Landscape Photography – Page 24 – On the road with Jim

Bitter Creek Saguaros Picture of the Week

Queen Anne and I spent yesterday changing the house calendars, and with a new month, it’s time for a new photo project. I’ve been struggling to come up with an ongoing long-term theme—something similar to last years where we took you from town to town within Yavapai County. I considered several options—all of which I crossed off because they involved exercise and the possibility of having my mug broadcast on a Silver Alert.

To find inspiration, as I frequently do, I grabbed my Arizona Gazetteer Map, went into the library, and scoured through it until my legs fell asleep. In the maps, I saw something that would be interesting as a basis for a long term project. I noticed that there are roads—secondary unpaved roads—all over the state. They’re like the ones around my neighborhood that are well graded and can be traveled in ordinary sedans (in dry weather). For Archie—my four-wheel SUV—they’re freeways. These back-roads go to places I’ve never seen, and because they’re not meant for speed, almost all of you haven’t been on them either. Some of them are dead ends, some lead up into the mountains, and some head off across the desert. Haven’t you ever drive past some side road and think, “I wonder where that goes?”

So, that’s what I plan to take on for a while. I’ll pick a back road and see if it leads to something pretty or novel. Maybe I’ll eventually collect enough material and produce a catalog or magazine of sorts, but I’ll worry about that later. I can always suspend this project when I come across something fresh or different. You might say that this blog, newsletter, or whatever you want to call it, is going from On the Road to Off the Beaten Path.

Conveniently, I had a head start, because a couple of weeks ago, I took my camera and headed up Castle Hot Springs Road. It’s the long way between Lake Pleasant and Morristown, and the only way you can get to the newly reopened Castle Hot Springs Resort where Clark Gable stayed (we’ll talk more about that in another post). The road winds its way through the Wickenburg Range, Buckhorn Range, around the Hell’s Gate Wilderness, and past several working ranches, so there’s lots of eye-candy along the way.

Bitter Creek Saguaros–Large saguaros march up the side of an unnamed mountain.

This week’s featured image comes from the area where the road runs through Bitter Creek. The 3700’ mountain is unnamed, and I was struck at how the saguaros grew thick along its flank to the top. At the base of the mountain’s north side, there is a ranch labeled 11 L on my topo map and a water hole named Layton Tank. I like how the vertical cacti resemble the crowds climbing Mt. Everest we’ve seen in the news lately. I’m also pleased that the clouds parted enough to add texture to the sky. I called this image Bitter Creek Saguaros.

You can see a larger version of Bitter Creek Saguaros on its Web Page by clicking here. Be sure to come back next week when we’ll see another beautiful scene I shot on my Castle Hot Spring Road outing.

Until next time — jw

Lava Tube and Brittlebush Picture of the Week

Everywhere I look, the desert is yellow, and it’s as thick as a jungle out there. When Queen Anne and I run into town, the train tracks—only a block from the road—are hidden behind the dense foliage. I supposed this was predictable with the good rains we had this winter. We had a good crop of poppies this month along with purple lupine and orange mallow lining the highways.

Several plants give to the yellow with the first to bloom is the Brittlebush. Their soft yellow flowers look like small pale yellow daisies on stems rising from sage-green leaves. Unlike the poppies, their color isn’t vibrant, but they’re so pervasive that they’ll turn mountainsides yellow. They thrive in disturbed soil, like the highway shoulders.

Creosote bush adds a second note of yellow. The lowly creosote is like the lawn of the desert, except it grows 4-6 feet high. A couple of weeks ago, the field across from the park was Kelly green. The bush’s flower is small—almost like buds, and now that they’ve popped, the green has a golden tint.

The yellow crescendo comes when the Palo Verde bloom. Last week, Her Majesty and I ran down to our dentist at the border, and along the way, the trees were already blooming in the low-lands. The bloom moves through the desert like an opening curtain into the highlands. Today I see the trees in our park are beginning to show the tiny flowers. At their peak, the Palo Verde dot the mountainsides with yellow splotches. It’s then you realize that they’re growing everywhere. There’s a color symphony, and quail provide the background music with calls as they stake out their territory. It’s the best time to live in the Sonoran Desert.

