View allAll Photos Tagged lakebed
Rising from the bottom of what was once an ancient lakebed, the Trona Pinnacles represent one of the most unique geologic landscapes in the California Desert. Over 500 of these tufa (or calcium carbonate spires) are spread out over a 14 square mile area across the Searles Lake basin. These features range in size from small-coral like boulders to several that top out at over 140 feet tall.
The Pinnacles were formed between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago when Searles Lake formed a link in a chain of interconnected lakes flowing from the Owens Valley to Death Valley. At one point during the Pleistocene, the area was under 640 feet of water.
Tufa towers are tall columns of calcium carbonate (limestone) that form below lake level through chemical reaction of spring water coming up from the floor of the lake with saline lake water.
One of the most widespread species of Swallow in the world, appearing in all the continents except the poles. These Swallows winter in India in millions and could be seen in several places - getting on a perch like this is less uncommon though.
This particular day was kind of memorable that several birds were circling my vehicle in a nearly dry lake bed. I was following them and some gray wagtails and my vehicle got stuck in the lake bed. Luckily a few other birders helped me and we got the vehicle out of the black mud. Then they pointed me to a Peregrine Falcon that was resting on the ground a little distance away and I got into another person's vehicle who slowly drove next to the Falcon. That Falcon and that day is when my birding is really kickstarted 3.5 years ago. I enjoyed shooting the Falcon so much that I visited the lakebed in the mornings (Just 10 mins from my place) almost everyday for the next month till the COVID lockdown happened.
Thanks in advance for your views for feedback - much appreciated.
Rising from the bottom of what was once an ancient lakebed, the Trona Pinnacles represent one of the most unique geologic landscapes in the California Desert. Over 500 of these tufa (or calcium carbonate spires) are spread out over a 14 square mile area across the Searles Lake basin. These features range in size from small-coral like boulders to several that top out at over 140 feet tall.
The Pinnacles were formed between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago when Searles Lake formed a link in a chain of interconnected lakes flowing from the Owens Valley to Death Valley. At one point during the Pleistocene, the area was under 640 feet of water.
Tufa towers are tall columns of calcium carbonate (limestone) that form below lake level through chemical reaction of spring water coming up from the floor of the lake with saline lake water.
Thank you for visiting - ❤ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
Last weekend we went to the Death Valley in California. It's a long drive. We passed over several mountain ranges. Here we are about to pass over a dry lakebed. Notice the group of cyclists in the far distance. I am not sure I could climb several thousand feet that in the heat!
I processed a balanced HDR photo from a RAW exposure, and carefully adjusted the color balance.
-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, NEX-6, _DSC3762_hdr1bal1b
I am currently preparing for an art show in San Jose, California, called Travel Perspectives: Explore | Experience | Connect. We are three San Francisco Bay Area photographers who share our perspectives and styles in an exhibition celebrating the intentional and opportunistic traveler. If you are nearby please join our opening reception at the Art Ark Gallery on September 2nd. See details at www.artarkgallery.com/travel-perspectives.html
I'll exhibit this photo at the gallery. In 2016 we spent 3 days at a rocket launch event in the Black Rock Desert. It was Balls, the Wild West event of rocketry, with large and dangerous rockets. Many people mix chemicals to create rocket fuel. People have fun burning unusable rocket fuel in the camp fire at night - what a spectacle! At times the light is so bright that you have to cover your eyes. A friend had the crazy idea to bring his sofa to the camp. Useful and comfortable!
I processed a balanced HDR photo from a RAW exposure, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.
Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
-- ƒ/1.8, 50 mm, 1 sec, ISO 400, Sony A6000, SEL-P1650, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC3319_hdr1bal1f.jpg
-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography
Nelumbo nucifera, also known as Indian lotus, sacred lotus, bean of India, Egyptian bean or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is often colloquially called a water lily. Under favorable circumstances the seeds of this aquatic perennial may remain viable for many years, with the oldest recorded lotus germination being from that of seeds 1,300 years old recovered from a dry lakebed in northeastern China.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Miami FL
We spent a weekend at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to attend Balls XXX, the biggest experimental rocket launch event in the world. The camp is in the middle of a dry lakebed, also called playa, the same place where Burning Man takes place. The playa is big, about 200 sq mi (520 km2). We had time for some model shoots between rocket launches. It became a tradition to take this comfy vintage chair along into the desert every year.
