Egypt White Desert — Chalk Formation Camp
849.00 د.إ
A desert camp in Egypt’s White Desert (Sahara el Beyda) at night — white chalk mushroom formations surrounding a camp fire under a Milky Way sky, the otherworldly landscape between the fire and the chalk towers lit by the flame.
Description
The White Desert National Park in Egypt’s Western Desert contains chalk mushroom formations — remnants of ancient seabed limestone eroded by the desert wind into fantastic shapes — that create one of the most photographically distinctive landscapes in North Africa. The formations’ white colour makes them highly responsive to night photography: under direct moonlight or camp fire illumination they glow brilliantly in long exposures. This image was made during a desert camping permit stay, the camp established between three of the larger chalk formations with the camp fire providing the foreground warm light. A 25-second exposure at ISO 3200 on a 14mm prime captures both the Milky Way core overhead and the fire-illuminated chalk towers in the foreground, the fire itself reduced to a yellow-orange focal point that illuminates the chalk on the near faces. The black sky between the stars and the chalk white creates maximum tonal contrast.