When Fred and I were out taking photos in Black Canyon a couple of weeks ago, I saw lots of brittlebush growing in the lava rock cracks. Their soft yellow popped against the dark, almost black canyon walls. Since they screamed, “Spring,” I wanted to capture the contrast. Out of the several shots that I took, I liked this week’s image best.

In the shot that I call Lava Tube and Brittlebush, three plants were growing below a gaping void in the rocks. I believe it’s a tunnel that formed when the molten magma lost pressure then receded. It’s just like when you were little, and your older brother tortured you by pinning you to the floor then drooled over your face but sucked the spit back at the last moment. The threat was always worse than the spit. Oh! By the way, on your first desert visit, inevitably someone will tell you, “Don’t sick your hand into any place you can’t see.” The lava tube is an excellent example of what they mean. I tried to get Fred to see if he could find any rattlers in there, but he refused. He was no fun at all.

Oh, if you’re wondering how brittlebush got the name, here’s an example of how they look after a couple of weeks without water.

You can see a larger version of Lava Tube and Brittle Bush on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and next week; we’ll show another featured image from a different Arizona site.

Until next time — jw

Black Canyon Rocks Picture of the Week

The Sonoran Desert is at its best in April, when spring drags everything back to life. The cactus bloom, mesquite trees put out new leaves, palo verde trees turn yellow, the animals are horny, and there are dead snakes all over the highway. Each year we don’t have to run the air conditioning or the heater for two months. We manage the house temperature by strategically opening or closing the windows during the day. But, along with the beauty and rebirth, we dread the coming heat with being stuck indoors and up to our eyeballs in power company debt. It’s like having sex and then a kid.

Arizona has always been hot—well, maybe except for the millions of years when it was a sea bed, but that was a fleeting moment. Not all the heat was from the weather. Our state is a hot spot for volcanic activity. We have over 600 sites of volcanic mountains, cinder cones, shield volcanoes, lava flows, and lava fields. Our two tallest mountains—Mt. Humphries in the San Francisco Peaks and Mt. Baldy in the White Mountains—are volcanoes that spewed ash, cinders, and pyroclastic flows at the same time (talk about dual exhaust). Not all the activity is ancient history. The most recent eruption was about a thousand years ago, and it’s not over yet. Geologists say there’s a 13% chance that another outbreak will happen in the next millennium.

As a photographer, all of these bumps, cracks, warts, and irregularities are what makes Arizona such a remarkable subject for pictures. I’m sure the millions of people who come and stand at the edge of our big ditch in the north would agree. So, what does all this have to do with my self-assigned Nothing project? I’m glad you asked.

As you travel north from the Nothing pass, Highway US 93 makes a downhill run to the bridges at Burro Creek, and on each side of the road is a small lava field that doesn’t have a name (according to my references). It must be ancient because it has enough vegetation that blends with the surrounding landscape. Along the flow’s southwest border, there is a spring and wash that carved a ravine through the lava bed called Black Canyon. It was this landmark that Fred and I set off to explore last week before getting distracted by George’s Camp—ooh, squirrel.

Black Canyon is easy to find from George’s because its mouth is next to the property—across the street if you will. Within a few steps, we began hiking up a wash that had cut through the dark basalt lava. As we continued, the walls grew higher, and big, water-polished basalt boulders littered the oatmeal colored sand. Their smooth surface contrasted with the rectangular blocks making up the canyon sides. Even though we walked in deep dry sand, it was clear that a lot of water must flow along the course. When wet, the dark gray boulders turn jet black which would be something to see, but since some of them were over my head, I’d prefer the higher ground.

For this week’s featured image, I wanted to show the artistically placed smooth boulders contrasting the canyon walls. And I wanted to show the layers of textures: sand, worn stone, and rough wall. I also like the smaller white quartz placed within the basalt arrangements. Although I wasn’t paying attention to it, the mesquite’s bright new spring foliage adds dramatic color to the otherwise monochrome scene. I named this image Black Canyon Rocks.

