Patricia Caulfield

 

 

 

I recently learned of the death of photographer and editor Patricia Caulfield last September. (I'm surprised I missed it at the time.) Many people know her as the photographer who successfully sued Andy Warhol for copyright infringement. But I remember her for a much more personal connection. Though I never met her, Caulfield’s work had a powerful influence on me, making me think about photography in new ways.

 

 

 

Before her book on the Everglades was published in 1970, the photographers I was most familiar with - people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston - were westerners, and their work reflected the western esthetic of heroic landscapes and strong contrast, as well as the commitment to maximum sharpness and depth-of-field they shared with other members of Group f/64. Caulfield’s work was different, and not just because it was in color. There was a sense of mystery in her photos that was no less awe-inspiring than that of Adams, Weston, et al. She photographed in every kind of light, day and night. She used sharpness and depth-of-field in creative ways, and was not afraid of motion blur, underexposure, or grain when it suited her purpose. (Given the iffy quality of color film in the sixties, grain wasn’t always a choice, but she made it work to her advantage.)

Was this a gender-based difference? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe maybe. Group f/64 exhibitions included at least four women - Imogen Cunningham, Sonya Noskowiak, Alma Lavenson, and Consuelo Kanaga - all of whom shared a similar esthetic to the men in the group. Since then I’ve seen so much variety in photographic styles that I don’t think it’s possible to generalize about male or female photographers. (A photo editor once described my photos as “very feminine.” I took it as a compliment, but again I don’t think the description is really valid. Better to say my work is compassionate, empathetic, or personal, emotions that both men and women are capable of expressing in their art and in their lives.)

 

 

The subject matter of that book also inspired me. The Everglades are a habitat unlike any that we have in the west, and the fact that this tropical wilderness existed in the United States was a revelation to me. (I had actually visited Florida in the summer of 1970 but didn’t get a chance to see the “real” Everglades.) It made me want to travel, to see as many diverse habitats as I could.

Patricia Caulfield’s work made me think much more seriously about my photography and helped me develop my own visual style. I will always be grateful for her influence.

 

 

 

The tailless tanager

In Tandayapa Valley, Ecuador, in 2013 we saw a lemon-rumped tanager that was missing all of its tail feathers. We wondered how a bird could survive with no tail - could it really fly well enough to escape predators?

Last month I was back in Tandayapa and the tailless tanager was still there, apparently doing just fine.

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Will the tailless tanager still be there in 2015? Join me in Ecuador and find out for yourself!

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Splish, splash ...

Glossy flowerpiercer

Beside a trail at Yanacocha Reserve, on the slopes of the Pichincha volcano northwest of Quito, was a little pool of water, no more than a foot wide and a couple inches deep. It didn't look like much, but it was pretty popular with the local birds. I sat for a while, and within a few minutes a glossy flowerpiercer approached the pool, waded in, and had a bath.

Half an hour later, a masked flowerpiercer did the same.

Masked flowerpiercer

Over the next hour or so, two species of hummingbirds and an antpitta dropped by as well. The hummingbirds jumped right in, but the antpitta was apparently a little more shy about bathing in public.

Rainbow-bearded thornbill

Tyrian metal-tail

Rufous antpitta

A brand-new species, sort of ...

When you hear about a newly-discovered animal species, it might conjure up images of an intrepid 19th-century British explorer, dressed in a tweed suit and a pith helmet, hacking through the jungle with a small team of porters, going for weeks or months without contact with "civilization."

But these days, new species are more likely to be discovered in a DNA lab than an uncharted wilderness. That was the case in August 2013, when zoologists announced the discovery of the olinguito, Bassaricyon neblina, a solitary, nocturnal member of the raccoon family that lives in the cloud forests of Ecuador and Colombia. Olinguitos are not really new, of course – and in fact they have been observed, captured, and even exhibited in zoos. But they were always thought to be olingos, a slightly larger and lighter-colored animal that lives in similar, although lower-elevation, habitats.

In one notable case, an adult female named Ringerl was transferred to zoos in at least five U.S. cities in repeated attempts to get her to breed with a male olingo. She wasn't just waiting for Mr. Right – she was waiting for the right species.

Then one day Kristofer Helgen, curator of mammals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, was looking at some olingo skins and skulls at the Field Museum in Chicago, and found a few that just didn't seem to match the others. A thorough DNA analysis confirmed that he had, in fact, found a new species.

