If last year’s trip to the desert was the trip of missed plans due to poor weather, this year’s trip was the trip of recovering those plans – and much more. My buddy Mark and I had this particular spot on our list of things to shoot last year, but didn’t make it because we ran out of nights basically. This year, however, we ended up with plenty of time! We both felt like it was the come back year for certain.
Much like the “bird skull rock” I captured last year, this particular rock feature also has eye-like alcoves. Mark and I tried lighting up the rocks in a number of different ways, including putting small lights in the eyes, but in the end I preferred my particular composition with no lights (you can see his rendition here, with the eyes lit) so that the holes were just dark – I thought it gave it a bit of a spooky look to it. Anyway, lights or no lights, this particular scene was a really neat rock formation to see. Some of these rock formations look pretty different, depending on where you stand. This one, however, has a pretty consistent look. It reminds me a bit of a helmet or something.
For this particular scene, I shot the sky using the Optolong L-QEF quad-band filter, ISO 3200 f/3.2 2.5mins for 34 images in the stack. The sky conditions were really good on this particular night, which I think is reflected in the end result.
–Dan Thompson