After finalizing my book of photos for 2019, which came out quite well, I decided that I needed to do some new photography to start the year. It seems unlikely that I will put together another year like 2019, but one never knows. When 2019 started, I had no idea that I would have so many photos that I was pleased with that I could create a very satisfactory book of 50 (actually, 51) images. I have received many very kind comments about the book and it has provided a great deal of satisfaction to me so far. So, at this point in time, we will see what 2020 brings and perhaps another book of photos will be in the offing at the end of the year.
To begin 2020, I decided that a trip to Death Valley National Park would be perfect. I did decide, though, that I would really try to concentrate on sunrises and sunsets, maximizing the color in my images, since Death Valley, in general, is pretty devoid of color, except in a few spots. This approach actually worked quite well, and I did produce several images that were ablaze with color. Overall, though, the trip felt like a letdown to me, primarily because the dunes were such a mess. No matter where I went, there were footprints all over the place. I even tried a few entrances to the dunes that I had never used before in the hope that I could find some virgin territory with no marks, but it was just not to be. I finally eked out a few images that had few footprints so that I could remove them, but these were pretty raren. Normally, I find some wonderful areas in the dunes to photograph, but not this time and I think it left me with a sense of being unfulfilled. I look back at some of the images that I did get from Badwater, Zabriskie, and other sites in the park, though, and I think they’re very satisfactory, but my dunes failure left me kind of down. Well, that’s the fate of the landscape photographer at times, close but no cigar.
In any event, this photo of the badlands at Zabriskie Point was one that I did like a lot, and it has continued to grow on me in the days since I returned home. So it was a less than optimal trip, it left me a bit blue, but I will be out in Grand Canyon very soon to try my hand there.