The olinguito's announcement came as I was preparing for a trip to the cloud forest myself, so naturally I hoped for the chance to photograph one – and in fact I did get that chance, one night in Tandayapa Valley, Ecuador.

Join me in Ecuador for a chance to see an olinguito yourself!

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El condor pasa

Four photographers are aiming our long lenses at a carunculated caracara, one of the signature birds of the treeless Andean paramo. It's a big raptor, about the size of the red-tailed hawks that we know from California. As we approach, we're surprised to learn that, rather than hunting from the air, it spends much of its time scratching in the dirt like a chicken, looking for worms, insects, lizards, and other small prey.

Suddenly we hear Jorge Cruz, our host and guide, shouting, "Condor! Condor! Condor!"

Four lenses swing around in unison. Shutters click furiously as the world's largest flying bird approaches, apparently curious about the latest visitors to its territory. The giant vulture soars over our heads, turns, and in less than a minute disappears over the horizon. I guess we weren't as interesting to the bird as it was to us.

Condors are vultures, and we've all seen plenty of vultures of various species. So you might think that seeing a condor would be much like seeing any other vulture. You might think that, but only until you actually see one. However you think about them – biologically, culturally, spiritually – condors are different.

The condor has been a part of indigenous Andean art and mythology for thousands of years, and is considered to be the ruler of the physical world. (The word condor is derived from the Quechua kuntur.) In modern times, every country the condor inhabits has adopted it as a national symbol, representing strength and power.

Physically, condors have an ancient, dinosaur-like appearance, which is only exaggerated by their huge size and the vastness of their mountain habitat. Watching a condor, it's easy to step back in time and imagine it competing with saber-toothed cats for the remains of a giant sloth. Condors soar with no apparent effort, their ten-foot wingspan carrying them up to 120 miles in a day as they search for food.

After our spiritual experience, we complain about the flat light, the featureless gray sky, and the difficulty of finding the proper exposure for the underside of a black bird. We're photographers, after all. But later, over a dinner of fresh trout, local potatoes, and beans that were picked that morning on the slopes of Mount Antisana, we all agree that photographing an Andean condor was one of the highlights of our time in Ecuador.


Join me in Ecuador for a chance to photograph a condor yourself!

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The bird whisperer

In the pre-dawn darkness, Angel Paz leads our group down a steep, muddy path into the Ecuadorian rainforest. At the end of the trail, we plant our tripods behind a simple blind made of branches and point our lenses at ... well, not much. We can barely make out the shapes of trees in the fog. So we wait in silence.

Before the first hint of daylight penetrates the forest, we hear them. It's a raucous, guttural sound that reminds me a little of scarlet macaws. After a few minutes we begin to see movement. Something's there, we just can't see what it is. So far it's mostly just swaying branches and occasional falling leaves. As more birds arrive, the noise level escalates, with grunts, squawks, and squeals that sound like nothing I've ever heard. My field guide to the birds of Ecuador says it sounds like pigs, and I guess that's as good a description as any.

Andean cock-of-the-rock

With a little more light we can see flashes of white, black, and scarlet as the males fly from tree to tree, shaking branches and calling out to one another. They're competing for the best spot to show off for the females, who wisely stay out of sight. For a photographer it's frustrating, as the birds always seem to be partially or completely hidden by leaves. Finally a male lands on a branch with an unobstructed view. It's not an ideal shot, but with these birds and in this light, it's the best we're going to get. By sunrise, the birds have finished their display and disappeared into the forest.

The area we're watching is called a lek - a place where birds congregate during mating season. The bird we've come to see is the Andean cock-of-the-rock, one of the most difficult birds to photograph that I've encountered.

Angel Paz and friend

Brothers Angel and Rodrigo Paz make their living as bird guides, and they're remarkably good at it. Together they own and manage Refugio Paz de las Aves, 300 or so acres of protected habitat on the western slopes of the Andes. In recent years their refuge has become a favorite of serious birders from around the world, thanks to their ability to locate hard-to-find species using a combination of calls, feeders, and extensive knowledge of bird behavior.

After leaving the lek, we followed Angel on other paths into the forest, where our subjects included wood quail, fruit-eaters, guans, barbets, tanagers, and three species of antpittas – two of them on IUCN's Red List of threatened and endangered species.