I processed a balanced HDR photo from a RAW exposure, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.
Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
-- ƒ/6.3, 82 mm, 1/1250 sec, ISO 200, Sony A6000, SEL-55210, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC4755_hdr1bal1e.jpg
-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography
We spent the last weekend at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to attend Balls XXX, the biggest experimental rocket launch event in the world. The camp is in the middle of a dry lakebed, also called playa, the same place where Burning Man takes place. The playa is big, about 200 sq mi (520 km2). So many high power rockets are launched that some people don't even turn their head to watch, like this person walking on the playa with his rocket while another rocket just left the launchpad. I took this shot with a long lens that compresses the scene, so it looks like the person is close to the launchpad, but he walks by at a safe distance.
I processed a balanced and a photographic HDR photo from a RAW exposure, blended them selectively, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.
Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
-- ƒ/8.0, 156 mm, 1/2000 sec, ISO 200, Sony A6000, SEL-55210, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC4422_hdr1bal1pho1g.jpg
-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography
Beautiful lupin fields at Lakeland Flowers in Abbotsford near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
About this photo: A throw back to our visit to the lupin fields last month. I missed the tulip fields this year, but we made up for it by visiting the same place to see their beautiful lupin field. Lakeland Flowers is a flower farm that you can visit (for a small fee) for about 6 months of the year offering different flower fields. In April/May they have the tulip fields, mid-May/June you can visit the lupin field, peony field, lavender field and other meadows. In August there is also a sunflower field. Lakeland Flowers is located in Abbotsford about good 45 minuten drive from the Vancouver area in BC, Canada.
Wow, I was pleasantly surprised as it was so beautiful with so many different colours!I enjoy this just as much as the tulip fields and on the positive side it was not crowded at all and even cheaper than visiting the tulips. There were some peonies blooming, but they may take anoher week or 2 to be in full bloom.
~Camera Settings:
*Camera Model: Sony DSC-RX10M4
*Focal Length: 9mm
*F-Number: F/8
*Exposure Time: 1/800 sec
*ISO Speed: ISO-100
*Exposure Program: Manual (M)
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you like this photo!
Ann :-)
Some information about Lakeland Flowers:
Peter Warmerdam was born in 1927 in Sassenheim Netherlands. At the time, it was the home of the largest tulip bulb producing area in the world. In 1949, Peter arrived in Canada and worked at whatever jobs were available. His first job was working on a farm in Winnipeg. He moved to the West Coast in the early 1950’s spending some time in logging and eventually working full time in farming.
In 1974, Peter and his family purchased land in the Sumas Prairie Flats in Abbotsford where the farm currently stands. Peter chose the Sumas area because the sandy soil made harvesting bulbs easier and the steady winds kept foliar diseases at bay. The ownership in the business eventually transferred to his sons and he became fully retired from working on the farm at 87 years of age.
In its 47 years in Abbotsford, the farm has expanded from a small operation to a company of nearly 100 employees. Today, Peter’s son Nick owns and operates Lakeland Flowers which continues to grow millions of beautiful daffodils, tulips, peonies, and sunflowers each year.
The land they now farm once used to be known as Sumas Lake. From the Glacial Age, it sat in a basin cocooned between the Sumas and Vedder mountains. The 10 000 acre lake would triple in size each spring from water rushing in from the Chilliwack and Vedder River that fed into it. This would ruin crops and make transportation between Chilliwack and cities to the west impossible.
By the 1920’s, engineers drained the lake through the Sumas Lake Canal and into the Fraser River, effectively turning the lake into farmland. The soils from the lakebed are sandy to silty in composition and quite fertile, creating the area into an agricultural hub of the Fraser Valley.
Info from their website under "Our Story": www.lakelandflowers.ca/our-story/
Beautiful pink lupins at Lakeland Flowers in Abbotsford near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
About this photo: I missed the tulip fields this year, but we made up for it by visiting the same place to see the beautiful lupin fields. Lakeland Flowers is a flower farm that you can visit (for a small fee) for about 6 months of the year offering different flower fields. In April/May they have the tulip fields, mid-May/June you can visit the lupin field, peony field, lavender field and other meadows. In August there is also a sunflower field. Lakeland Flowers is located in Abbotsford about good 45 minuten drive from the Vancouver area in BC, Canada.
