Photo Of The Day
Late Race Contestant by Adam Elliott
The Racetrack in Death Valley National Park is an extraordinary place and it’s not easy to get there. The road is long and many a tire and oil pan have met their demise along the way. Scenes like this are the reason so many nature photographers make the journey. Adam Elliott took this photo before dawn on a freezing day and he submitted it to the Twilight Landscapes Assignment.
The sailing stones at the racetrack fascinate visitors and photographers. The tracks develop over years and there are a number of theories of how they actually move. As the legends have grown so have tales of the stones having mystical powers. Today there are few of the stones left on the Racetrack Playa because people, perhaps believing in some sort of folklore or mysticism, have picked them up and taken them away at a much faster rate than the surrounding hillsides have replenished them.
I’ll be selecting a Photo Of The Day from the various OP galleries including Assignments, Your Favorite Places and the contest galleries. Submit your best shots to be in the running.
-Christopher Robinson, Editor
Follow me on Twitter: @OPRobinson
Editor of Outdoor Photographer magazine
June 23rd, 2012 at 10:56 am
This is a very nice composition. I was there a couple of months ago and we found many rocks with well defined trails at the south end of the racetrack. The road is very arduous to say the least but doable in 4×4 – slowly.