Valley of Fire State Park

1 hour from the Las Vegas strip... well worth the trip. Go north on I15 and follow the road signs.

• Khalil Gibran.

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It was at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada that my wife and I first started looking for slot canyons to explore. On our first visit to Death Valley, I saw some pamphlets about exploring slot canyons within the park, but I was too scared to try exploring these wild places just by ourselves. Deserts were unfamiliar to me, and I was not taking any chances. Over the years, I have been to some of the more popular slot canyons and gotten more comfortable with the desert landscape.

While at Valley of Fire, I felt that the canyons, smaller and shorter than Antelope canyon, had a much more sophisticated color palette. Many pastel colors are mixed in with desert reds typical to the area. Also, the general landscape is not as daunting as some of the other desert parks in the southwest. So we started looking for them and found quite a few to photograph. So easily accessible and some not so easy. I cant wait to head back to death Valley and explore some of the beautiful canyon hikes that I drove past the last time I was there.

• Diane Arbus.

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Keeping on with the desert photography theme, I wanted to talk about another essential element of desert photography, light. Quality of light is a vital element for any type of photography, but in my experience, deserts will expose bad techniques more than any other environment. Chasing good light in a desert environment helps immensely with the heat as well. We often wake up well before sunrise for the hikes. The temperature is one the cooler side, and most often than not, there are very few people around. We usually go back straight to bed and wake up in the afternoon to be ready for sunset.

Then comes the light, hands down the best part of being in a desert is the beautiful morning light. It truly transforms the place. As I spend more time photographing deserts, I have come to appreciate the light before the actual sunrise. It’s beautiful, evenly lit with warm tones. Suddenly, details start to emerge even in the mundane looking elements.

I took this shot at the Valley of Fire SP while on the hike to the fire wave. The day ended up being harsh and hot, but the early morning hike well before sunrise was delightful. On the way to fire wave, I noticed this beautiful pattern on a nearby slick rock. I was in a hurry to get to the main attraction of the hike, so I didn’t have a lot of time to think of a good composition here. I still like this image a lot, while it was not the best from the hike, I think it’s a great example of how good light can make a difference.

• George R.R. Martin.

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In an earlier post, I mentioned learning about how to best use the beautiful light of the golden hour to my advantage. Another thing I have been focused on lately is finding the texture in landscape scenes. The grand open vistas that will blow everyone away is not easy to come by, but you often can find amazing texture everywhere you look. My two most favorite locations for finding vistas has been the desert and the rainforest. Both are often filled with amazing elements that filled with details that are easily glossed over.

This shot was taken at the valley of fire state park near Las Vegas. We were on of the many hiking trails that are available at the park when the golden hour started. Unfortunately, we were inside a canyon when the light was at its best and usually this is the time I start to panic and run to find some vista point. But this time instead of manically running around the desert, I tried to look for more intimate details of the canyon. We managed to come up with some interesting shots from this exercise and for this one, I managed a bit of the golden light as well.

– Ernest Hemingway

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Another shot from the beautiful Valley of Fire State Park near Las Vegas, NV. This location is known as the fire wave and the park authorities have created a wonderful trail here connecting other attractions nearby called the 7 wonders trail. The star attractions on this particular trail are the fire wave rock formation and the pastel slot canyon, both are only a few feet apart and if you are not up to a long hike can be reached from the park road in less than 200 ft of walking. When you to take the effort to reward ratio I think these two spots are pretty high up.

I took this shot just before sunrise, the air was crisp with the winter chill creeping into the desert. I wanted this shot to showcase the details on these wonderful rock formations and the little plant that is growing on one of the crevices in the Slickrock. The sky was blue and cloudless and the time of the day meant we had even lighting throughout the scene. I didn’t use any filters just a straight forward composition in Aperture priority.

This was the first time I visited Valley of Fire SP and had little idea what to expect. In the late afternoon all the pastel shades looked wonderful under the low December sun. I probably need to return here and find some more detailed spots for golden hour photography. This is the view called Rainbow Vista.

• Donald Cargill.

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I was fascinated to see the desert when I moved to the west coast. I remember being giddy during our first trip to the Joshua Tree national park, I totally nerded out and bored my wife to tears explaining the difference between the Sonoran vs the Mojave Desert ecosystems. It was love at first sight for me with the desert, especially with the stunning sunsets and bright hues of amazing red deserts of the American southwest.

Since we live in Los Angeles, it’s just a matter of time before we started to do Las Vegas trips and I have been hearing so much about the Valley of Fire state park that is just a short drive from The Strip. So when we got an opportunity we made a trip to Vegas without visiting the strip. I took this shot while on the trail coming back from the Fire Wave. I love shooting the desert tones during golden hour using just the warm tones in the rock and sand to bring out the vividness of the subject.

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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One of the star attractions of the valley of fire state park was the Fire Wave rock formations. The location can be reached after a short hike of about a mile from the trailhead. We wanted to get there during sunrise to take advantage of the golden light. Unfortunately, there were not any clouds in the sky, but the brilliant blue of the sky contrasted very well with the striking red of the rock formations.

I took this shot was taken just as the sun rose above the horizon and lit the distant rock formations. The light difference in the scene was a bit too much for the ND grads that I had in my bag. I was clipping the highlights in the bright areas even after using a 3 stop ND grad and after metering at the brightest spot in the image. This is one of the troubles with winter, while the sunrises and sunsets happen at reasonable hours, even the first rays of the sun will be brighter and quicker to dissipate than other seasons.

– Celia Thaxter.