Wow, I was pleasantly surprised as it was so beautiful with so many different colours!I enjoy this just as much as the tulip fields and on the positive side it was not crowded at all and even cheaper than visiting the tulips. There were some peonies blooming, but they may take anoher week or 2 to be in full bloom.
~Camera Settings:
*Camera Model: Sony DSC-RX10M4
*Focal Length: 11mm
*F-Number: F/8
*Exposure Time: 1/800 sec
*ISO Speed: ISO-100
*Exposure Program: Manual (M)
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you like this photo!
Ann :-)
Some information about Lakeland Flowers:
Peter Warmerdam was born in 1927 in Sassenheim Netherlands. At the time, it was the home of the largest tulip bulb producing area in the world. In 1949, Peter arrived in Canada and worked at whatever jobs were available. His first job was working on a farm in Winnipeg. He moved to the West Coast in the early 1950’s spending some time in logging and eventually working full time in farming.
In 1974, Peter and his family purchased land in the Sumas Prairie Flats in Abbotsford where the farm currently stands. Peter chose the Sumas area because the sandy soil made harvesting bulbs easier and the steady winds kept foliar diseases at bay. The ownership in the business eventually transferred to his sons and he became fully retired from working on the farm at 87 years of age.
In its 47 years in Abbotsford, the farm has expanded from a small operation to a company of nearly 100 employees. Today, Peter’s son Nick owns and operates Lakeland Flowers which continues to grow millions of beautiful daffodils, tulips, peonies, and sunflowers each year.
The land they now farm once used to be known as Sumas Lake. From the Glacial Age, it sat in a basin cocooned between the Sumas and Vedder mountains. The 10 000 acre lake would triple in size each spring from water rushing in from the Chilliwack and Vedder River that fed into it. This would ruin crops and make transportation between Chilliwack and cities to the west impossible.
By the 1920’s, engineers drained the lake through the Sumas Lake Canal and into the Fraser River, effectively turning the lake into farmland. The soils from the lakebed are sandy to silty in composition and quite fertile, creating the area into an agricultural hub of the Fraser Valley.
Info from their website under "Our Story": www.lakelandflowers.ca/our-story/
We drove to Death Valley in California, destination Racetrack Playa. This dry lakebed is very remote. To reach it, you drive almost two hours on a terrible dirt road. It's worthwhile. The playa is at 400 feet elevation, and is enclosed by mountains. There is no outlet, so it turns into an icy lake in winter. It island with black rocks called Grandstand. We hiked up on the mountain next to the playa to get a higher vantage point the dry lakebed and island. The people give a sense of scale.
I processed a photographic and a balanced HDR photo from two RAW exposures, blended them selectively, carefully adjusted the color balance and curves, and desaturated the image. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.
Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
-- ƒ/9.0, 119 mm, 1/800, 1/3200 sec, ISO 200, Sony A6000, SEL-55210, HDR, 2 RAW exposures, _DSC9405_6_hdr1pho1bal1h.jpg
-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © 2021 Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography
Zabriskie Point, Death Valley, California
We’re standing within the badlands watching the sun set behind the Panamint Mountains. The soft sediments before us were deposited in an ancient lakebed several million years ago, then uplifted as part of the Black Mountains on the eastern edge of Death Valley.
Zabriskie Point is a part of the Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in California, United States, noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago—long before Death Valley came into existence.
The location was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company's twenty-mule teams were used to transport borax from its mining operations in Death Valley.
Millions of years prior to the actual sinking and widening of Death Valley and the existence of Lake Manly (see Geology of the Death Valley area), another lake covered a large portion of Death Valley including the area around Zabriskie Point. This ancient lake began forming approximately nine million years ago. During several million years of the lake's existence, sediments were collecting at the bottom in the form of saline muds, gravels from nearby mountains, and ashfalls from the then-active Black Mountain volcanic field. These sediments combined to form what we today call the Furnace Creek Formation. The climate along Furnace Creek Lake was dry, but not nearly as dry as in the present. Camels, mastodons, horses, carnivores, and birds left tracks in the lakeshore muds, along with fossilized grass and reeds. Borates, which made up a large portion of Death Valley's historical past were concentrated in the lakebeds from hot spring waters and alteration of rhyolite in the nearby volcanic field. Weathering and alteration by thermal waters are also responsible for the variety of colors represented there.