Ochre-breasted antpitta

One of the more memorable events came near the end of our visit. A small group, some with cameras and others with binoculars and notebooks, was sitting on a bench near a hummingbird feeder. We watched and photographed several species, including the booted racket-tail, green violet-ear, and velvet purple coronet. The star of the show, the one that everyone wanted to see, was the empress brilliant, a large, beautiful, and somewhat uncommon rainforest hummer. We kept seeing them, but they never seemed to stay in one place long enough for a photo, and the view was often obstructed by leaves, branches, or the feeder itself.

Eventually a gorgeous male landed on a branch, out in the open, with a clear view and a clean background. Just one problem – it was facing away from us. We could see its deeply forked bronze tail and the rich metallic green of its back, but we were missing out on the glittering golden-green of its face and belly, and the shining purple patch on its throat. A couple of us commented that it was facing the wrong way, and someone jokingly asked Angel if he could get it to turn around. As we laughed, Angel stood up and walked toward the bird. When he neared the branch, he raised a hand and made a swirling motion in the air. Right on cue, the bird turned to face us and we got the photos we had asked for.

Now, I could say a lot about Angel's knowledge of bird behavior. I can point out that he understands how to pique a bird's curiosity, and that he knows how close he can approach without turning that curiosity into fear and flight. But we all saw what happened: someone asked him to make the bird turn around, he waved his hand, and the bird turned around.

I'll just leave it at that.

Empress brilliant

Would you like to photograph birds with Angel Paz? Join me in Ecuador!

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Shining sunbeams

If you've spent any time watching a hummingbird feeder, you know how aggressive those little birds can be. In my own backyard, I've watched as one or more Anna's hummingbirds tries to monopolize the feeder, forcing other birds to settle for a quick sip before they're chased away.

But nothing prepared me for Ecuador's shining sunbeam, Aglaeactis cupripennis, the most aggressive hummer I've ever seen. Larger than most, it chased away every other species that tried to approach. This got to be a little annoying, from a photographer's perspective – at the end of a full day of shooting, 70% of my photos were of sunbeams, with the rest divided between 4 other species. (Eventually I learned a couple of tricks to increase my chances with the smaller species.)

And when two sunbeams compete for the same feeder or flower, watch out. They don't just try to bluff or intimidate, they actually make contact – chest bumping, hitting with their wings, and grabbing tail feathers in their claws. The sound of their wings as they collided was surprisingly loud, and made me wonder how often a bird is injured in these competitions.

Sometimes both birds would tumble toward the ground, recovering at the last second to fly in opposite directions, only to return for a rematch. It's a wonder any of them was able to feed, but somehow they managed.

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Aerial acrobats

Black-tailed trainbearer, Lesbia victoriae

With more than 300 species worldwide, hummingbirds come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and colors. One thing they all have in common is their ability to amaze us with their acrobatic skills. A few of them, such as the trainbearers and racket-tails, have extra-long tails that act as counterweights, allowing them to make some remarkably fast mid-air twists and turns.

Booted racket-tail, Ocreatus underwoodii

Sparkling violet-ear, Colibri coruscans

Tyrian metal-tail, Metallura tyrianthina

Purple-bibbed white-tip, Urosticte benjamini

Shining sunbeams, Aglaeactis cupripennis

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The bullfrog blues

Way back in 1969, folk singers Peter, Paul, and Mary recorded a song called "I'm in Love with a Big Blue Frog." It was a pretty silly song (with an important social message as well), as you can see from this verse:  

Well I'm not worried about our kids, 
 I know they'll turn out neat. 
They'll be great lookin' 'cause they'll have my face, 
great swimmers 'cause they'll have his feet!

To a kid who had already spent much of his life in the company of frogs, it seemed even sillier, for reasons that should be obvious: Falling in love with a frog was one thing, but a big blue frog? I mean, c'mon. Everybody knows frogs come in green or brown, with maybe a touch of red or yellow on the legs and belly.

Later I learned about Dendrobatidae, a family of tropical frogs with skin secretions so toxic (in some species, at least) that Amazonian Indians used them to poison the tips of their arrows. In an adaptation known as aposematism, or warning coloration, these frogs have evolved bright colors, making them easy to see and giving potential predators a clear message that they are not to be messed with. They come in a variety of colors – reds, oranges, yellows, and, yes, even blue. But Dendrobatids are tiny, with most species less than an inch long. Maybe the song should be called "I'm in Love with a Little Blue Frog."

