From the car, Death Valley is not very scenic: only thing you see are desert scrubs surrounded by bare mountains. But for a person who is willing to spend some time, it can be a very rewarding place to photograph. You can explore sand dunes, salt flats, mountains and narrow canyons. I have been to Death Valley twice: both times during Christmas. Winter is a good time to go : the days are pleasant (60-70F) while the nights can be cold (30s).

A good thing to do before you go to Death Valley is to see what other photographers have done with it. A nice site with photo tips is Phil Kember's web site .

For logistical matters, the best thing to do is to check out the NPS's Death Valley web site. Death Valley is a huge park (bigger than Connecticut) and you need to do a lot of driving to see things. Death Valley itself has moderately priced hotels at Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. Cheaper places can be found at Beatty, Nevada. Camping is a very handy way to stay as long as you are mindful of the cold night temperatures and high winds. The Furnace Creek campground has campsites which are somewhat sheltered by trees. Also it is possible to reserve campsites at Furnace Creek. This campground is close to Badwater and Zabriskie Point. If Furnace Creek is full, you can go to the walk in campground at Stovepipe Wells. The prices are cheaper and the camp sites are ugly as sin: it is no exaggeration to say that the campground is nothing but a big parking lot. At the worst you can always go to Sunset campground which has 1000 sites! Stovepipe Wells is very well situated if you want to photograph the sand dunes, but can be very windy. Showers are available at the Stovepipe Wells motel.

Badwater is famous for being the lowest (-282 ft) and hottest point in the western hemisphere. It is simply a pool of shallow water by the roadside. The area around Badwater is actually an ancient lake bed. The lake has dried out and left a so called playa covered with salt. The classical view of Badwater is with Telescope Peak (11,049ft) in the background. In its infinite kindness, the NPS has not only constructed a boardwalk to protect the terrain around Badwater, but also included a place marked out for photographers to take this picture at sunrise. Last time I was there, there were four other photographer's working the place at sunrise. Near Badwater lies the salt flats which look like something out of a science fiction movie. The salt from the ancient lake covers the ground in layers of white crystals and they crack in hexagonal patterns. Water seeps up along the cracks and the cracks become ridges as the salty water evaporates leaving more salt behind. The Devil's golf course is worth a visit too. Bizarre salt formations rise out of ground here formed by evaporation of ground water. Artist's Palette is a side trip from the Badwater road where you can see hillsides colored red, green and purple by various minerals. I have never seen an interesting picture of it and I came away without making a single exposure.

Zabriskie point is as popular with photographers as Badwater. Best time to photograph it is at sunrise. Although it might be a cliche, there is no reason to miss the sunrise at Zabriskie point which is never disappointing. As you can see, I never rose above the cliche with my camera. It is possible to hike up to Zabriskie point via Golden Canyon from Badwater road. Golden canyon is a yellow mud canyon which explains the name. I would like to explore the badlands around Zabriskie point and Golden canyon at some point of time.

The sand dunes are the reason why I go to Death Valley. The most popular dunes are at Stovepipe Wells which are a mere 1/2 mile away from the road. There are much higher and more isolated dunes at Eureka valley, but they need a 4WD for access. The dunes are best photographed at morning or evening. Evening light has the advantage that you can anticipate the best light, while in the morning by the time you have found the best angle, the best light is already gone. A nuisance with the dunes is the footmarks of people on the sand. To find the most pristine dunes, one needs to go there on a morning after a stiff night windstorm. Most of the people stick close to the highest dunes, so if you go away from them you'll find more unmarked dunes as well. The area covered by the dunes is pretty small (a few square miles), but from the photo above, you might get the impression that they stretch all the way to the horizon. The dunes are always busy with photographers, but they are big enough that you can have a lot of space to yourself.

The dunes have highly organic shapes and as the light changes, they seem to shift shape. I love the abstract compositions that can be made in them.

Mosaic canyon is narrow canyon which at points narrows to less than 6ft across. When it rains in the valley, the water rushes down the mountains because there is no vegetation to slow the flow of water. Mosaic canyon has been cut out by such flash floods out of marble and such metamorphic rocks: hence the name mosaic canyon. The walls are made of pink and orange marble which has been polished to a shine by the action of the water. At other places the rock is coated with bluish desert varnish.

The most significant place in Death Valley I haven't been is the Racetrack. To get to Racetrack, one needs to drive 20 miles one way on a high clearance vehicle road. Not having access to one of those, I have missed out on it.

Dante's view is a high viewpoint (5475 ft) directly looking over Badwater near Coffin peak. The view is grand looking across Badwater to Telescope peak and even Mt. Whitney, but as is usual with distant views, unless the light is right, the distant landscape looks very flat.

Other places that could be of interest are Scotty's castle and the Ubehebe crater. I didn't have much interest in Scotty's castle as a landscape photographer. I saw Ubehebe crater in flat midday light and was not inspired to make a photograph.

Rhyolite ghost town is on the road between Death Valley and Beatty. It is quite interesting with crumbling old buildings ----a good place to contemplate the phrase "sic transit gloria mundi".

Lone Pine provides access to Mt. Whitney (14,500ft), the highest peak in the lower 48 states and the Alabama Hills. Alabama Hills are a maze of eroded brown granite formations which have served as a backdrop for many westerns. The rock formations are quite similar to the formations in Joshua Tree National Park. Mt. Whitney itself is not a spectacular peak from the town of Lone Pine. In fact Lone Pine peak dominates the view from the town. In the picture, which is a telephoto view, the highest peak is Whitney with Keeler and Day needle being the two smaller peaks on the left.

The alpenglow on Mt Whitney at sunrise makes a very pretty picture. Because of the curvature of the Earth, the morning light at sunrise that illuminates Mt Whitney has to travel a very long distance through the atmosphere. In the atmosphere, most of the blue light is scattered away and only the red component of the sunlight survives to illuminate the mountain. This red light is known as Alpenglow.