What an amazing adventure.
After a couple of weekends of searching and coming up empty handed, I was very fortunate to locate and photograph a very special ancient petroglyph, possibly created by the ancestors of the Paiute-Shoshone Indians of California. This petroglyph faces up towards the sky, which is rather unique. Most petroglyphs are on vertical surfaces such as walls. I promised if found, that I would keep the location of this petroglyph to myself, due to the recent vandalism at other petroglyph locations. Thank you to the individual who pointed me in the general direction of this magnificent piece of history.
I camped out overnight in order to capture daytime, sunset, nighttime, and sunrise images. As you will see below, each image is so very different depending on the time of day and lighting conditions.
I was amazed at the effort and time that must have gone into what would have been a very important message they were conveying in their symbology on the rock and the culture they must have had so long ago.
The first image was taken during the day, shortly after I had arrived at the petroglyph.
The next image was taken at sunset. I used a small f-stop in order to catch the sunburst as the sun was setting behind the mountain range.
The next image was taken very early in the morning in order to catch the moon and stars. I used a long exposure and a very small light in order to bounce enough light on the petroglyph, to light it up. It is amazing just how little light is needed to illuminate the foreground.
The final image was taken at sunrise as the sunlight hit the tops of the nearby mountain range before dropping down onto the desert floor.
This adventure will be hard to top, but I said that about the last one also. I was fortunate to have been able to experience it and look forward to that next adventure.