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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Alabama Hills/Lone Pine, CA - Death Valley National Park (Part 1)

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: Again, like I said yesterday, busy week, but lucky for me today, professor canceled the class, so I have some time to do a blog post in case I don't have time later in the week. Also, I looked and see I have over 400 photos from Death Valley National Park! This will take quite a while to show you guys, so I have decided I might increase the frequency of my posts to once daily. Not too sure about it, but I may do so. This is pretty much all the announcements I have for you guys, I hope you enjoy the blog post.

For the 1st night, I spent my night in Lone Pine. In the morning I took a trip to Alabama Hills nearby. Many movies scenes were shot in Alabama Hills including Star Trek. After I took some photos there, and drove back for a bathroom break, I headed into Death Valley National Park. These are all the photos for today, some shot in Alabama Hills, and some shots of my trip into Death Valley National Park.

Panorama in Alabama Hills.  

Anyways, I do have a warning that some of the photos may look a bit under or overexposed. So a few days before I went to Death Valley National Park, I was shooting wildlife photos and I forgot and left my camera's metering mode in "Center Weighed Average" and forgot to turn it back. So about half of the photos I took on my vacation was badly exposed. :/ Really sucked. HAHA This is why I always take my photos in RAW. There is more work room later so I can partially correct for my mistake. So that is why some of these photos looks a bit dark. Also another thing. So G+ (the service I am using to host my photos) does not allow big photo uploads. It told me my panoramas were too big for upload, so I had to spend some time sizing them down. Took me a while, but I managed to do it in time and still have time to do a blog post.

 Another shot of Alabama Hills. If it wasn't for my car there, I guess you can say this looks like another planet. I guess this is why this place has been chosen for so many movies.

I loved the place. It was beautiful, I would have stayed and took more photos, but I had to go take a bathroom break and I got up pretty late that day. HAHA  

HDR of the rock formations there.  

 Another HDR composition of the rocks and mountains in the distance.

2 photo panorama. 

Another panorama and the last photo before I left Alabama Hills.  

Afterwards, I started driving toward Death Valley National Park. Since the area doesn't have much traffic, I decided to get a shot of the straight highway. Really beautiful. 

Another shot of the highway. It felt great cruising down this straight highway, never have these in the SF Bay Area. 

This is all the photos I have for today. Next time, I will have more photos from my trip into Death Valley National Park, and also some photos of the Cerro Gordo Ruins (ghost town). 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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