Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California, within the Mojave Desert. It features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America, and when I spent a few days there photographing the landscape, I was very much aware of those statistics! I made this image at Badwater Basin, the second-lowest point in the Western hemisphere, at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. It was extremeley hot, and blindingly bright.