Image of the Week: Beulah in the Carrizo Badlands, Anza-Borrego Desert, California

Kids, don't try this at home. Adults, it's probably not a good idea for you, either.

Go to your uncle's house and do it.*

Especially if that uncle has a beautiful 1957 Willy's Jeep named Beulah that he (foolishly) lets you drive through the Southern California desert while looking through the viewfinder of a camera.

Most of the geography of the Anza-Borrego Desert that I've seen has been framed in the windshield of this jeep, so it seemed only fitting that I photograph it that way. Using a fisheye lens and a big memory card, I drove through the remote Carrizo Badlands at about ten miles-per-hour, sneaking peaks through the viewfinder when the road was wide and without obstacles. Naturally, shooting this way insures that the majority of the exposures are destined for the bit bucket. Sometimes you get lucky and a few turn out.

Point-of-view images like this are a great way to make the viewer an active participant in the photograph, seeing exactly what the photographer saw at the moment of exposure. They can imagine it's their hand on the steering wheel and their face feeling the warm desert sun. It's this kind of involvement that can make a photograph live in a viewer's mind.

Have questions or comments? Send me an email.

Technical Data

Beulah in the Carrizo Badlands, Anza-Borrego Desert, California was photographed with a Nikon D300 and a 10.5mm ƒ/2.8 Nikkor AF lens. The exposure was 1/400 sec at ƒ/9.

* On a serious note, please don't try this yourself. It's very dangerous to drive while doing something else, especially taking pictures. I am not responsible for any accidents you might have trying to shoot pictures while driving a car.

Other Images of the Week