You can see a larger version of Black Canyon Rocks on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and next week; we’ll show another featured image from Nothing.

Until next time — jw

Rainbow Power Picture of the Week

Like a lot of photographers, I shoot a lot more images than I show. Most of them never see the light of day. On each outing—like last week’s rain day—I’ll fire off 50 to 75 shots and when I transfer them to my computer, I’ll have one or two keepers—if I’m lucky. The first thing I do is to delete the mistakes immediately—you know, the accidental shot of my feet that I get when taking the camera out of the bag—or shots that are hopelessly out of focus. Then I look for the best. I really should get rid of the rest, but even though I may never look at them again, I keep them on file.

There are lots of reasons that I reject a photograph. The composition isn’t right, the focus is soft, or the shot didn’t work. As a landscape photographer, I have a thing about power lines. They’re everywhere, and I have to work around them. That means that I’ll drive or walk a bit to remove them from the scene.

And that brings me to this week’s featured image that I call Rainbow Power. No matter how much we grumpy old photographers groan about them, we still look at pictures of flowers, babies, kittens, and rainbows. We just don’t want to get caught doing it. This week’s image is one of those rejects that I kept returning to it because it shows the range of light last week’s fast-moving storm dragged along the Joshua Tree Parkway as it moved north. Besides, I think rainbows are pretty.

I’ll probably never print this image because of the power lines, but this rainbow was intense and seemed to disappear into the clouds then descend again to the left out of the camera’s view. Oh, and I missed the pink unicorn because it ran over the hill before I could frame the shot. Moments after snapping this image, even the rainbow disappeared. The weather was happening so fast that I didn’t have time to work it—trying different angles, different framing, or changing the site to eliminate the wires. All that I had time to do was capture the moment—warts and all.

You can see a larger version of Rainbow Power on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and next week; we’ll show another featured image from the Joshua Tree Parkway.

Until next time — jw

Joshua Saplings Picture of the Week

I didn’t have to travel far for this month’s featured subject; in fact, there’s one growing in our park’s entrance. I’m talking about Joshua Trees—which are not trees, but lilies on steroids. They only grow in the southern deserts of Arizona and neighboring states. The Mormons were the ones that named them because the trees looked like the prophet waving them on to their promised land. Whoa, don’t Bogart that joint, Ebenezer. According to this Arizona Highway’s article, Territorial Governor John C. Fremont called them the most repulsive tree in the vegetable kingdom.

Although most people associate Joshua Trees with the national park in California and the band U2’s first album, Arizona’s grove covers a large area either side of U.S. Highway 93 from the State Route 71 junction 22 miles north to the Santa Maria River. If you’ve driven to Vegas, it’s the long downhill run in between the Tres Alamos Wilderness and the Date Creek Range. ADOT put up designation signs for that section, and then they added more signs that read “Joshua Trees” if you couldn’t spot them. Queen Anne’s the only person I know that hasn’t seen the roadside trees because she’s asleep the moment the car door closes.

Joshua trees have been in the news lately—not here, but at the national park in California. During the recent government shutdown, vandals took advantage of the lack of staff and damaged gates, signs, and fences. They also knocked down and ran over a good number of the trees with off-road vehicles. How senseless and selfish. Joshua Trees are very slow-growing, so it will take centuries for them to recover.

I found this week’s featured image while driving along the dirt road under power lines. There the trees were dense, so it was like trying to pick only one Victoria Secret Angel to photograph. The specimen that I selected had several new shoots growing under the parent plant. The way the young plants clustered around the adult reminded me of how aspen saplings cover a forest floor, so I called this image Joshua Saplings.

As usual, you can see a larger version of Joshua Saplings on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and next week; we’ll show another featured image from Joshua Tree Parkway.

