My experience at the Racetrack Playa was awesome overall, but bittersweet at times. The highs included seeing the Ubehebe Crater on the way, driving our rental 4x4 Jeep through washboard roads and spending all day in a truly amazing landscape.
The lows were related mainly to the amount of obvious human tampering that had occurred over the years. Seeing stone trails people had manipulated by switching or removing stones, footprints left from folks walking on the playa when it was wet and even tire marks on the ground were somewhat disappointing.
Ultimately, it forced me to work that much harder for a “keeper” shot. I thought I had found the perfect stone and babysat it for the afternoon only to find that the light and backdrop was really not ideal. With minutes to spare, I started running around frantically in search of a more compelling scene. Seeing the sun beginning to dip behind a western hillside, I setup and captured the shot in the featured image.
Despite the serendipity with the light, this was a great learning experience to scout more thoroughly and envision how scenes can play out.