Racetrack Light Lasso, Death Valley National Park

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One of the more interesting places in Death Valley National Park is a place called the Racetrack. This dry lake bed is home to a fascinating phenomenon of large rocks that seem to inexplicably move and leave tracks in the dried mud of the playa. The current theory is that as the lake bed becomes wet from the rain and as strong winds blow through the valley the rocks slowly move. No matter how the tracks are made these rocks make for a great photographic subject. During my previous Death Valley photo tour a few weeks ago I captured many traditional fine art photos of these rocks and tracks. Some of my favorite photos from this trip came from a late night light painting experiment. Below is one of my favorites.

Technorati Tags: Photography, Death Valley, Night Photography, Light Painting, National Park, Racetrack

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Posted by Jim on 10.29.2009 at 9:23 am
Tagged: California, Death Valley, Fine Art, Locations, Photography, Stock Photo , Fine Art, Photography, Stock Photos

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jimgoldstein

Thanks for the kind comments everyone. Have a great weekend and a safe Halloween!

Mark

What a unique and great idea! Definitely one of the most original images I have seen at the Racetrack! Nicely done Jim.

Richard Wong

That is pretty amazing Jim. You are really pushing the envelope lately with the night photography.

mms

wow, thats pretty amazing

Drew Fulton

Cool image and looks like it was a lot of fun. I'd be curious to know more about the lights you used and how you did it. I'm guessing you had some sort of incandescent or maybe even a gelled flash on the rock and then something like an LED or other bluish light for the lassos but how'd you do that without ending up in the image and get the awesome effect on the ground? I'm struggling to deconstruct it!

jimgoldstein

Here's a diagram of the setup http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog_images/rock2.jpg

In case you can't read my writing:
0. Trigger camera for long exposure
1. Wave maglight low against floor to illuminate rock and foreground
2. Wave red flashlight across scene
3. Run to quickly pick up blue flashlight & flail it around in an invisible pattern
4. Wait until shutter closes
5. Repeat until too tired or sun comes up

Drew Fulton

I missed the red light but otherwise I was pretty close. Very cool and looks like fun.

jimgoldstein

Thanks for the comment Drew. Check back a little later tonight or tomorrow and I'll post a diagram of what I did for this. In the meantime enjoy racking your brain and enjoying the image. :)