Until next time — jw

Sleeping Under the Stars Picture of the Week

There’s something wonderfully romantic about how cowboys spent evenings eating beans around a fire before laying out their bedrolls and sleeping under the stars. It makes me wonder if I would have been any good riding a fence line. I love the outdoors, campfires, looking at the stars, and dreaming of the ladies back in town (sigh). I can assure you that I could never do that because the last horse I got on said, “oof” and sleeping on the ground has rocks, snakes, spiders, scorpions, skunks, and rabid chipmunks—not to mention the inclement weather.

Queen Anne and I still enjoy getting out in the wilderness; we just bring half of the house with us. For some reason, I sleep very well in our little Casita trailer. She has two layers of foam over the cushions that make into a full-size bed, and when I crawl under our down coverlet, my eyes slam shut faster than a mouse trap. As I lie next to my love and wrestle for more space, I listen to her rhythmic breathing. The hypnotic cadence is a mantra luring me to dreamland—until she misses a gear and sounds like a manual transmission exploding. But, she stops as soon as I nudge her to roll over.

All of this is fresh in my mind because we’re recently back from spending the week in the KofA Wildlife Refuge with The Ritz—our trailer. We succeeded in getting more images to finish up with this month’s topic but concluded that there is a lot more to the KofA range than a couple of blog posts. I think it may need to be a long-term project.

This tip was the first time we used the trailer in winter, and although the days were sunny, the wind blew, and the nights were colder than our Alaska trip. We had to use its heater at night. Even though we set the thermostat to 58º, it still came on often and blared at 85_dB. The first time it came on, it made that burning dust smell and I thought we were going to die of carbon monoxide poising, so I opened the windows, which was counterproductive. Like all furnaces, the smell cleared eventually and we stopped jumping every time it started. Even with that racket, I slept until sun up.

We spent two days exploring and shooting photos at the refuge, and on the last day, the wind died, so we were able to use a week’s worth of wood for a fire. We ate brats, drank rich cocoa, and roasted marshmallows for jimmyums over the burning logs. Its warmth kept us outside long enough that the stars came out—all of them. We stared at Mars so hard that it began darting across the sky until we looked through binoculars and proved it wasn’t doing that. Finally, the creamy streak of the Milky Way began to reveal itself and forced me to set up my camera.

This week’s featured image is the result of that effort. It’s called KofA Milky Way, and I shot it from our campsite. The bright spots on the ground are from the next camp. The mountain is Signal Peak silhouetted against the lights of Phoenix—150 miles to the east. The constellation Orion is center-right, and Pegasus with the Andromeda galaxy would be overhead, but the fire died, and the cold chased us inside before we could find it.

As usual, you can see a larger version of KofA Milky Way on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and next week; we’ll show another featured image from Arizona.

Until next time — jw

Saguaro Climbers Picture of the Week

You can tell a story in several ways. You can start with details and pull back to reveal the whole, you can take the long-shot and move in for the close-up, or you can jump back and forth. I find the third option hard to pull off well, so I avoid it. I see the skydiver method the easiest—jump out of the plane at 20 thousand feet and then move in closer for details. It’s self-limiting because I have to make my point before the ground interrupts my story.

When I visit a new place like this month’s topic—KofA Wildlife Refuge—it makes sense for me to take mountain pictures and then work closer, because a story isn’t complete without details. Interesting things are happening in the cracks. Literally, like in the case with this week’s featured image.

Saguaro Climbers – three saguaros slowly make their way to the summit.

I photographed this scene along the Palm Canyon Trail. Unlike the palms, this side canyon was better suited for the lens I was carrying, so it was easier to compose. Instead of the palms that I was after, it’s just three common (to the Sonoran Desert) saguaros in a steep ravine. It’s the light of sundown that makes the image work. It emphasizes the canyon’s depth without being so harsh that it blacks out details.

I usually title my photos with descriptive titles, so I don’t have to be imaginative, but in this case, I didn’t. While I processed it—with the aid of my Medicare supplied drugs—I visualized the saguaros as mountain climbers trudging their way to a summit. I called it Saguaro Climbers. That’s crazy because we all know that saguaros can’t climb—don’t we?

As usual, you can see a larger version of Saguaro Climbers on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and next week when we’ll show another featured image from the KofA Wildlife Refuge.

Until next time — jw