You can imagine my surprise, all these decades later, when I found myself face to face with a big blue frog.

(Note to my many friends who are photographers, printers, or graphic designers: Yeah, I know – the frog's not blue, it's cyan. Get over it. Of all the people who have seen these photos, or who saw the actual frog, I didn't hear even one of them exclaim, "Wow! Look at that cyan frog!")

Now, if you're thinking this encounter happened in some exotic, unexplored wilderness, you're wrong. It was right here in Northern California, and the frog in question was none other than Rana catesbeiana, the common American bullfrog. Commonly green, that is.

(OK, now a note to my friends who are biologists, copy editors, or just language geeks: Here in California, bullfrogs really are exotic – meaning they're not native. But calling such a common species exotic just sounds wrong to most people.)

So what's going on here? Why, in a pond with hundreds of ordinary green bullfrogs, would there be one that seems normal in every way except for its striking and improbable color?

The short, simple answer is that it's a rare mutation. How rare? I really don't know. I found one article that called it "one in a million," but that phrase is so overused that I just take it to mean "very rare," without any specificity. I do know that I've seen thousands of bullfrogs in my life, and this is the first blue one I've come across.

The details – how a frog gets its color – are surprisingly complicated. Frog skin has three layers of pigment cells, collectively called chromatophores. The deepest layer, the melanophores, contain melanin, which gives a frog its black or dark brown pattern and can make the overall color lighter or darker. At the surface are the xanthophores, which contain yellow pigment. In between are the iridophores, which don't really have any pigment at all – they contain mirror-like crystals that reflect blue light.

When light hits a frog's skin, it passes through the xanthophores to the iridophores, which reflect blue light back up through the xanthophores – having the effect of adding a yellow filter to the blue light. If you remember finger-painting in kindergarten, you know that mixing blue and yellow will make green, and that's more or less what's happening in a normal frog. Without the xanthophores' yellow filter, we would see the blue reflected by the iridophores.

In a blue frog, the xanthophores are missing – or maybe they're not. Scientists Michael W. Berns and K. Shankar Narayan analyzed the skin of normal and blue frogs in great detail, but their results were inconclusive. The blue frogs' xanthophores might never have developed properly, or they might have atrophied for another reason, or they could have been replaced by another type of cell. In spite of the obvious importance of this line of research, the question remains unanswered.

And it gets even more complicated. Biologists have always assumed that the blue mutation was genetic, but when researchers tried breeding blue and normal adults in various combinations, all they got was a whole bunch of little green frogs. That doesn't rule out the possibility of a genetic origin, but, as Berns and Narayan put it, "it appears that expression of the characteristic either does not follow simple Mendelian lines, or is greatly influenced by environmental factors (or both)."

Whatever the explanation, it all adds up to one very special frog. I think I might be in love.

Song lyrics copyright © Leslie Braunstein

Thanks to Gary Fellers for finding the scientific publications. 


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It's a sheep! It's a bird! It's a ...

Most of my exploring in Arizona has been at lower elevations, in habitats dominated by saguaro, ocotillo, and cholla, and by now I usually know what to expect there. But one afternoon a few years ago, I went for a hike in the Santa Catalina Mountains. Although it's just a short drive from Saguaro National Park, it's a completely different ecosystem, one of Arizona's "sky islands" – small mountain ranges that are isolated from each other by surrounding low desert. As I hiked a trail in the upper part of Bear Canyon, I crossed an open area in the dry pine forest, where a powerful stream cascades down the mountainside, splashing over the exposed granite. Or at least that's what I picture happening in a rainstorm or spring snowmelt. At the time, the streambed consisted only of scattered boulders and a few downed trees. From the trail, I couldn't even see the tiny pools of water that remained in the canyon below me.

As I walked, I heard a distinctive sound – a sharp, staccato baa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa – that seemed to come from somewhere among the rocks below the trail. I didn't know whether any desert bighorn sheep lived here, but both the habitat and the voice seemed about right. If that was a bighorn, I wanted to find it.

I slowly made my way down the rocky slope, pausing every few steps to listen for another call. The echoes off the rocks made it hard to know exactly where the sound was coming from. I had to keep changing directions, triangulating, to zero in on the source.