Regional mountain-building to the west influenced the climate to become more and more arid, causing the lake to dry up, and creating a dry lake. Subsequent widening and sinking of Death Valley and the additional uplift of today's Black Mountains tilted the area. This provided the necessary relief to accomplish the erosion that produced the badlands we see today. The dark-colored material capping the badland ridges (to the left in the panoramic photograph) is lava from eruptions that occurred three to five million years ago. This hard lava cap has retarded erosion in many places and possibly explains why Manly Beacon, the high outcrop to the right, is much higher than other portion of the badlands. (Manly Beacon was named in honor of William L. Manly, who along with John Rogers, guided members of the ill-fated party of Forty-niners out of Death Valley during the California Gold Rush of 1849.)
The primary source of borate minerals gathered from Death Valley's playas is Furnace Creek Formation. The Formation is made up of over 5000 feet (1500 m) of mudstone, siltstone, and conglomerate. The borates were concentrated in these lakebeds from hot spring waters and altered rhyolite from nearby volcanic fields.
The plan was simple: camp under a perfect night sky on a dry lakebed and capture the Milky Way. The forecast said storms would pass by sunset. Easy.
By late afternoon, dark clouds closed in. We scrambled to throw the rainfly on the tent as a gust front slammed into us. The wind howled, the tent shuddered, but held.
Thirty minutes later, calm returned. Sunset painted the retreating storm, and I set up for astrophotography. The clouds cleared, I framed our glowing tent under the stars… then spotted a new cloud drifting in. I took some untracked single shots, waiting for it to pass.
When it did, I started my tracked panorama - until the horizon dimmed strangely. Stars vanished one by one. A high ISO shot revealed the truth: a towering wall of sand, racing toward us.
Adrenaline spiked. I grabbed both tripods, trackers and cameras still attached, threw them in the trunk, and dove for the tent. Seconds later, the dust storm hit, hammering us for three unrelenting hours.
The Milky Way would have to wait for a different night.
EXIF
Canon EOS-R, astro-modified
Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART Sunwayfoto T2840CK tripod
Foreground:
Stack of 6x 90s @ ISO6400, f/2.8
Sky:
Panorama of 3 panels, each a single exposure of 10s @ ISO6400, f/1.4
We drove to the Death Valley in California, destination Racetrack Playa. This dry lakebed is very remote. To reach it, you drive almost two hours on a terrible dirt road. It's worth while though. The playa is located at 3800 feet (1100 m) elevation, and is surrounded by mountains. There is no outlet, water only flows in. The playa has rocks with mysterious tracks, or skid marks.
The phenomenon of moving rocks was explained in 2014 by UC San Diego. In winter when it rains, the playa is covered my water, thus turns into a very shallow lake wth muddy ground. The top of the water freezes at night. The ice melts selectively, building big sheets of ice. Those sheets drift with the wind. Rocks that fell on the playa are trapped in the thin ice layer, and have nowhere to go but to move with the big sheet of ice. The ground is muddy and slippery, which causes the trail left by the rock that is trapped and pushed by the ice. See my video with explanation: bit.ly/3xoRnEg. See also the explanation by the National Park Service: bit.ly/3eC005Q
I processed a balanced, a photographic and a paintery HDR photo from three RAW exposures, blended them selectively, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.
Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
-- ƒ/10.0, 16 mm, 1/320, 1/1250, 1/4000 sec, ISO 100, Sony A6000, SEL-P1650, HDR, 3 RAW exposures, _DSC9359_0_1_hdr1bal1pho1pai5g.jpg
-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography
Drought affected Colebrook River Lake in Colebrook, CT. After nearly half a century submerged under the waters of Colebrook Lake, the water receded to reveal this sight. A rusty look into the past.
