Salt Flats and Guadalupes

The view of the Guadalupes rising above the salt flats is one of the classic west Texas desert sights. The basin and range geology of the west is at work here.  The western side of the Guadalupes has a dramatic cliff and the peaks themselves rise over 5000' from the salt flats.

I have always liked the two and often try to photograph the two together.  So after photographing just the flats, I turned my attention to putting together an image with both the Guadalupes and the dry lake bed.  

I am really surprised this is not more of a common image.  The view is dramatic and a fairly busy US highway passes right by the salt flats.  I guess most people are in too much of a hurry to get someplace else.  That's ok by me as it leaves most of west Texas to a few photographers.

To try to make it a clutter free of an image I walked far out on the salt flats, but I still found some tire tracks.  Rather than try to find a composition that precluded them-a tough proposition- I just ran with them in the image.  I tried to use them as leading lines the way folks use the rock paths in Death Valley at the Racetrack.  Hope it works.  Salt Flats, tracks, distant mountains in the morning light.

After making images in both color and black and white, I realized the morning was running on and it was time to head to Dell City and a plate of huevos rancheros.  So I packed up and drove west for some good eating.

Salt Flats

One of my favorite parts of the state is the area west of the Guadalupe Mountains.  A lonely, sparsely populated area of sand dunes, salt flats, desert grasslands, and stony mountain ranges.


I had arrived at the Guadalupes on a clear day, I drove west to the salt flats and walked out on them a ways.  I photographed both the mountains and the flats themselves.


 I have always wanted to be able to make a minimalistic image of the salt flats where I could hopefully capture the openness and the sky.


I set up placing northwest looking across the dry lake bed into a clear blue sky.  I tried out compositions that took in both the expanse of sky or that showed the size of the lake bed.


Here is one of the former.  Efke 25 processed in DR-5 as a black and white chrome.

Salt Flats of West Texas

On the salt flats of west Texas.


Here is another shot taken on the salt flats west of the Guadalupe Mountains.  Here I tried to capture the full shadow of the camera as well as the mountains.


Taken with my Panasonic LX3.  Small Format taking a picture of my Large Format.

The Salt Flats and Guadalupes

On a clear October morning I arrived at the Guadalupe Mountains in far west Texas.  Not a cloud was to be seen in the sky, however the early light had a crisp brightness to it.  So I made my way west of the park to the salt flats there and took the 4x5 far out across them and started to photographing in black and white to see if I could capture the flat white slat plain and the distant peaks.


As usual I could not resist photographing the camera on location and think the images of the camera on the salt flats might be better than the images I made with it.

Out in the Muck

On a cold clear morning I left El Paso at 4:30am and started driving toward the Guadalupes. I could see countless stars but nothing that even looked like a cloud. As I drove I thought about possible places to go for early light. I ended up stopping at the salt flats west of the park. Dawn was getting closer so instead of photographing east into the sunrise, I decided to look southwest toward the Black Mountains and the Sierra Diablo. With any luck, I would get nice pink and blue glow in the west.

I started walking across the flats and found that it was really mucky. The recent snow and rain has made a mess of the flats and it was pretty yuck walking. It would even be worse for a place to put the backpack down. I normally bring a little folding table here but since I flew out on business, I had nothing like that. So I decided to try as little balancing act and put my pack on a fence rail. It took a steady hand but I got it to balance. It also required a light touch when getting things into and out of the pack, but as you cab see in the pic-it kept my pack muck free.

With pack safe and secure, I was able to set up the tripod, camera, and make the image. The light was subtle and just a hint of color. I made only a few before ol' Sol made his appearance and with such harshness the camera was put up really quick.

Across the Salt Flats

The salt flats stretch for several miles in long narrow fingers in a north-south direction. They are a great place to stop on the roadside but they look pretty neat from the air too. If you ever fly into El Paso you will be on your descent into the airport and fly right over them. They also look pretty neat on a satellite map like Google Earth.

Standing on them in the middle of the night still might be the best way to experience them. The Guadalupes rise over a mile above you to the east with much of the western side of the range being a sheer 1'000 cliff.

It is quite a view day or night.

As the night was slowly fading into the twilight of morning there was just some color on the eastern horizon. I thought that perhaps I could capture that red glow, the light on the salt, and some stars in the sky. I compose a scene with a view across the salt toward the Guadalupes and the dawn.

This was a time when a good grad filter helped the scene. Even this early, the light from the east was much brighter than the salt or somewhat brighter than the sky. I used a couple of graduated neutral density filters over the brighter spots of the sky so that the image will turn more like I see it.

I get a few last images in and then the night is gone, slowly color appears across the sky, and later the sun rises over the mountains. It is another great morning and a neat location and I consider myself pretty lucky.

The Stars at Night

West of Guadalupe Mountains National Park the elevation drops down about 2000' feet into a broad flat basin. At the heart of this basin stretch miles of salt flats of a dry ancient lake. Occasionally enough rain will fall to recreate an ephemeral lake but they are mainly dry. Despite the heavy summer rains, I found them very dry in late August. I decided that I would find a still morning and try to visit them before sunrise.

One early clear morning (by early, I mean about 4:30 am) I decided to visit the flats and watch the stars. I found them very still and very quiet. The light of a waning moon made the white salt glimmer in the night. Countless stars shined in the heavens. It was a perfect morning. I walked far out onto the flats and then set up both my tripods.

Making an image under the night sky is possible and is quite fun but it is also slow. Each image takes 10-15 minutes. The is plenty of time to wait and watch the sky. I had each camera pointed in a different direction not knowing what I would get. I started making images and would then watch the stars, occasionally seeing a shooting star and wondering if the film would pick it up.

The salt flats were very surreal and I don't know if I could really capture that feeling in a single image. I worked with several different compositions and ideas. This one is one of my favorites. By facing south you see the arc of stars as the earth spins during the several minute exposure. The salt glows. The distant power lines cutting across them and the distant mountains.

Yes. This is a place to come back to.