Nevada

Night Landscape Photography, Dry Lake Valley, NV

D. Craig Young · May 20, 2017 · Leave a Comment

A long reconnaissance beyond Tonopah, NV, traversing south of the Reveille Range and into the playa of southern Railroad Valley. I located good access to the playa of Sand Springs Valley near Rachel and then moved on to Alamo, NV, to check in at a small motel. It’s a small strip motel, family-owned, old and a little sad, but really pretty nice. Right on the noisy highway but room is set back and perfectly quiet. Vern, the owner/manager, said I might be able to park my trailer if we are working nearby, he has one hook-up that sometimes works.

It’s close to the new moon so I headed out to Dry Lake Valley late in the evening. I left the hotel about 9:45PM, fueled up, and pointed the truck down the dark highway. I’m in the area mapping and investigating desert loess (fine-grained dust) deposits and had scouted out a cool spot for astrophotography earlier. I liked the spot because of the prominent outcrops that extend toward the valley floor. These would provide the foreground subjects as I experimented with low-level lighting to illuminate the outcrops, alcoves, and even some ancient rock art panels.

The drive was longer than I remembered, and I overshot my turn with a big-rig bearing down on me. After a quick turn-around, I was there. A perfect, calm evening, finally a warm one. Bats circled around me as I set up some lights. From the rocks above me, in an alcove beyond the rock art, a haunting songbird called in a steady repeat—once every twenty seconds. It’s probably a whippoorwill or something similar.

Dry Lake Valley Night Collection

The small tripod-mounted lights adjust to emit a very low amount of light. While composing the image the light is almost impossible to see, but in a long exposure to capture the night sky, the light works nicely to create foreground interest. I have to take several practice shots to make sure the levels and direction of lighting works. It’s more controlled than light painting and works over relatively long distance. I learned about it on the PhotogAdventures Podcast and thought I’d give it a try. I’m not an expert at this (it’s my first time), but it has definite potential.

**Ancient sky**. Experimenting with lighting and capturing the starry backdrop above Dry Lake Valley rock art panels. 6.8 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400; Canon 6D, Sigma Art 20mm.

**Point of Rocks**. The Milky Way above the boulder outcrops was fun, but I have to seek out some foreground interest to work with these lights (and why did I shoot these at 5.6?!). 19 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400; Canon 6D, Sigma Art 20mm.

My images don’t really pop, but I like the rock art against the starry sky. A long perfect night in the darkness of Dry Lake Valley. Tomorrow will be a long day.

Dry Lake Valley Night Collection

Keep going.

Smoke and Sunset: Grass Valley, NV

D. Craig Young · May 15, 2017 ·

I’m back in Grass Valley, NV, working with a team of archaeologists and mapping the landforms along the valley margins. I left home this morning and I always enjoy traveling Highway 50, cutting across the middle of Nevada. The highways moniker as “The Loneliest Road” has lost its romance as daily traffic increases. I do remember driving east of Fallon and not seeing other travelers until approaching Austin or Eureka. But that was over a decade ago. It isn’t a busy highway, but it isn’t lonely.

I’m pulling the camp trailer and that unfortunately cuts into the gas mileage. I can’t make it from Gardnerville to Austin – probably could just manage it, but it would be tight – so I fuel in Fallon and top-off in Austin. I also have 40-gallon reserve tank. This will allow me plenty of fuel for several days of backcountry travel in Grass Valley.

Smoke and Sunset Collection

As I work my way north into the valley, I find the archaeologists surveying along Callaghan Creek. After checking in with the team, I set camp near the corrals at the Gund Ranch. I talk to the ranch manager to make sure my camp is out of the way. Out to work for the afternoon, ground-truthing my landform maps and age relationships I’d worked on over the past few months. In the evening I visited with the crew for a while and then headed into the evening light for some photography. I had often driven by a set of corrals a few miles south of the ranch and I thought it would be interesting in the developing sky. I wanted to experiment with foreground elements, here that included clusters of Great Basin Wild Rye and a piece of sprinkler equipment. Right off, I was greeted by a cloud of happy mosquitos.

