Some Like It Hot

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IMG_3554Canon EOS 6D (200mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec, ISO100)

Some like it hot. Like those campers who chose to stay right in the middle of Death Valley. Maybe they are photographers who want to catch the desert in early morning light. Or maybe they just like it hot.

But my main subject was the raven. He wasn’t shy but curious. And it seems that he was suffering because of the heat. Desert wildlife! Like the coyote in the next picture. The image is cropped and the coyote is still nothing but a small dot in the frame. I saw him coming but till I realized that it’s a coyote and till I stopped the car he has already passed the car.

At such a moment a 24-70 lens is not what you want to have on your camera. I took a shot knowing that it is more like a landscape shot but I still like it. The animal is so small compared to the road and the landscape.

IMG_3542Canon EOS 6D (70mm, f/4, 1/1000 sec, ISO100)
 IMG_3563Canon EOS 6D (70mm, f/4, 1/1600 sec, ISO100)
 IMG_3571Canon EOS 6D (70mm, f/4, 1/800 sec, ISO100)

In this landscape I feel small too. Small and vulnerable. And I’m driving in a big, fat SUV with air-condition mobile phone and a trunk full of water bottles. It’s hard to imagine how the first settlers felt when they came here. But that’s how this place got it’s name.

IMG_3585Canon EOS 6D (33mm, f/11, 1/320 sec, ISO100)
 IMG_3598Canon EOS 6D (70mm, f/10, 1/500 sec, ISO100)

Zabriskie point is clearly the highlight of death valley. What a landscape! Normally there are hundreds of people. Lot’s of cars and buses at the parking lot. This time was different. When we arrived we were the only visitors. Then my wife went back to the car to get some shadow and I was there alone. First I took some pictures but then I just stood there and looked around. I felt like the last man on earth.

IMG_3673Canon EOS 6D (70mm, f/4, 1/2000 sec, ISO100)
 IMG_3675Canon EOS 6D (26mm, f/11, 1/500 sec, ISO100)

After Zabriskie point we had lunch at the Furnace Creek Ranch like we did when we came here three years ago. We like to revisit places but here the options are limited anyway. Then we went to see the Badwater Basin. It’s 85,5 meters below sea level. One of the deepest points on earth. You see some basins and a salt flat but unlike Zabriskie point this place is nothing special. Hundreds of tourist in buses but not much else. No bar, pub or anything. Just some toilets for the tourists. I think next time we will take the shorter route out of the park like we did last time.

We still have some driving to do today because we decided to go straight to Las Vegas. Great hotels at very low rates. This time it’s the Caesars palace.

While I writing that I’m sitting on my porch with the laptop on my lap ( that’s where the name comes from I guess ). It’s 9pm and it has about 28 degrees Celsius. Today the maximum temperature was 38 degrees! After one of the longest and coldest winter and a very wet and cold May ( luckily we were in California most of the time ) we are now in one of the longest and driest heat waves ever. It is unbearable hot and there is no rain. Some love it. Some like it hot – but I don’t.

IMG_3689Canon EOS 6D (105mm, f/2.8, 1/4000 sec, ISO100)