Day 5, Sunset
Finding water is a bit of a challenge in Death Valley. On a rainy year (which was a few years ago) there was water on Badwater flats and lots of photographers and spectators were taking photos of reflections. This year there was no water at all on Badwater.
As I was driving thru the valley I noticed a brisk reflection of the Sun. It must have been water.
Indeed there were a few small creeks with salty banks. And where water is there is life. There was some grass. Most of it dried out but there was some still green. The dry ones mineralized with salt turned into sharp spikes.
That’s where I settled waiting for a sunset.
Here are a couple of images I took at that place. The first one is right before the Sun disappeared, the last rays just touching the tops of the greenery:
Last Rays
And here the afterglow:
Afterglow
vitali prokopenko | fine art 
Awesome!!!
Ok, let’s try to be more original: very pleasant composition, nice balance of leading lines, good choice of saturation/brightness/contrast and overall — awesome photos!!! 🙂
You’re spot on. I was looking for leading lines. Unfortunately I could not find the ones that would go straight to the Sun. And in first photo I wanted to have sparkly reflection in the water. Moving left to position lines more toward the Sun was result in loosing the Sun reflection in the water.
Well, you usually don’t come to Death Valley looking for water and reflections )) But gorgeous, nonetheless!
The last time I was in Death Valley a few years ago, there all Badwater was covered with water and mountain sides covered with flowers. That was very unusual year for Death Valley.