California Photo Scout

Zabriskie Point BW study

Zabriskie Point is one of Death Valley’s most famous and most photographed areas. It is easily accessible, even for disabled people, and the views are magnificent.

Zabriskie Point is also one of the most convenient photo locations in Death Valley and it is one of the strongest photographically. Although the area has been captured so many times by other photographers, many interesting compositions and abstracts are waiting for you to discover them. The opportunities are plenty.

How to get there

You can find Zabriskie Point on every map of Death Valley. You can get a map at the entrance self service stations or at the visitor center. It is located a few miles south of Death Valley Junction (CA-190 and CA-178) on CA-190. From the parking lot a short uphill hike on pavement leads to the main viewing area.

GPS position

• N36 25.200 W116 48.744

How to photograph Zabriskie Point in Death Valley

Zabriskie Point in Yellow and Blue

Photographing at Zabriskie Point is pure joy. The viewing area presents a 360 degree panoramic vista of the Zabriskie Badlands.

If you have some cloud cover, you are in luck. Featureless skies, which are common in summer, do not look as good. The yellow of the mudstone and the blue of the sky complement each other beautifully and the clouds add interest. If you do not have clouds, include only a small sliver of sky or no sky at all in your images.

Using a wide-angle lens gives us the sense as if the hills and the clouds converge in the distance. The dark clouds on the left and the fingers of the hill form a diagonal line and the hills in the distance form a perpendicular line. The clouds in the foreground look somewhat similar to the hills. Keep looking for visual cues like this when you frame your shot and shift your position and framing accordingly.

Although the viewing area is large, you need to move around and work harder to avoid the tourists crowding the space. This has its benefits though, since you are forced to look for nice angles. It is crucial that you don’t stay wherever you put the legs of your tripod. As the lighting changes during sunset or sunrise, the strongest compositions will shift. Walk around as much as possible and keep an eye on the lighting behind you as well as in front of you. Pick up your tripod and get moving!

Manly Beacon

For large scenic landscape photography you need to use a wide-angle lens. Climb over the stone wall or use the narrow path to the right of the viewpoint to walk around it to the edge of the hill the viewpoint is built on. This avoids having the unsightly trampled hill in your foreground. The vertical image with clouds (second image on this page) was shot from the edge of the hill to the left. The only way to shoot the edge of the fingers of the hills was by getting out on to the hill.

The other three photographs are shot with a telephoto zoom lens. The first image is a black and white abstract of the mudstone to the right. Soft overcast lighting on that day and hazy conditions were less perfect for grand scenic landscape shots but perfect for abstracts. I boosted the contrast in Photoshop and applied just a little bit of a cooling filter (blue cast).

I used a telephoto lens to isolate Manly Beacon and compress the space between the hills in the foreground and the Panamit Mountain Range in the back.

Use a telephoto lens to create intimate studies of the formations, the snow capped Telescope Peak or the nicely lit Black Mountains behind you. Sometimes I sweep my camera with the Telephoto Lens attached. Looking through the viewfinder helps me to eliminate everything else while focusing on the abstract formations.

A trail leads down to Golden Canyon. I have never hiked this trail, but you could if you wanted to get a more intimate view of the formations. Instead I used the hikers in my compositions, as shown in the picture below. People give the image a sense of depth and scale that is hard to accomplish otherwise. Including Manly Beacon and hikers is possible, but the hikers would be too small to be visible in these images. Having small dots of people in grand landscapes can however add interest.

Since Zabriskie Point is often windy, you should hold on to your camera strap or remove it when you shoot from your tripod to avoid it from acting like a sail that pulls on your tripod.

Best Time of the Day and Best Season

Sunrise is the best time to photograph Zabriskie Point, but Sunset isn’t too shabby either. If you stay overnight, you could view the sunset from Dante’s View and return back to shoot Zabriskie point at sunrise. I recommend that you check the weather forecast and decide where you want to be. Both locations look better with a bit of cloud cover.

Time required

You should come at least 40 minutes before sunset or sunrise and stay at least 30 minutes after to take advantage of the full spectrum of colors. Consider the distances in Death Valley. It may take longer than you think to drive here.

Equipment

• Lenses of all focal length
• Tripod and cable release (Sunrise, Sunset)
• CP Filter
• Split ND Filter
• UV Filter (to protect your lens from the dust blows)
• Protection from the Wind (jacket)

Fees

Death Valley National park fees apply.

Close Locations in Death Valley

• Dante’s View
• Furnace Creek
• Artist’s Drive and Mushroom Rock
• Badwater Viewpoint
• Badwater Badlands (south of Badwater)
• Mesquite Flat Dunes (near Stovepipe Wells)
• Mosaic Canyon
• Wildflower Locations in Death Valley
• Death Valley Wildflower Update
• Death Valley Racetrack

Close Locations outside Death Valley

• Amargosa Opera House
• Goldwell Open Air Museum
• Rhyolite Ghost Town
• Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area Nevada

Useful Resources

• NPS Death Valley Pages
• My Death Valley Photos

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