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In early February of this year, I spent five days taking photographs in Death Valley National Park and areas nearby. It was a great time to visit – none of the intense heat for which the Park is notorious, nor were there crowds of people.
Here are a few images from the trip along with brief explanations of how I made them. I will show you the untouched RAW image, talk a little about post-processing, and then show the final finished image.
All photos were shot with a Sony A7R Mark 2 paired with one of five lenses:
- Samyang f/2.8, 14mm
- Sony Zeiss f/2.8, 35mm
- Sony Zeiss f/1.8, 55mm
- Sigma f/1.4, 85mm
- Samyang f/2.0, 135mm
In post-processing, I used DxO PhotoLab to make global edits...

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Mark Schacter
Mark Schacter
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Mark Schacter’s photography encompasses subjects ranging from landscapes to urban and architectural to industrial. Three books of his photography have been published: Houses of Worship (2013), Sweet Seas. Portraits of the Great Lakes (2012) and Roads (2010). He compares his approach to photography to “the way an archaeologist might search for clues about an extinct civilization. I see landscapes and cityscapes as being filled with traces of human striving – attempts to build things, enjoy life, raise families, create wealth or simply leave behind physical evidence that will outlast a human lifetime; evidence that says ‘someone has been here’ “. His most recent exhibition, a selection of 20 photographs from Houses of Worship, opened at the Photopolis Festival of Photography in Halifax, Nova Scotia in September, 2014. His latest project, West, can be seen on YouTube, in high-definition, at http://youtu.be/zU1dRHynaQU Mark lives in Ottawa, Canada. A broad selection of his work can be seen at www.luxetveritas.net
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