Beautiful tulip fields at Lakeland Flowers U-Pick Farm in Abbotsford near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
About this photo: These tulips fields in Abbotsford had to skip a year last year due to floods, but they have been fully operational again this year. My friend and I really wanted to go see some tulip fields again this year and we choose to visit the Abbotsford Tulip Festival, there is one in Chilliwack as well. We decided to go back to the one in Abbotsford operated by Lakeland Flowers which we visited a couple of years ago as well. It was their first year opening the fields to the public at that time. They have such beautiful tulip fields with so many gorgeous varieties and amazing colours which is why we choose to visit this tulip festival! 🌷🌷🌷
I took this photo yesterday at these beautiful tulip fields. I must say there is something about tulip fields and mountains which you don't see in the Netherlands.
~Camera Settings:
*Camera Model: Sony DSC-RX10M4
*Focal Length: 11mm
*F-Number: F/8
*Exposure Time: 1/320 sec
*ISO Speed: ISO-100
*Exposure Program: Manual (M)
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you like this photo!
Ann :-)
Some information about Lakeland Flowers:
Peter Warmerdam was born in 1927 in Sassenheim Netherlands. At the time, it was the home of the largest tulip bulb producing area in the world. In 1949, Peter arrived in Canada and worked at whatever jobs were available. His first job was working on a farm in Winnipeg. He moved to the West Coast in the early 1950’s spending some time in logging and eventually working full time in farming.
In 1974, Peter and his family purchased land in the Sumas Prairie Flats in Abbotsford where the farm currently stands. Peter chose the Sumas area because the sandy soil made harvesting bulbs easier and the steady winds kept foliar diseases at bay. The ownership in the business eventually transferred to his sons and he became fully retired from working on the farm at 87 years of age.
In its 47 years in Abbotsford, the farm has expanded from a small operation to a company of nearly 100 employees. Today, Peter’s son Nick owns and operates Lakeland Flowers which continues to grow millions of beautiful daffodils, tulips, peonies, and sunflowers each year.
The land they now farm once used to be known as Sumas Lake. From the Glacial Age, it sat in a basin cocooned between the Sumas and Vedder mountains. The 10 000 acre lake would triple in size each spring from water rushing in from the Chilliwack and Vedder River that fed into it. This would ruin crops and make transportation between Chilliwack and cities to the west impossible.
By the 1920’s, engineers drained the lake through the Sumas Lake Canal and into the Fraser River, effectively turning the lake into farmland. The soils from the lakebed are sandy to silty in composition and quite fertile, creating the area into an agricultural hub of the Fraser Valley.
Info from their website under "Our Story": www.lakelandflowers.ca/our-story/
A fly-over in an imaginary helicopter of the submerged Lilliputian ranges along the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake.
OR, it might just be refraction patterns caused by surface wavelets creating bands of shadow on the muddy lakebed below.
RAW edited in View NX2, additional adjustments (unsharp mask, color curves) added in Corel Paintshop Pro.
A crust of of polygon-shaped clay sporadically appears along the lowest floor areas of the dune field. These are a remnant from an ancient lakebed, once 600 feet deep, that covered the valley millions of years ago. Mesquite bushes grow around these low points and their thicket provides a habitat for desert cottontail and whitetail antelope squirrel, among other desert animals.
An HC.3A Merlin from the Royal Navy's 845 Naval Air Squadron banks over a dry lakebed on the ranges at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms during an exercise in support of the Royal Marines' 42 Commando.
Shot taken for my article on 845 NAS in the December 2015 issue of AirForces Monthly: shop.keypublishing.com/issue/View/issue/AFM333/airforces-...
Nelumbo nucifera, also known as Indian lotus, sacred lotus, bean of India, Egyptian bean or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is often colloquially called a water lily. Under favorable circumstances the seeds of this aquatic perennial may remain viable for many years, with the oldest recorded lotus germination being from that of seeds 1,300 years old recovered from a dry lakebed in northeastern China. It has a very wide native distribution, ranging from central and northern India (at altitudes up to 1,400 m in the southern Himalayas), through northern Indochina and East Asia, with isolated locations at the Caspian Sea. It has a very long history (c. 3,000 years) of being cultivated for its edible seeds, and it is commonly cultivated in water gardens. It is the national flower of India and Vietnam. The roots of lotus are planted in the soil of the pond or river bottom, while the leaves float on the water's surface or are held well above it. The flowers are usually found on thick stems rising several centimeters above the leaves. The leaf stalks (petioles) can be up to 200 cm long, allowing the plant to grow in water to that depth, and a horizontal spread of 1 m. The leaves may be as large as 80 cm in diameter, while the showy flowers can be up to 30 cm in diameter. 28483
Earlier this year we drove to the Death Valley in California, with destination Racetrack Playa. This dry lakebed is very remote. To reach it, you drive almost two hours on a terrible dirt road. It's worth while though. The playa is located at 3800 feet (1100 m) elevation, and is surrounded by mountains. There is no outlet, water only flows in. The playa has rocks with mysterious tracks, or skid marks.