After about a hundred yards I seemed to be very close. I was surrounded by nothing but rocks and a few small trees. There was no place for a sheep to be hiding, and yet it had to be nearby. By this time I had begun to think it might be a bird I was hearing, so I kept an eye on the trees and the higher slopes of the rocks. Still nothing. I kept moving, as slowly as possible, until eventually I was at a point where the source of that sound couldn't have been more than two or three yards away.

Finally I saw it. No, it wasn't a bighorn. It wasn't a bird, either. It was a canyon treefrog, the first one I had ever seen – or heard, obviously. After recovering from the shock of being fooled by a frog (after all, I'm supposed to be the frog guy), I refocused my attention and found there were several more within a few yards of me.

Every species has its comfort zone – or maybe I should say discomfort zone – an invisible circle that defines the area that, if you cross into it, you will usually cause the animal to flee. In a lifetime of watching reptiles and amphibians, I've learned how to cross that line with most of them. As I got closer to the canyon treefrogs, I discovered some pretty cool things about these little critters.   

The first thing I noticed is that they can be pretty hard to see when they're not moving. The pattern on the frog's back blends in perfectly with the granite. I made a few shots showing the camouflage, and others with very shallow depth of field to isolate the frog from its background.

Even more interesting, and just as challenging to photograph, was the way the vibrations of the male's vocal sac send ripples out across the surface of the water.

Later that evening, I heard a chorus of hundreds of frogs, a truly impressive sound that echoed up and down the canyon and seemed to come from everywhere at once. (And it didn't sound anything like a sheep.) But it was that first encounter that I remember most vividly, the frog that confused me and reminded me that I really don't know all that much about frogs.

The cat that waited for me

After a miserable night at Red Rock Canyon – a howling wind that blew dust and whipped the tent all night, plus a too-bright moon and a migraine – Tuesday was a predictably lousy day. By mid-afternoon I was exhausted and just wanted to be home, or at least someplace familiar. So I headed for Wildrose Canyon, on the western edge of Death Valley.

I don't know why, but Wildrose has always felt like home. Maybe it's just because it was the first place I camped in Death Valley, more than thirty years ago. It's a wide canyon (or narrow valley, if you prefer) full of sagebrush and creosote, rocks and springs – in other words, it's much like any other canyon in the Panamint Range. But, as familiar as it is, Wildrose can still surprise me. In a wet year its hillsides are carpeted with wildflowers. In 2005 it was overrun with cottontails. I saw my first panamint daisy there, practically growing out of the pavement at the side of the road. Its springs are a haven for warblers, finches, orioles, and dozens of other birds, while the rocks are home to chuckwallas and collared lizards. And, while I tend to avoid the noise and crowds of official campgrounds, preferring the solitude of more remote areas, the campground at Wildrose seems to be ignored by most park visitors.

I arrived at the Wildrose campground at about 5:00 and was happy to see that my favorite spot was available. (In fact, twenty-one of the twenty-two campsites were available.) I immediately felt better, so I set up my tent and decided to look around.

At the far end of the campground is a trail that passes between a steep hillside on the left and a small spring, thick with mesquite, on the right. A few steps down the trail, I saw a bobcat on the hillside, just above my eye level and no more than ten steps in front of me. I stopped. It stopped. I took a step back; it took a step back. Neither of us knew what to do next. It was so close, and so unexpected, that it took me a few seconds to really understand what it was. I ran through a checklist in my mind: tufted ears ... short tail ... long legs ... spots ... twice as tall as a house cat ... this was definitely a bobcat.

Have I mentioned that my camera was still in the car, a hundred yards behind me?

For the next few seconds, while the cat and I stared at each other, I had two conflicting impulses. The first, of course, was to run back for my camera. The other was to stay where I was and enjoy the moment – I had never been this close to a bobcat before, and might never be again. And besides, did I really expect a bobcat to just sit and wait for me?

I decided to go for the camera. All the way to the car, and all the way back, I cursed myself. How could I be so stupid as to walk away from my camera in a place like Wildrose? I knew I'd never see the cat again, at least not that close.

I guessed the cat would go up the hill, so on the way back I went up the hill myself, coming over a low ridge a few yards above where it had been. I stood for a while, scanning the hillside as well as the trail and spring below. Nothing. Then I thought I saw movement behind a small shrub about twenty feet below me. Something was different about that bush; the ground behind it was the wrong shade of brown.

