We awoke to the sound of howling winds. Hmmm. More sand/dust storms?

I looked out our window, and all appeared fine, except that down by the dunes, things were a bit hazy. Funny thing!

Zabriskie Point was this morning’s destination. It is one of the popular ones, but fortunately, it was not overrun with people. Probably too off season for most.

Patterns are in full supply here. The question is how to isolate them and make something compelling out of them so they are not a total jumble.

In both these photographs, I worked on capturing the rhythm of the scene. There was plenty if one really looked.

Arnie, Dave, and I lingered long after people left. Hey, the sun had come up, and what else was there? Silly people! Clearly not real photographers! They did not understand light.

As you can see, we found great shadows that did not appear until quite a bit after sunrise. Without those shadows, these images would have been dull. Shadows brought out the contours of the land.

After breakfast, we headed back to our hotel. My computer is misbehaving, and I needed to try some recovery methods … system restore, among them. I figure I have some sort of malfunction. Great! And here we are in the middle of a wonderful nowhere, and there is nothing I can do about it! But enough of that.

On the way back, those winds had kicked up even more, and the sand/dust storm had thickened. It made for some great potential photos. But it needed a setting.

We stopped at several locations, looking for the perfect scene. Arnie and Dave were looking for something in the foreground, perhaps an old ruin, perhaps a hill line.

I decided I just wanted the simplicity of the desert.

As we approached our hotel, the sands and dust were blowing really fiercely. Arnie and Dave opened their car windows on the downwind side, but still, we felt as though we were polishing our teeth with grit!

I was fascinated with the graphics the dust enhanced. Here, I showed just a bit of sky, so you would know this was not made during those twilight hours. This was pretty much in the middle of the day!

Most everyone came in tonight for the workshop. There were new introductions and affectionate reunions. Lots of fun and frivolity around the two long tables as we sipped on something cool and had our burgers in the informal setting of the saloon.

It was a great way to end a fun day … minus that dumb computer!

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