Over the last several visits to the Joshua Tree area, my friend Mark and I have made our way out to these dunes. He’d mentioned them to me years ago, but commented how difficult they were to get to because of the “road” situation, so I finally rented a Jeep one year, and we’ve gone back there ever since. It’s about a 2.5 hour drive to get there from Twentynine Palms, the last hour of which requires a high clearance vehicle and a fair amount of patience. The reward, however, is one of the most incredible views in the area, in my humble opinion.
In our previous visits, we had the whole place to ourselves. This time, however, there was another small group there. We were a little behind schedule, so we rushed out to the dunes to catch sunset and then photograph the dunes in the dark. We initially worried that our little oasis had been discovered, but were later relieved when Mark realized the people there were the ones who had introduced him to it! As we were shooting, a storm had developed off to our west, and I was concerned that the many dry washes you have to cross to get to this area wouldn’t be dry for long, so we bailed much earlier than we typically would have.
On the drive in, I noticed the above composition and wanted to give it a go for a night shot, so we stopped on our way out to shoot it. While I was shooting, the folks we’d run into moved their vehicles around, which added some interesting lights in the foreground.
A few weeks prior, my family had gone on our annual beach trip. As we often do, we watched movies in the evening after everyone had had their fill of the sand and sun. One of those evening we decided to watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and as I was setting up this scene, I couldn’t help but think of that movie. The core of the Milky Way reminded me of the massive lights of the mothership, coming to earth for a visit. The lights in the foreground reminded me of the smaller ships that zoom around at different times in the movie – thus, the name of the image!
More next week!
–Dan Thompson