This week I’m wrapping up my series on Joshua Tree National Park at night, and I have a question for you – what do you see? As my friend Mark and I were walking out, the morning after shooting the arch I shared last week, he was telling me about this other rock structure that looked like a wave. Most of these off-trail locations don’t have official names so the locals make up names for them; Mark calls this particular one Rip Curl.
As Mark and I approached Rip Curl the following evening, I could see it plain as day. It definitely looks like a wave getting ready to curl over! In fact, as we worked together on lighting up the structure with a combination of lights on tripods and me climbing all over the thing with flashlights, I had this in mind and was trying to light it in such a way as to accentuate the curling look. The fun thing about these type of images, where you’ve light painted the foreground multiple times and in different ways, is you never really know what you’re going to get until you get home and start putting it all back together again. Anyway, after finishing editing and taking a step back from it, I couldn’t help but think the rocks now looked like a giant rhinoceros head (or skull)! I can’t, not, see it!
–Dan Thompson