Salt Flats at Death Valley

Click the pic for a bigger view

Back in February of this year I had a little road trip with some fellow photographers to visit the Salt Flats at Death Valley. Now granted for most people this doesn’t sound like a place you would want to spend your vacation time at, but for photographers it’s a different story. 

Salt Flats at Death Valley Eerie Landscape

For this image of the Salt Flats I decided to have some fun and give it more of an other worldly feel. Of course given the landscape it doesn’t take much to make that happen. Death Valley had some of the craziest landscape I have ever seen. The only place I can think of that matches it on craziness would be the Salton Sea or the “moving rocks” at the Racetrack in Death Valley.

We hiked out onto the flats before sunset so that we could pick our spots and be ready for the show. Landscape photographers are always hoping for a good sunset to work with on their images. Being on the salt flats didn’t change that one bit. We started capturing images as the sun began to go down with hopes of epic light and clouds in the sky. Mother Nature decided to pull most of the clouds out of sight right as sunset started happening. It was a decent sunset but nothing spectacular.

Being an engineer I couldn’t help but ponder how in the world the hexagon looking shapes appeared in the salts. It just didn’t make sense that those types of patterns would be prevalent. So I turned to Google for a solution. What I found is rather complex regarding what is needed for creation and what is needed to maintain. A couple of sites that explain some of this are from the National Park Service and the Salt Flats wiki.

What I will say is if you ever have the chance to visit (during the winter/spring) do take the opportunity. The various terrain you will encounter will make it worth your while.

Until next time…