**Rye returns**. I like the sense of scale in this image, but the foreground composition suffered from a lack of attention on my part. Neither the wild rye nor the sprinkler tell the story I’d hoped. 1/6 sec, f/14, ISO 100; Canon 6D, 17-40mm (17mm).

I’m not real happy with the image. I waited for the light but my patience, and the mosquitos, limited my attention span. I think the pasture, grass, and sprinklers would work if I took more time. Lesson learned.

Although I may have left the pasture too early, it gave me the opportunity to watch the sunset develop right in front of me. A cluster of wildfires in western Nevada provided the scene for a wonderful sunset over the playa of pluvial Lake Gilbert. The sky highlighted a shallow playa pool far across the valley, detailing the shadows of the northern Toiyabe Range. This remains one of my personal favorites, a significant image in my portfolio from early in my practice. Sometimes the space just gives it to you.

**Playa fade, Great Basin, Nevada**. One of my favorite images. It is easy to have patience sitting on the tailgate at camp.

I stayed up too late with the crew last night, and my alarm at 4AM surprised me. The sky looked promising, however, and I knew I needed to get to the southern playa to hopefully capture some dune pedestals in the morning light.

I need to remember to prep gear in the evening, or otherwise keep it prepped for mobility rather than simply tossing the pack back into the truck after finishing the night before. I walked the playa where the late spring pool curves between a few dune pedestals. The scene is nice in the full moon and the dawn glow is pretty good, but the clouds aren’t doing much this morning. I worked on some video and timelapse, with some intent on vlogging about the playa and its interest to Paleoindian archaeologists, but this needs practice. For another day.

**Receding dawn**. The playa pool is almost as ephemeral as the colors of sunrise. 1/15 sec, f/8, ISO 100; Canon 6D, Sigma Art 20mm.

Smoke and Sunset Collection

**Trying to be tall**. This small greasewood casting a grand shadow caught my attention. 1/125 sec, f/11, ISO 100; Canon 80D, 18-135mm.

Keep going.

A Photo and Geo Recon, Grass Valley, NV

D. Craig Young · April 22, 2017 · Leave a Comment

**Bob Scott lenticulars**. Sunset on weak lenticulars rolling over the northern Toiyabe, cold night ahead at Bob Scott Campground. 1/100, f9, ISO 200

It seems months since I managed to sync into my calendar and set out on a Basins recon. I’m rather compulsive about keeping a calendar, hoping to establish and maintain discipline across work, exploration, and arts I pursue and enjoy. I’m not typically successful, however, at keeping to my calendar. We all know how things creep or crash in to capture our attention. Local photography excursions have been limited to about once a month, and my goal of incorporating practiced photography into my geographical research needs similar attention. I have an on-going project in Grass Valley, Nevada, so I’m feeling good that I could get on the road today, on schedule, and into the Basin. Of course, a potent spring storm arrived overnight, and the rain was steady as I left for the office, camp trailer in tow. The storm cleared during the day, but a gusty wind remained, not letting up as forecast. I was able to leave the office a little after 2PM and pushed by a tailwind, I jumped on Highway 50 eastbound for central Nevada.

Grass Valley Recon Collection

It was something of a challenging drive as what started as a helping wind shifted to crosswinds and the occasional stiff headwind. The truck powered onward without difficulty, but I watched the gauge shrink quickly as gas mileage dropped into single digits between Fallon and Austin. But it’s not really the driving with the trailer that is difficult. It’s the stopping. As the remaining storm squalls played the sky along the mountains, I find it difficult to be spontaneous. I can’t simply pull off the highway or drop onto a backroad; it’s the primary drawback of towing the trailer. It’s a problem whether I’m gouging around on a landform recon or trying to capture images of a developing scenes when the highway just isn’t the foreground I’m looking for! I’ve ignored this problem, however, by focusing on the benefit of having the trailer as basecamp. Planning camps as hubs from which I can traverse a region with relative freedom—carrying my camp in a camper shell or roof-type tent seems like a greater burden, though I certainly don’t mind an outback tent camp when an excursion calls for it. With the trailer, the drive will sometimes force me to miss the occasional stop, but I try to note things I’m passing in hopes of planning a future, focused trip.