The phenomenon of moving rocks was explained in 2014 by UC San Diego. In winter when it rains, the playa is covered my water, thus turns into a very shallow lake wth muddy ground. The top of the water freezes at night. The ice melts selectively, building big sheets of ice. Those sheets drift with the wind. Rocks that fell on the playa are trapped in the thin ice layer, and have nowhere to go but to move with the big sheet of ice. The ground is muddy and slippery, which causes the trail left by the rock that is trapped and pushed by the ice. See my video with explanation: bit.ly/3xoRnEg. See also the explanation by the National Park Service: bit.ly/3eC005Q
I processed a balanced, a photographic and a paintery HDR photo from three RAW exposures, blended them selectively, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.
Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
-- ƒ/10.0, 16 mm, 1/320, 1/1250, 1/4000 sec, ISO 100, Sony A6000, SEL-P1650, HDR, 3 RAW exposures, _DSC9359_0_1_hdr1bal1pho1pai5f.jpg
-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography
A poem in four movements
I. Wind. She arrived before the wind did, Roya — her name a whisper of dunes, her breath steady as prayer. The lakebed stretched wide and white, a silence too large for grief.
Lost watched from the edge, his mind filled with questions. She did not speak. The wind translated — carrying the scent of dried figs, the ache of letters never sent.
He listened. And for the first time, he understood that not all language requires sound.
II. Salt. She knelt beside the saltflower beds, where crystals bloomed like forgotten promises. Her fingers traced the shimmer, as if reading a letter from the earth.
Lost stood behind her, his shadow long and uncertain. “Why do you walk where the lake has vanished?” he asked.
“To remember what still remains,” she said. And the salt began to sing — a song of resilience, of water that once danced and might again.
III. Dusk. The light turned copper, and the lake shimmered with ghosts. Birds circled low, their wings casting fleeting prayers on the salt-stained ground.
They sat together, not touching, but close enough for warmth. She told him of stars that guide without needing to be seen. He told her of dreams that dissolve at dawn.
And in that hush, they became not seekers, but keepers.
IV. Rain. It came without warning — a soft drizzle, like the lake remembering itself.
Roya tilted her face to the sky, her smile quiet, her eyes reflecting the storm’s mercy.
Lost reached out, not to hold, but to share.
And in that moment, salt met rain, absence met presence, and two wanderers became one story.
Lost
Nelumbo nucifera, also known as Indian lotus, sacred lotus, bean of India, Egyptian bean or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is often colloquially called a water lily. Under favorable circumstances the seeds of this aquatic perennial may remain viable for many years, with the oldest recorded lotus germination being from that of seeds 1,300 years old recovered from a dry lakebed in northeastern China. It has a very wide native distribution, ranging from central and northern India (at altitudes up to 1,400 m in the southern Himalayas), through northern Indochina and East Asia, with isolated locations at the Caspian Sea. It has a very long history (c. 3,000 years) of being cultivated for its edible seeds, and it is commonly cultivated in water gardens. It is the national flower of India and Vietnam. The roots of lotus are planted in the soil of the pond or river bottom, while the leaves float on the water's surface or are held well above it. The flowers are usually found on thick stems rising several centimeters above the leaves. The leaf stalks (petioles) can be up to 200 cm long, allowing the plant to grow in water to that depth, and a horizontal spread of 1 m. The leaves may be as large as 80 cm in diameter, while the showy flowers can be up to 30 cm in diameter. 19070
Zabriskie Point is a part of the Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in California, United States, noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago—long before Death Valley came into existence.
The location was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company's twenty-mule teams were used to transport borax from its mining operations in Death Valley.
