Death Valley is the lowest place in the lower 48 states. It also has mountain ranges of over 12,000 feet that border the valley itself. Temperatures are usually 30 degrees higher on the valley floor than at most elevations. It is an understatement to say that this is a landscape of extremes!

The shoulder seasons are usually best both photography and for comfort, however every season has something to offer. In the spring wildflowers in years when rainfall is present are a sensation on the valley floor and snowfall at the higher elevations in winter bring photo opportunities. Fall has passing storms and summer registers the hottest temperatures on the globe!

In today’s featured image from Aguereberry point the last embers of the harsh light of day bleed color and a warm glow to an otherwise ordinary day in this vast landscape. In order to elongate the horizon and exaggerate the unique shapes and forms of the rock I used a Canon 17 mm Tilt/Shift lens. This allowed the huge amount of sky but also corrected the barrel distortion that a normal lens taken off axis would have produced. At f/8 the shutter speed was fairly quick to begin with but yet I still felt the need to push the ISO to 400 in a stiff wind to insure that I would have a sharp image.