I aimed my lens at the bush, trying to focus beyond the branches on whatever might be behind them. When the cat's face popped into focus I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Yes, the bobcat had sat – literally – right where I had left it, and waited for me to return with my camera. Thank you, Mother Nature!

I moved left for a better view. The cat looked at me for a moment, then walked downhill toward the spring – and lay down in the shade of another bush. A minute later, it stood up and disappeared into the mesquite.

I stayed for two days and never saw the cat again. I had three photos, and one more surprise from Wildrose.

This story was published in Death Valley Photographer's Guide: Where and How to Get the Best Shots, Nolina Press 2011

Celebrating Death Valley, part 2

The story so far: After planning to be in Death Valley for the two-day grand re-opening of the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, I encountered one photographic opportunity after another and missed all of Saturday's events. But I was determined not to miss a Sunday morning panel discussion with the park superintendent and three former superintendents, representing thirty continuous years of Death Valley management.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: what kind of geek gets excited about listening to a group of National Park superintendents talking about management challenges? A Death Valley geek, of course.

Sarah Craighead, superintendent from 2009 through 2012, introduced the rest of the group: Ed Rothfuss (1982-1994), Dick Martin (1994-2001), and JT Reynolds (2001-2009). Each talked briefly about the major issues of his or her tenure, and then the four of them answered questions from a very interested and well-informed audience. Topics covered included the Desert Protection Act of 1994 – the decades-long political battle to pass the bill as well as the challenge of running a park that had grown by more than a million acres overnight. Dick Martin spoke about his efforts to make the Timbisha Shoshone tribe an equal partner in managing a park that is, in fact, their homeland.

JT Reynolds stressed the importance of being able to work with very different groups of people, each with its own ideas about what the park should be. It sounded at times like he was describing parenthood. "The previous superintendent always approved our events." "We've never had to pay for this before." "Mommy always lets me do this." All four agreed that, sooner or later, a superintendent has to be willing to risk his or her job by standing up for what's best for the park.

It was clear that these were people who have devoted their careers, and their lives, to the place they love. (They don't just work in the park, they live here.) In fact, there was an obvious affection for Death Valley on the part of each of the participants, and everyone in attendance as well. Every one of us, park employees as well as visitors, had chosen to be there because of our love for Death Valley. 

I spent the next hour just relaxing in the courtyard at Furnace Creek Lodge, something I've rarely, if ever, done before. Normally, if I stop there at all, it's to fill my gas tank, get some ice for the cooler, maybe buy a book or get something to eat, and quickly be on my way. Today, though, felt different. This was a weekend of celebration, and that fact had definitely influenced my attitude toward the crowds. I read a book while listening to two guys with guitars holding an impromptu concert, then had lunch at the 49er Café.

After lunch it was time for the main event: the dedication, awards, and ribbon-cutting ceremony. The whole thing had a slightly hokey, small-town feel about it, and I say that in the most affectionate and positive way. There was nothing slick about it. Like all similar events, the speeches were a mix of inspiring and dull, polished and halting. One was predictably corporate; another sounded like it was written on the way to the podium. One or two were very moving. Each of the speakers, in his or her own way, expressed the same love of place I had been seeing all day.

The dedication by Timbisha elder (and former tribal chairperson) Pauline Esteves was especially powerful, though hardly anyone understood the words. Her prayer, in an ancient language now spoken by fewer than two dozen people, was a connection to the past and a reminder to all of us that we are part of a continuum of people who have found spiritual sustenance in Death Valley.

After the speeches it was time for cake and schmoozing. I chatted with a few people and then saw Alan van Valkenburg, a ranger I've worked with on some interpretive exhibits. We talked about the Visitor Center, the weekend, Death Valley, and our latest encounters with sidewinders. I was about to leave when he said he was leading a tour of the building and would be talking about its history and the challenges of updating it. How could I resist?

I'm glad I stayed for his talk. The story of modernizing this historic structure is one of conflicts, surprises, and flexibility, as the Park Service worked to balance the needs of historic preservation with modern standards of energy efficiency, water use, safety, and accessibility. That might sound a little boring, but Alan is an enthusiastic and entertaining presenter, and he brought the Visitor Center to life.

After the talk, I said good-bye to Alan and was ready to call it a day, but Death Valley had other plans.

