The Photograph, Zabriskie Point - Background Story

In response to a post at Jim Goldstein's site, here is a background story about the photo I posted earlier today - which is part of a series including two other related photographs shown below in this post.



The Photograph, Zabriskie Point. Death Valley National Park, California. April 4, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

Early this April I spent four days in Death Valley National Park, mostly doing landscape photography. In particular I spent a good chunk of time at the Racetrack, shooting sunset, night photos under a full moon, and sunrise. I headed back to the more civilized areas of the valley around Furnace Creek, camping at Texas Springs and visiting all the usual places.

On this morning I joined a number of other photographers on the hill in front of the official overlook at Zabriskie Point, where we awaited the dawn and then the first light on Manley Beacon. As we watched and waited and photographed, it occurred to me that it could be interesting to photograph the photographers - so I moved my tripod back a bit and went at it.



Photographers, Zabriskie Point. Death Valley National Park, California. April 4, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

This was a almost completely unanticipated idea - like everyone else, I was mainly there to shoot the more typical landscape photographs like this and this. (More here.) While I did end up with some landscape photos that I like - hard to go wrong at dawn at Zabriskie, right? - the people photos ended up being some of my favorites.



Two Photographers, Zabriskie Point. Death Valley National Park, California. April 4, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

By the way, the group in the first photograph included some quite serious photographers, at least one of whom had been photographing the morning scene with a medium format digital camera. One of the things I like about that photo is, having finished their business, these serious photographers took time out for a fairly standard vacation shot. There are other things I like about this photo as well. Although it is difficult to see in this small web version, I love the three fellows' upturned faces illuminated in the early morning light. There is something interesting to me about the three of them crowded together as the female group member takes their photograph. Their are some formal/compositional things about it that I like also. I'll mention one: the arrow shape formed by the light line in the clouds, the striation in the ridge behind them, and the top of the ridge.