Steve Kody's photostream  

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I've been really busy over the past month trying to line up a new job. So, unfortunately, still posting some older shots. This particular view over the Death Valley Badwater Salt Flats was shot just 15 minutes prior to the last shot I posted. It was amazing to see how the sky exploded over the course of just a few minutes. If you're ever at Death Valley be sure to make the drive up here. The Dantes View overlook is very easy to get to and only about 25 miles from the Furnace Creek area (practically right next door in Death Valley terms). The view from up here is one of the most impressive I experienced in the park.

This pano came togethor a bit easier than the last one, but still a bit tricky since I shot each frame at 10mm with the GND attached. Which shot do you prefer? Personally I cant really decide, but I think the colors are almost a little to intense in the later version.

Canon 7D
EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm
0.6sec @f18, ISO 100
Lee 0.9 Soft GND Filter
4 Shot pano stitch using photomerge in CS4

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I shot this pano sequence as I was leaving the park on my last day. I was already late to meet up with my wife in Las Vegas so I was really questioning my decision to drive up here. In the end this ended up being my most dramatic sunset of the trip. So i'm glad I took the extra time.

This was shot from Dantes View an overlook 5,475 feet above the Badwater Salt Flats below. The salt flats themselves are the lowest point in North America at -282 feet. To give you a sense of scale the salt flats below are about 5 miles across at their widest point. On the larger version of this image you can still see tiny people walking around far below.

Death valley was really pretty empty in November, the other photographer at the left of the image and myself were the only people up here to witness this amazing sunset.

This was a hard image to process. Using ND grads on the 10-22 creates some notable vignetting which in turns creates some unsightly banding when processing these images into a pano. Hopefully I did an OK job of fixing that. I also wish the area right around the sun wasn't so blown out.. but there was only so much I could do about that. The pano actually keeps going quite a bit to the right, but I cropped this tighter since panos and Flickr don't seem to work very well together

Canon 7D
EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm
5.0sec @f18, ISO 100
Lee 0.9 Soft GND Filter
4 Shot pano stitch using photomerge in CS4

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Here is another sunrise shot from last month at Mono Lake. It was a very quiet morning and I had the entire South Tufa site all to myself. It was very cold, about 28° F, and the water was perfectly still like glass. Luckily there were just enough high thin clouds to make the sunrise pretty impressive.

The Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve was one of the 70 California State Parks that were to be closed due to budget difficulties. However, I was pleased to find out that the park was recently removed from the closure list. Local outreach and some new parking fees convinced the governor to keep the park open. Water levels continue to slowly rise in the lake as new conservation efforts agreed to in 1994 take effect. The target water level is 8 feet higher than what is shown in the photo. Within a few years most of these particular tufa will once again be under water. Interesting to note is that once the new water level goals are achieved, the lake will still be 25 feet below its historical norms.

Canon 7D
EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm
4.0sec @f11, ISO 100
Lee 0.6 & 0.9 Soft GND Filter
Lens distortion correction in CS4

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A nice quiet shot of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. I drove down here a couple times over the past few weeks hoping to get a dramatic sky. No such luck, oh well.

I love this lighthouse. It is currently in the first stages of a restoration which could take two years or more. I really hope that the restoration is fully funded and successful. For those that don't know, the giant 1000 watt fresnel lens which was installed in 1872 has been removed from the tower. The 12 foot high lens is now on display in the adjacent museum. Unfortunately, because of the restoration the annual lighting of the beacon will not be possible for a few years. However, a tiny coast guard beacon still exists and lights up the tower to a much smaller extent every night. Sitting out here after dark watching that tiny light circle the tower gives you a slight sense of the magic that this site holds.

There are quite a few really good compositions that have been done again and again from this site. Hopefully this shot is slightly unique. I focused on highlighting the bright red patch of iceplant as a foreground element. Post work here involved brightening the lighthouse which was getting stomped on by the GND filters and some selective fill light and color adjustments.

I took quite a few good shots here, including some nice long exposure shots after dark. It was a real challenge deciding which one to post. In the end I asked my wife and she chose this one... take that creative process!

Canon 7D
EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm
15 sec @f11, ISO 100
Lee 0.6 Hard and 0.6 Soft GND Filters

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Taken on my first trip into Death Valley. These two rocks seemed like they were in something of a competition. They had roughly parallel tracks stretching thirty meters or more. Despite something of a size disadvantage I think the rock on the left won this sprint by a just a bit. I'd like to think they will take off on the next leg of their race when the next big storm hits.

Death Valley was practically empty in mid-November and the Racetrack was even more deserted. I spent an evening, night, and morning out here and saw only three other people. I have to say this is one of the most amazing places I've ever been. The feeling of quiet isolation was powerful. Walking all over the playa and checking out these rocks was really an amazing experience. I'm sure I'll be back to Death Valley again. I'm hooked.

As a photograph I guess I'd say I liked this composition better on the Camera. It seems a bit forced here on my computer. I contemplated cropping out the right rock entirely, but in the end decided to leave it since this was more my original intent. Plus, most photos I've noticed feature a single rock and track so I guess this is a little different in that regard.

Canon 7D
EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm
15 sec @f10, ISO 100
Lee 0.9 & 0.6 Soft GND Filters
Cropped to cull a lot of the sky (not much going on up there)