer depends on where we start. Do we compare the work of hundreds of photographers and then draw conclusions about a place or subject? Or, do we consider photographers as individuals, with a range of motivations, intentions, and sources of inspiration, along with how that individual engages with and connects to the landscape, and where they find meaning in the natural world?
With the first approach, it is easy to say that the world does not need another photograph of sand dunes. But now that we have firmly and forever exited the Photo Location Golden Age, I personally find this to be a useless approach because it is totally disconnected from reality. I simultaneously want to work on developing an expressive body of work but also do not want to be limited to photographing only lesser-known places. Therefore, if I am to find meaning and the ability to express myself through my photography, I have to look past what others are doing and instead only consider my own goals, motivations, and connections with a landscape. While some of the work you will see in this portfolio is derivative of the work that has come before me, and common subjects are represented, the process through which I arrived at these photos is authentic and intentional. And, in striving to create a representative portfolio of one of the finest desert landscapes on earth, including sand dunes, among other common subjects, is not limiting but rather essential in terms of telling a full story.
A patch of wet mud slowly dries, with small linear cracks forming on the darker side and transitioning to peeling saucers on the lighter side.
I’ll pull in a related thread to share a tangible example of how I have been working through these questions with regard to my photography. While scrolling through a public online chat a few months ago, I saw a reference to my photography as being interesting but not “expressive.” Although there was not much context to the comment, I gathered from the rest of the thread that my focus on things like patterns and repetition makes a good portion of my portfolio superficial in comparison to some other nature photographers because I am not focusing on things like using my photography to communicate metaphors or deep philosophical meaning.
While I initially felt defensive, that reaction quickly wore off once I reminded myself that this particular body of my work is among my favorite, so who cares what these people think! Seeing this comment made me realize that I could better explain my intentions so those who are interested might have a better understanding of why this theme is so dominant in my photography, and fills up a good portion of this portfolio. When I think about my motivations for pursuing photography, the photos that represent finding order and grace among chaos are those that I consider to be most expressive and meaningful.
Soft evening light falls over wet mud ripples left behind after a flash flood in Death Valley National Park.
When I look back at my early work, one of the first photos I was proud of was peeling mud in a wash in Badlands National Park. The light was harsh and the composition was unrefined but I absolutely loved the subject. I took this photo before I ever looked at any nature photography, aside from the photos that any American might casually see in advertisements or travel guidebooks. Without substantial outside photography influences, I was drawn to this subject and felt immediately compelled to create a photo, and it turned into a photo I loved for a long time.
For years, I did not understand why I was drawn to subjects like this but once I started exploring my motivations and why I have stuck with photography longer than any other interest, some reasons became clear. Since my only sibling passed away in an accident when I was fourteen, I have experienced bouts of debilitating anxiety, and even when the anxiety is at bay, my mind almost never quiets down.
Years ago, I had a job that required travel all across Colorado, so I tried to build photography stops into each trip. During one of these trips, I had a week of meetings in the town of Alamosa, so I added side trips to the surrounding wildlife refuges and Great Sand Dunes National Park. One morning, when I was at the Great Sand Dunes photographing small channels of ice weaving through the dunes, I had a revelation: my mind is not racing. The next day, while photographing some golden grasses at a wildlife refuge, I realized it again: my mind is actually quiet, for the first time in years.
Tiny linear fractures form on the surface of drying mud after a flash flood in Death Valley National Park.
With time, nature photography became a sort of meditation and medication for my anxiety and, when paired with regular physical activity, has been the only thing that has consistently brought relief. Where photographing grand landscapes at sunrise and sunset often feels intensely stressful, slowly and fully engaging with a gentle pattern or fascinating detail is quiet time for my mind and body. For these reasons, this theme deserves a prominent place in my photographic practice, and helps explain why I am drawn to a popular subject like sand dunes. In other words, this body of my work is well-considered personal expression even if some of the subjects are common among nature photographers.
While I admire many people in this field, my inspiration for creating is nature itself. The experience of being outside, letting curiosity about the natural world guide me, and engaging in photography as a way to quiet my mind are the primary motivations behind my work. Thus, I am not concerned about what other photographers have done at a location, or the assessments of those taking a critical view of the field of nature photography overall. I am only concerned about creating photos that express my connections with and interpretations of the landscapes in front of me, especially since this experience helps me feel at peace. If the resulting photos resemble common compositions or recognizable subjects in some cases, it does not matter because the experience of creating them was meaningful, stimulating, relaxing, challenging, infuriating, exhausting, or just plain fun. The resulting photos might not be full of deep meaning but they are authentic expressions of my motivations, intentions, connections, and experiences—and that is more than enough for me.
I love desert plants so when I saw a photo of this species from Guy Tal, I wanted to see it for myself. After scouring all my Mojave Desert guidebooks and iNaturalist, I had an idea of a few places it might grow. My first few location ideas were a bust but on a hike in a remote area of Death Valley National Park, Ron spotted this plant! This small, beautifully fuzzy plant! It was much smaller than I imagined it would be and was difficult to spot since it blended into its environment so well. This rare perennial herb flowers in the spring, although I was happy to see it in this pre-flowering state for photo purposes. Credit for inspiring me to seek out this plant goes to Guy Tal and credit for remembering to bring along a macro lens on the hike goes to Ron.
AN OVER-PHOTOGRAPHED PLACE?
It is too easy to dismiss Death Valley National Park as nothing more than the well-known Mesquite Dunes, Zabriskie Point, and Badwater Basin. This landscape offers so much more to anyone interested in exploring beyond the icons. And, those iconic locations: They are still entirely worthy photographic destinations for me for the reasons I have explained above. I don’t need every photograph in my portfolio to be unique, fresh, or have a deep story for it to have meaning and significance.
Death Valley National Park covers 5,270 square miles, with more than 3 million acres of wilderness and hundreds of miles of roads traveling through remote backcountry areas. For context, this is about the size of Connecticut, or about half the size of Vermont. Saying that such a vast, diverse landscape is “over-photographed” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of this place. Anyone who has stepped beyond the icons knows this landscape is full of a lifetime of opportunities for discovery. For those of us living in the American West, we are fortunate to be within a day’s drive of one of the most unique desert landscapes on our planet. I’m not going to dismiss it as being worthy for photography just because thousands of photographers have worked in this park before me.
Through this portfolio of work, you will see that I somehow managed to keep myself busy in this over-photographed landscape, including quite a few trips out to the Mesquite Dunes where I found some intricately detailed ripples in a style I had never seen before, along with some unusual erosion patterns created by a soaking rainstorm followed by intense, drying winds. If you are among the jaded who are sick of seeing photos of mud cracks and sand dunes, without considering the intentions, interests, and motivations of the individual photographer, you can move on right now. However, if you would like to see the things that attracted my attention during this trip to the park, including lots of sand dunes and many mud cracks, I welcome you to stay with me. Even if some of these subjects are common, I find meaning and joy in the photos I am sharing here, and I think they, together as a portfolio, are worthwhile expressions of my connections with and interpretations of this special desert landscape.
These three portfolios are my toast to the location that the Internet has apparently, and unfairly, awarded as the 2022 gold medal recipient of Nature’s Most Over-Photographed Landscape. Cheers!