Halfway to my car I looked up the road and saw twenty mules pulling a borax wagon, heading my way. It was not a replica. This was an original borax wagon, pulled by a team of twenty mules and accompanied by a handful of cowboys on horseback. I ran alongside them, shooting what I could from various perspectives, not really knowing what kind of photos I'd get. I felt like a little kid, with a big silly grin on my face, and when I looked around I saw the same expression on the dozens of faces that had suddenly appeared along the road. Everyone was smiling and laughing, making jokes about Death Valley Days, and just feeling thrilled to see a bit of living history.

What a perfect ending to this day of celebration.

Celebrating Death Valley, part 1

I had been planning a fall trip to the East Mojave, so when I heard that the grand re-opening of Death Valley's Furnace Creek Visitor Center was scheduled for the first weekend in November, I decided to make that part of my trip. The decision felt a little out of character for me. I usually avoid people on my Death Valley trips, camping in remote locations and rarely stopping at the Visitor Center or the various museums, gift shops, and restaurants in and around the park. I always buy an annual pass, so I don't even have to stop to pay the entrance fee.

But this trip would be different. Talks, tours, and other events were scheduled all day Saturday and Sunday, with the dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sunday afternoon. I spent the previous week camping in Mojave National Preserve, and planned to arrive in Death Valley early Saturday morning. To make sure I arrived on time, I left Mojave Friday evening and spent the night in Baker, home of the world's tallest thermometer. (It's 134 feet high, to commemorate Death Valley's record temperature of 134 degrees.)

Driving into Death Valley on Saturday morning, I encountered the typical photographer's dilemma: there was just too much to see and photograph along the way. My first stop was Saratoga Spring, especially beautiful in the warm light of sunrise.

Continuing north, I reached the little town of Shoshone just in time for their annual Old West Days celebration. Naturally I had to stop and browse the booths, pick up a couple of books from the Shoshone Museum, and enjoy a date shake from the China Ranch Date Farm.

Finally arriving in Death Valley around 4:00 pm, I had to stop for a couple of coyotes who were creating a traffic jam on Badwater Road. No complaints from me, of course – my only problem was that I had to run back to the car for a shorter lens. But I guess someone thought it was a safety hazard, because after a few minutes a ranger pulled up and used her siren to scare the coyotes off the road. They returned as soon as she left.

By the time I finished with the coyotes, the sun was setting. The obvious thing to do now was shoot evening reflections at Badwater. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

After dark I checked in at the newly remodeled Stovepipe Wells Village. The new owners have done a good job of fixing it up – and of course it has a great location, just a mile or so from the sand dunes at Mesquite Flat. But it's still a motel, and it's hard for me to get excited about a motel room, no matter where it is or how it's described. (A "dune view" room faces the highway; a "mountain view" faces the other way. But why would anyone care about the view from their motel room? Just get out and experience the desert!) I had a late dinner in the restaurant, where, as is often the case in Death Valley, there seemed to be a different language spoken at every table.

Sunday morning I was up early, looking forward to the first event of the day, a panel discussion with the park superintendent and her three immediate predecessors. But that didn't start until 9:00, leaving plenty of time for a walk on the Mesquite Flat dunes.

The weather was beautiful, and had been all week, which is not necessarily the best time to photograph sand dunes. Without wind, any footprints will remain where they are. A good windstorm restores the natural ripples and textures of the dunes to the pristine condition that everyone wants to photograph. It was immediately obvious that I wasn't going to get that kind of photo. On this morning there were more footprints than I've ever seen, and they were everywhere.

Even a mile from the parking area there was still a ten-foot-wide path of footprints upon footprints, all making their way toward the highest dune. Off the main path, heading off in all directions, were individual prints of boots, sneakers, sandals, bare feet, hands, arms, legs, huge strides of children's footprints running across the sand, and wide troughs made by people sliding on their butts down the steep sides of the dunes.

I could have seen all these human-made marks in the sand as ruining my ideal photograph. Instead, I saw stories of exuberance and joyfulness, a celebration of and connection with nature. For someone who usually prefers to be alone in the desert, and was looking ahead with some trepidation to a full schedule of social events, all those footprints turned out to be a pretty good start to the day.

On the way back to my car I saw the tracks of a sidewinder crossing on top of the human footprints. That made it even better.

 Part 2: I finally make it to the celebration.