**Cloud play**. Light plays in the clouds of a fading storm over Bob Scott Summit. 1/1000, f5, ISO 200.

The temperature is forecast to drop to 18°F (-8°C) tonight and that means the storm has passed and the sky is clearing. I’m out to continue reconnaissance and investigations in Grass Valley. As a member of a multi-disciplinary team studying the archaeology and human ecology of early people in the central Great Basin, my task is to identify landforms where early archaeology might be preserved and document changes in the landscape and environmental conditions that may have influenced patterning in the archaeological record. I work closely with archaeologists interested in behavioral ecology and culture history and collaborate with them as we design research strategies, field surveys, and archaeological excavations. This work allows me to get deep into the Great Basin, where I can get a feel for the landforms and processes that relate to the discovery and study of the past environments, paleo-landscapes, and the archaeological record. Becoming a better documentary and landscape photography is part of this geographic journey. It’s all the same, really.

Here are a few images from the three-day field reconnaissance to Grass Valley.

**Standing stone**. Weathered plutonic rocks of Grass Valley, NV. 1/200, f8, ISO 100.

**Rooted stone**. This reminded me of the power of trees, rooted in a forest. I wandered among this odd outcrop of plutonic, granitic rocks, shooting hand-held. 1/400, f8, ISO 100.

**Strat texture**. 1/60, f8, ISO 125 (Powershot 110s capturing RAW).

Climbing a small hill for an overlook of the former lake basin, I came across a small outcrop. At its summit I captured images of ancient limestone seabed with my point-and-shoot. The Canon Powershot 110 remains my primary photo-documentation camera. It works relatively well compared to many of the point-and-shoot cameras I’ve used in the past. I’m often surprised I can’t tell much difference when reviewing the images on screen, but I’m starting to re-think my field process. I do see the benefits of the 80D for controlling depth-of-field and taking advantage of the clarity across wider and longer focal lengths. Does the portability of the 110 outweigh (inverse pun intended) the advantages of the DSLR? In the near future I’ll be re-thinking my approach to differentiating my field research documentation from my landscape photography. Or maybe I should consider it one in the same?

OK, now this is fun. My hike attracted the attention of a small group of pronghorn antelope. I approached them slowly as the walked toward a vantage point where they could keep an eye on the lone figure (me) in the sage. I haven’t had a long lens all that long but I knew this is the use-case that I had in mind. I made a mistake with the wide-open f-stop (f4), realizing that at full 200mm images are going to be soft (a bit out-of-focus). But this is still one of my favorite images. The pronghorn peer in all directions, with the big buck marking me closely. The scudding clouds, compressed as a background, make the photo work. I’ll hopefully remain a bit calmer next time, so I can get the settings correct.

**Simpson Park sno**w. 1/2500, f4, ISO 100.

Yesterday’s snow drapes the Simpson Park Mountains above Grass Valley. The leading line of the two-track trail, leading over grassy beach berms of pluvial Lake Gilbert, drew my attention to this composition. The compression evident in the 70-200mm lens emphasizes the snow-covered mountain slopes rising above the valley.

Grass Valley Recon Collection

**Lucky weld**. Something completely different, for good luck. 1/50, f8, ISO 100.

**Callaghan gold**. Mt. Callaghan, northern Toiyabe Range. The haze of a dusty sky made the foreground slopes glow in the late afternoon sun and I enjoyed the pattern of snow in the gullies and alcoves off the summit. 1/50, f14, ISO 100,

Keep going.