Category: Desert
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Death Valley National Park
I took a quick trip to Death Valley National Park 9-12 January 2023, arriving along with one of southern California’s recent atmospheric rivers dumping rain on the state. It was raining as I arrived at the west entrance to the park near Panamint Springs, and that did make for some interesting shooting conditions. I spent…
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Exploring Arizona and Zion
Last week, I took six days to do a little photography scouting trip of some new locations and of some that I hadn’t been to in over 30 years. Here are some of the results of that recon trip. One thing that was a bit of a photographer’s “nightmare” was the fact that I saw…
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Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve
Apparently, poppies hate wind. So do I. Each spring, poppies and other wildflowers blanket the 1,800 acre / 728 hectare Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve near Lancaster, California. It’s something that I’ve wanted to see since moving to California. The poppies were right at their peak last week, so I drove up on Saturday, 20…
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Anza-Borrego Desert in Bloom
After a rainy winter, the Anza-Borrego Desert is coming alive with blooming wildflowers in different areas of the park. There were maps of the flower “hot spots” available at the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park visitor center. The 20-30 mph winds made any macro photography of the flowers impossible—they were just bouncing around way too much.…
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Joshua Tree National Park
My cousins from Chicago flew into San Diego and they always wanted to see Joshua Tree National Park, so we made a quick run up there this Presidents Day weekend. We were on a very compressed timeline, but we packed a lot into just under 24 hours, completing the Park Boulevard loop from the town…
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Carrizo Badlands
The last week or so, we’ve been having a bit of rain here in San Diego and, as the most recent storm cleared this morning, there were some interesting cloud formations around the area. I thought it might be interesting to see if the clouds made it over the mountains into the Anza-Borrego Desert. They…
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Red Rock Canyon State Recreation Area
I went on another of my infamous Sunday afternoon drives through the country today—a mere 520 miles in eight hours and forty-five minutes (driving time; 12 hours total time). Red Rock Canyon State Recreation Area (near Cantil, California, not the Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas, Nevada) caught my attention on my last trip…
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Salton Sea Sunday Sunset
Sort of. You can see a sliver of the Salton Sea in this sunset, and that’s because my timing for the drive from San Diego to the east side of the Salton Sea was thrown off by some unplanned vehicle maintenance (buying and adding a quart of oil to the engine and topping off the…
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Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills
My trip to the Alabama Hills last month really inspired me, so I decided to return for the three-day Veterans Day weekend. It was a short trip, but a rewarding one. Saturday’s sunrise wasn’t as spectacular as the one for my trip in October, but decent nonetheless. I also took a little detour up Whitney…
Daniel Zeller Photography 