Death Valley Dirt Road
Death Valley Dirt Road
Copyright 2016, O. Bisogno Scotti, All Rights Reserved
I love driving dirt roads in my 4×4, the rougher the better and Death Valley National Park has plenty of them. Over a million tourists visit every year, and they’re all taking tons of photos. The best way to find unique scenes is by hitting the dirt roads. I took the above image in 2005, the wettest and best wildflower season in 100 years. I stayed on the dirt roads and ran into only 5-6 other people in five days. From Death Valley I went directly to Carrizo Plain National Monument where the wildflowers were just beginning to peak.
Nikon D1X DSLR, AF NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8D, exposure: f/11, 1/80 sec., ISO 125, exposure mode: Aperture Priority (center weighted), Nikkor MC-20 remote cable, Manfrotto 3221 tripod, Manfrotto 3047 studio head, 2003 Nissan Xterra 4×4, capture date and time: 3/13/2005, 3:59 pm
Blog-Bisogno 
facecameraaction: Thanks for liking my image “Death Valley Dirt Road”. I feel ready to hit the highway again!
LikeLike
rabirius: Thanks for liking “Death Valley Dirt Road”. I’m hoping this image stirs the wanderlust lurking in all of us.
LikeLike
Ron Hillmar: Thanks for liking my image “Death Valley Dirt Road” taken in Death Valley in 2005.
LikeLike
marktoner1: Thanks for liking “Death Valley Dirt Road”. You would have to spend a month in Death Valley to see all it has to offer.
LikeLike
What an awesome capture! You find the most interesting places. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m glad you liked this Jackie. Death Valley NP makes it pretty easy to find interesting places. Sometimes you wonder if you’re on the same planet!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Violet of Violet’s Veg*n e-comics: Thanks for liking my image “Death Valley Dirt Road”. The beauty of Death Valley is otherworldly.
LikeLike
existentiallens: Thanks for liking “Death Valley Dirt Road”…a desert plain, slithering sand dunes, a mountain range, cumulus clouds, all stacked one after the other.
LikeLike
Natures’s Child: Thanks for liking my image “Death Valley Dirt Road”.
Mother Nature is hot! In fact this dirt road culminates at the hottest place on earth according to The World Meteorological Organization…136 degrees!
LikeLiked by 1 person
In looking at this again, and again, I find this surreal in a beautiful way. It does not look like a photograph. It is looks more like a painting.
How did you achieve this effect?
LikeLiked by 1 person
For one thing painters are very deliberate. Nothing is done in hundredths of a second like photographers do. Painters scrutinize angle, composition, perspective, and direction of the light, keeping the warmest colors in the foreground and cooler colors in the background, more detail in the foreground and less as you go back to the horizon. Photographers can do this too by putting the camera on a tripod and being patient enough to wait for the perfect light, and using all the same tricks to draw the viewer’s eye into the frame. That is why this image looks painterly to you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Are you at the end of the road? What does that sign say? I still can not read it in view larger!!!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This road starts on the Southern border of Death Valley NP. I saw it on the map before I left LA, and became convinced it was the road I wanted to enter the park on. There’s no sign so drive slow and watch for it. 4-wheel drive is a must to make it through deep sand and mud. It turned out to be the longest dirt road I have ever traveled on. This photograph was made around the halfway point…the middle of nowhere!
There are so many bullet holes in the sign that there is no telling what it used to say.
LikeLiked by 2 people
YIKES!!!!! Both for the middle of nowhere and the bullet holes in the sign!
Did you continue to the end or did you turn around and go back the way you came?
Obviously not the place to run out of gas or have a flat tire!
LikeLike
I really wanted to drive the whole rode. I was prepared for it. I had a 5 gallon can of water, and 5 gallon can of gas (This was March so I would double that in hot weather). The problem was it was all mud up ahead. I wasn’t afraid of getting stuck. It was that the mud cracking in the sun was so beautiful I didn’t want to disturb it…so I turned around and went back the way I came in.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I seem to recall that you put some mud images on your blog, 3 in fact!!!
Were they captured at that time?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I took the Mud images the next morning (60 mph winds overnight) at the turn around point where I decided the mud was too beautiful to drive over. I wanted the next person to see it exactly as I had with no tire tracks…
Mud 1
Mud 2
Mud 3
LikeLiked by 1 person
seagirll: Thanks for liking my image “Death Valley Dirt Road” taken at 4:00 pm, the beginning of the golden hour.
LikeLike
Michael Andrew Just: Thanks for liking “Death Valley Dirt Road”.
It could be good year for California wild flowers since it rained in November and December. That’s perfect conditions for a good bloom.
LikeLike
You make digital look like film, film look like a painting and round and round it goes…..I really like your description of how it’s done.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I look at it this way: A painter sets up his easel and puts a blank canvas on it. A photographer sets up his tripod and puts a camera on it. The sensor or film is a blank canvas until the shutter is tripped.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absolutely…well said. Art is art is art…there are certain basic underlying concepts that are consistent no matter what the medium. It really helps to have some understanding of a few of the basic elements in the creation process.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Since my father was a painter and photographer, he approached his photography from a painters standpoint. I have adopted that point of view.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Simon Bowler: Thanks for liking my image “Death Valley Dirt Road”. I moved to California in 1977 and didn’t get to Death Valley National Park until 2005. I’m so glad I did…definitely beats the Reagan Library! 😉
LikeLike
Man of many thoughts. Thanks for liking “Death Valley Dirt Road”…I feel a winter photo trip coming on. It’s time!
LikeLike
Faye Q: Thanks for liking my image “Death Valley Dirt Road” taken on the same trip to Death Valley as “Gnarled Wood and Desert Flora”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Deepak Acharya: Thanks for liking “Death Valley Dirt Road”. If life was a never-ending dirt road, I would be a happy man……
LikeLiked by 1 person
Edge of Humanity Magazine: Thanks for liking my image “Death Valley Dirt Road”. We are now entering wildflower season in California.
LikeLike