Thursday, February 7, 2013

Lone Pine, CA/Cerro Gordo - Death Valley National Park (Part 2)

At the end of November last year (2012), I took a trip to Death Valley National Park. This is the second trip there in my life. The 1st time I went, I was still a little kid, and I didn't start taking photos yet. This time, I have a pro camera and I am ready to shoot the scenery. Death Valley National Park is known for its "out of this world" scenery, UFO sightings, and many other things. The desert is a very mysterious and beautiful place. In this chain of blog posts, I will be showing you mainly photos of Death Valley National Park, but also photos from surrounding areas like The Mojave Desert, Alabama Hills, and Rhyolite Ghost Town. I have picked out over 400 photos from my trip to show you guys and I will be dividing them into many blog posts. Unlike blog  post chains before, I obviously can't put a link of ever blog post on every single blog post, so instead, I will do the same thing I did for my Yellowstone National Park photos before, by sticking a link of the Next and Previous post on each blog post instead.

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best work from Death Valley National Park, use this link. To see all of the photos from my Death Valley National Park trip use this link.

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Message from the Photographer: I didn't find any time to do a blog post yesterday, so here is one today! I hope you enjoy it. Also I have gotten a new Canon GP-E2 GPS receiver for my new Canon EOS 5D Mark III! Obviously you can't see the geotags on my blog, but it will help me give you a better position on some of the photos. 

Continuing from the last blog post, I have photos of my trip into Death Valley National Park from Lone Pine, CA. The first stop I made was the Cerro Gordo ruins (ghost town). I didn't go all the way in because the road was too bumpy for me and it made me sick to my stomach, but I did get some shots of some of the historical remains in the area.

On the way into Death Valley National Park, I saw a wild horse on the side of the road. Since I only had my wide angle lens on, I just shot some wide angle shots with the horse in it. 

The area was so beautiful and quiet. The horse didn't seem to mind me being there. I guess I was pretty far away too. So...




The highway leading to Death Valley National Park. There is just one car approaching. Wasn't too many cars there.  

Panorama of the mountains off in the distance.  




The straight highway leading to Death Valley National Park.  

 Now I arrive at the Cerro Gordo ruins. Here is some remains in the ghost town. 




Photography Tip: When composing your shot, make sure you have something for the person viewing the photo to look at. Don't just do landscape with nothing else. Use rocks or other objects (like the one above of the ghost town remains) to spice up your shot! It will make it look a lot better. Look around and see if you can find objects you can use to lead the viewer into the shot. As for my shot above, after I took the first shot of the remains, I thought to myself, this would make a great foreground for a landscape shot! So I proceeded in doing so. 

Remains of a house? Not sure. Anyways, I didn't go too deep into the ghost town because again, the bumpy dirt road made me car sick so I just went half way in. Most of the ghost town is deeper down the road I think. 

A sign introducing you to Cerro Gordo. Saw it as I was about to leave the ghost town. 

These are all the shots I have for today. Next time, I will have more shots of the desert, some desert plants, and possibly photos from Padre Crowley Point (Father Crowley Point). Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Google+. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

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