The heat has been impossible in the Western part of the United States these last few weeks.  Death Valley National Park holds the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded ... 134 degrees F.  Last week it reached 130!  As you may recall, I was in Death Valley in February this year ... a much more sensible time to visit. It is a great place to visit and an even more interesting place to photograph landscape images.

The dunes in the park are the theme of this post.  They've become one of my favorite places inside the park to photograph.  I've decided that I most enjoy them as they come alive at sunrise.  I like the early morning light for two reasons.  The first is that the sand is pristine and free from human foot tracks because of any over night wind that might have moved the sand and filled in the tracks.  Secondly (and most important) the dunes virtually glow red when the early morning rays hit the.  As the sun rises higher in the sky, they regain their tan color only to return to the red hues at sunset.

This first image taken on an earlier trip shows the first direct rays from the rising sun hitting the dunes.  The curves, the color, and the texture are just spectacular!

This  trip was different from my previous ones.  We stayed at the edges of the dunes in the morning focusing more on the larger picture.  We had some cool, standing lenticular clouds and snow on the mountains to the east.  The dunes are in the foreground:

I did manage a brief, solo foray into the edge of the dunes to pick up an image of this quiet little scene:

We came back in the afternoon, and you can see the difference made by the light, and get a sense of the scale of the dunes ... see the two people on the left walking at the very top of the ridge?

But, by moving around and waiting a bit for the light to improve, this happens:

Walking a few yards to the left from where I took the above image was a set of tracks.  I don't know what made them ... something with a  tail and that seems to hop ... ?

My favorite of this afternoon's outing in the dunes was this kneeling shot taken directly into the Sun using a dried and cracked portion of earth as foreground.  It breaks a couple of the "don't-do-this" rules:

The dunes in Death Valley are really very interesting and worth exploring.  In my opinion, it is usually best to do that in the morning, but as you can see, late afternoon works, too!

This event in Death Valley provided a fun few days shooting in a place with wide-open, unusual vistas and interesting weather.  I hope you liked the images I took of the trip.  

Thanks for taking the time to look!

Adam