When I first heard about the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, I couldn’t believe how close it was to the sin city. By the time we had visited Vegas a couple of times, I had made a note to sneak away the next time we were there. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Unforeseen events like hangovers and headaches always seem to interfere with the planned visit to the valley of fire SP. Finally, in the winter of 2018, we decided to make a trip just to the park without stopping at Vegas. It worked, and we finally managed to visit the park.
I am all for researching about the location before you actually visit the place. Still, one challenge with so much planning is that your brain starts to associate the images you see online with the landmarks, and when you get to the location, there is this incredible urge to recreate the photographs you saw online. Often conditions won’t be the same, which will frustrate you and block you from engaging with the area creatively. I have to say I fell into this trap at Valley of Fire. I had seen so many images of the fire wave location online that I was hell-bent on getting a composition I frequently had seen online when I was there. Now this image works when the sky has some clouds, but that was not the case that day, and I, for some reason, was very stubborn about getting the image. Only after coming home, I realized the mistake I made. I had very few pictures at the fire wave location, and most of them didn’t really work. I hope I get another crack at photographing this beautiful landmark at Valley of Fire.