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Finally, wilth all the holiday stuff out of the way, I got a chance to work on the rest of the photos from our trip to Valley of Fire state park. This shot was taken at sunrise during the fire wave hike. We were coming back from the fire wave and I had marked these rock outcrop while we were initially on the trail for an after sunrise shot. So, after the twilight and sunrise we hightailed it back to this spot to get the golden light on the rock. I thought the pink gyration on the pink rock in the foreground worked really well with positioning of the rock and beautiful light.

As for gear set up, I used my histogram to expose the image properly with the help of a two stop ND grad filter. My thought for the framing was to use the patterns in the pink rock to use as aleading light o guide the viewers eye to the brightest part of the image. This was one of most prettiest and colorful desert landscapes I have ever seen and we had a great time enjoying it in all its solitude.

• Vincent Van Gogh.

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I have had never heard about a slot canyon before I moved to California. I have been to what they call a glen many times, especially the Watkins Glen as well as many less famous ones in my home state in India. As soon as we moved to LA, I started planning for a Grand Canyon trip and guess which image popped up immediately, A stunning shot of Antelope Canyon in Page, AZ. Some of the pics I took there during my three trips there have been some of the most famous pictures in my portfolio.

But while visiting antelope canyon initially just resulted in me adding about 50 odd images of one of the well-documented locations on the planet, it also triggered a fascination for slot canyons. Since then my wife and I would always look for slot canyons whenever we visit a new location. So, when we planned our trip to the Valley of Fire State Park near Las Vegas Nevada, we were pretty stocked to visit pastel/pink canyon.

I was expecting a faded red color canyon because of the name and the color of the Navajo sandstones that dominate the park landscape but what we saw during our walk through the short canyon was a display of every shade of the pastel pink color in the universe. It’s almost as if the water is an artist and here it did a demo in pastel pink to show off. One of the most stunning slot canyons we have visited so far.

• Ernest Hemingway.

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Another shot from the beautiful pastel slot canyon at the Valley of Fire state park in Nevada. I saw very little info about this small slot canyon or the trail that leads up to it while planning the trip. When we got there, I learned from the park rangers that there is a new trail called the 7 wonders trail that connects this trail with the fire wave trail and make it a loop trail. We didn’t have enough time to do the whole trail so after taking the trail to the fire wave we got back to the car park and drove to the small lot next to a wash that allows you to quickly venture to the beautiful slot canyon.

As you walk by the canyon towards the end of it there was this area where the sandy canyon floor gave to rocky floor. The patterns in the rock here more and more resembled the shape of water. This area had towering rock formations above the slot canyon so light coming in was much dimmer. For this shot, I set the camera as low as I could on the rocky floor and exposed for the small shaft of light that was falling on the canyon walls at the back of the frame. I focused on the spot about a 3rd into the scene as that provides a greater depth of field. I loved how the colors and the tones in the image came out. This little slot canyon is just magic.

• Carol Burnett.

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Initially, when I started to take photographs, I often used to try and boost the colors and contrast in my images. Then we went to the American southwest and we saw landscapes so colorful that I sometimes had to scale back on the vividness of the images. The Valley of Fire state park is one such location, especially during the golden hour.

I took this shot while we were coming back from a hike to the fire wave rock formation. The fire wave was a bit of a bust as it remained in the shadows, but the warm morning light was perfectly lighting up the shark fin rock formation. So, we hightailed it back to this spot which had a nice view of the shark fin rock formation and a boulder to be served as a fantastic foreground anchor. The warmth of the red rocks in golden light contrasting with the cold blue of the desert sky provided an unbelievably color-rich scene.

• Sitting Bull.

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When we decided to make a trip to the beautiful Valley of Fire state park in Nevada one of the major attractions was to do the fire wave trail and see the mini-wave rock formation. But the problem with such popular attractions is that its difficult to find unique compositions. If nature cooperates and provides some drama, then it’s a lot easier but if that’s not the case then creating a standout photo becomes challenging.

On this particular day we had a perfectly clear sky, so no luck on the dramatic sky front, and this area being rock formations and slot canyon the light direction was hard to predict. One trick that I have learned from all my travels is you cannot really depend on nature to cooperate and always to have a backup plan if the shot you had in mind didn’t work out. I noticed this rock formation while we were hiking to the fire wave and a quick check on photopills told me that this rock formation was perfectly positioned to get lit up with the first rays of the day. The only concern was the horizon which was spiked with large rocks that could delay the light from falling on it at sunrise. This delay, even if it's for a few seconds, really determines the tones of the light on the rock. As the sunlight loses its warmth a few seconds into the sunrise. Luckily the large rocks on the horizon didn’t block any sunlight that was falling on the rock and I had enough tie to compose and shoot this scene through wave rocks. I tried to use the sandy floor as a leading line and the rock bathed in warm golden light as the subject. Later I cropped to a 16:9 aspect ration in post, which is fast becoming my favorite aspect ratio for landscape shots.

• Pablo Picasso.

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Another shot from the beautiful Valley of Fire state park near Las Vegas, Nevada. The subject is the three cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Now the park identifies the area as a picnic spot, but originally built in 1930 as lodging for travelers who were visiting the beautiful park.

I struggled a little bit with this subject; due to the massive rock formation behind the cabins and their tucked-in architecture style, it's hard to isolate them from the background. By design, they were built to blend into the landscape, and the builders used locally sourced stones and wood for construction, making them difficult to photograph. I experimented with depth of field and angle of view in a photo I posted earlier to make the subject visually impactful. For this shot, I want to stress how well these buildings blend into their surroundings, which I believe should be a general objective for any construction on public land.