Millions of years prior to the actual sinking and widening of Death Valley and the existence of Lake Manly (see Geology of the Death Valley area), another lake covered a large portion of Death Valley including the area around Zabriskie Point. This ancient lake began forming approximately nine million years ago. During several million years of the lake's existence, sediments were collecting at the bottom in the form of saline muds, gravels from nearby mountains, and ashfalls from the then-active Black Mountain volcanic field. These sediments combined to form what we today call the Furnace Creek Formation. The climate along Furnace Creek Lake was dry, but not nearly as dry as in the present. Camels, mastodons, horses, carnivores, and birds left tracks in the lakeshore muds, along with fossilized grass and reeds. Borates, which made up a large portion of Death Valley's historical past were concentrated in the lakebeds from hot spring waters and alteration of rhyolite in the nearby volcanic field. Weathering and alteration by thermal waters are also responsible for the variety of colors represented there.
Regional mountain-building to the west influenced the climate to become more and more arid, causing the lake to dry up, and creating a dry lake. Subsequent widening and sinking of Death Valley and the additional uplift of today's Black Mountains tilted the area. This provided the necessary relief to accomplish the erosion that produced the badlands we see today. The dark-colored material capping the badland ridges (to the left in the panoramic photograph) is lava from eruptions that occurred three to five million years ago. This hard lava cap has retarded erosion in many places and possibly explains why Manly Beacon, the high outcrop to the right, is much higher than other portion of the badlands. (Manly Beacon was named in honor of William L. Manly, who along with John Rogers, guided members of the ill-fated party of Forty-niners out of Death Valley during the California Gold Rush of 1849.)
The primary source of borate minerals gathered from Death Valley's playas is Furnace Creek Formation. The Formation is made up of over 5000 feet (1500 m) of mudstone, siltstone, and conglomerate. The borates were concentrated in these lakebeds from hot spring waters and altered rhyolite from nearby volcanic fields.
The spires of calcium carbonate were formed thousands of years in the bed of an ancient lakebed when fresh water springs interacted with the salty lake water. These formations range in size from low boulders to as high as 150 feet tall.
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Last weekend we went to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to attend Balls 25, the Wild West event of high power rockets. We had two cars in front of us driving back to civilization on Sunday afternoon. It is OK to drive besides the "road", which I did to avoid the playa dust. It's fun to drive fast on the playa.
I processed a balanced and a paintery HDR photo from a RAW exposure, merged them selectively, and carefully adjusted the color balance.
-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, NEX-6, _DSC3586_hdr1bal1pai1f
I am preparing for a presentation about hobby rocketry in the USA, so I looked through my large photo collection. I took this sunrise shot at Balls in September 2016. It is a big experimental rocket launch event in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada - the same place where Burning Man takes place. About 300 people camped in the middle of the playa (dry lakebed), so that it is easy to drive to a rocket to retrieve it after launch. The playa is very flat and large, so shadows at sunrise are very long, perfect to have some fun!
I processed a photographic and a balanced HDR photo from a RAW exposure, blended them selectively, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.
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-- ƒ/5.6, 50 mm, 1/250 sec, ISO 100, Sony NEX-6, SEL-P1650, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC2798_hdr1pho1bal1f.jpg
-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © 2023 Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography
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We went to the Death Valley in California with the goal to experience the sailing stones on the Racetrack Playa at new moon. Before dark we scouted interesting stones on the playa and marked their GPS location. It was very windy at night, and we waited in the car for the wind to die down. It did not. I decided to go out on the playa in this condition; I found the rocks via GPS location. I used a dimmed-down warm-color LED floodlight to illuminate the black night. In addition I used a cold-color headlight from a low vantage point to illuminate the playa. The low light makes the playa look like cobblestones
Sailing stones are a geological phenomenon where rocks move and inscribe long tracks along a playa (dry lakebed) without human or animal intervention. Instead, rocks move when large ice sheets a few millimeters thick floating in an ephemeral winter pond start to break up during sunny days. These thin floating ice panels, frozen during cold winter nights, are driven by wind and shove rocks at up to 5 m/min across the muddy playa. More details.
I processed a balanced and a paintery HDR photo from a RAW exposure, merged them selectively, and carefully pulled the curves.
-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, NEX-6, _DSC3960_hdr1bal1pai1g