Phoenix

The world's largest fountain, Fountain Hills, Arizona.

We are back in Arizona packing up gear and shipping it back to Alaska for our return home.  It has been a great trip, but it will be nice to be home.

I knew before I returned to Fountain Hills that sunset and the fountain would correspond this time of year.  When I saw clouds staring to form last night I knew I would have near  perfect conditions.

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Great Horned Owl on a nest, McDowell Mountain Regional Park, near Phoenix, Arizona.

What doesn’t show in photos but does in video are two little white puff balls that popped up from time to time – newborn chicks.

As I was driving to this nest before sunrise the past Saturday morning the radio DJ was joking about how he clearly didn’t win the giant Mega Lottery because if he had, he wouldn’t be at work on the radio that morning.  I thought to myself that if I had won, I’m pretty sure I would have still be heading off in the morning with my camera to watch a nesting Great Horned Owl – I suppose that is a pretty good sign that you are doing what you love.

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Salt-River, Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

The Salt River is a popular tubing location during the summer.  Looks fun!  And, I bet much warmer then the Gulkana River in Alaska – a place my friends and I would go tubing on warm summers.

One of the drawbacks with shooting a lot of 3D video on this trip is that I haven’t had as many still photos as I normally would for my blog.   So recently, I have made more of an effort to grab more stills while out shooting 3D – this is one.  For 3D, I like to find scenes like this with many layers to it.  Unfortunately, I won’t know what really if it “works” until I get home – I’m looking forward to processing the video from this trip.

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Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

What may not show well in this small photo is the nice field of yellow ground wildflowers.

This is definitely been a very poor year for wildflowers, but a stretch of warm weather followed by some a pretty heavy rain last Monday has seemed to produce a mini bloom of wildflowers.

In the two placers I have been spending time, Tonto National Forest, and McDowell Regional Park, I’m beginning to see a few poppies, lupine and brittlebush in bloom.  It isn’t the dramtic colorful hills and fields of wildflowers I have seen in past springs in this area, but at least it is a little something, something.  And, I would think it could get a bit better over the next week or so.

I’ll be making my way to the west side of the state in a few days, it will be interesting to see how that area is doing after the recent rains – I’ll follow up with a report if I find anything worth reporting on!

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Saguaro cactus, Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

With clouds in the sky, and a gap above the horizon to the East – I though sunrise this morning could be epic!  But, it was nothing.  So, I used the nice light to play with these guys instead.

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Saguaro cactus, Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

This was last night at sunset. I love the unique shapes of these guys – saguaros are cool!

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Scottsdale Waterfront, Scottsdale, Arizona.

Any water feature seems to really add to a community whether it is a river, lake or ocean.  Towns like Scottsdale and San Antonio, where such things don’t occur naturally have had to get creative in creating a “waterfront”.

This area of Scottsdale has changed a lot since we first visited this region 4 years ago.  Back then, this area was completely under construction.  Last year it was finished, but not much of the landscaping had grown in.  Now, it really is a nice little waterfront with outdoor restaurants, galleries and residential towers.  It is a big change from the sprawling, low density development that has typically taken place in this region.

Downtown Phoenix has changed even more.  Four years ago everything was torn up thanks to the addition of a mass transit rail system, construction of additional convention facilities and office buildings.  Today, all those projects are complete, and it is a nice improvement.

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Lesser Goldfinch, Fort McDowell, Arizona.

I noticed a few people having good luck with bird feeders at this campground so I decided to put one out.  Well, it only took about an hour before goldfinches began to show up!  These colorful birds are a lot of fun to watch and photograph!

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Sunset, McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Arizona.

We have now moved a bit east into Arizona.  As you can see, there aren’t any wildflowers.  We are here a tad bit earlier then normal, but the lack of wildflowers has much more to do with a dry and unseasonably cold winter that included some freezes.   In some parts of McDowell, many plants appeared dead, hopefully they are just damaged by the freeze.

It is possible that late rains, and now unseasonably warm weather might give us a few flowers – but we definitely won’t be seeing the hills of solid color like we did in 2008.

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Sonoran Desert wildflowers, near Fountain Hills, Arizona.

You may have noticed the photo blog activity has slowed down a bit, partly because this rainy, snow-less winter has had me concentrating on office work, and has not provided me with new material for the blog.  But, mostly because we have been trying to get everything wrapped up before our next trip which we leave for on Monday!

Where are we going?  At first we fly to Palm Springs and then head down to Anza-Borrego where we will stay for about a month, and where I will do my Anza-Borrego photo workshop.

After that, believe it or not, we haven’t decided.  With all the rain the Southwest has received, there is a good chance we will chase some wildflowers possibly to Arizona.  But, we have kicked around a few other ideas and may go a different direction.  For now, we have not booked a flight home – we will pick our departure city and date later which makes it kind of fun.

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Bartlett Lake at sunset, near Phoenix, Arizona.

Sticking with the new update theme – Janine now has our website updated with new photos of Phoenix Arizona.  Many of these were captured during our spring trip to the area.

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Bartlett Lake, Arizona.

A recently adjusted photo from our spring trip of the wildflowers around Bartlett Lake, Arizona.

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McCormick Ranch Golf Course, Scottsdale, Arizona.

Here is a mistake I have never made before – I went out one evening to photograph sunset in the hills above Scottsdale, and noticed my card was nearly full.  I did a quick look – perfect, these have been downloaded and backed up, so I formatted my card and began shooting.  It wasn’t until I got back to camp that I remembered that I had photographed Scottsdale and the McCormick Ranch the night before and hadn’t backed up or downloaded those images – I just wiped out that evenings work!

I couldn’t believe it – I’m always so careful.  I told Janine that if we ever get any requests for photos of McCormick Ranch, don’t tell me!  I didn’t lose anything that was going to win awards or solve world peace, but it is still a bummer to lose a nights work.

So I decided to see if I could rescue the images – even though the card was formatted, as long as the new images weren’t written over the old, I thought there might be a chance, and I had nothing to lose.  I downloaded a recovery program, and didn’t have any luck.  I then thought of Photo Rescue.  I noticed that I could download a free version that would search your card and tell what it found before you actually had to buy the program – so I would know if it could work before parting with the cash.  Well, sure enough, I believe it found every photo from that night!  I couldn’t believe it, and happily paid the $29 for the actual program.  It successfully recovered every image.

The ironic thing is that this same SanDisk Extreme card came with Photo Rescue on it for free, so I’m sure I had a copy at home – this is just another reason to use  SanDisk Extreme cards.  In the future I will make sure I have that program on my laptop when I travel.

So if you ever unintentionally delete, format, or just have a card go bad, don’t give up until you try Photo Rescue!

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McDowell Sonoran Preserve, Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Brittlebush is finally coming into bloom!  The mountains are sure green for the desert, hard to believe this is a desert.

The residents of Scottsdale have voted a number of times to increase their sales tax rate in order to raise money for the purchase of  private land in the mountains near town, thus forming the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.  It is a wonderful Preserve – beautiful scenery and wonderful trails.  When we weren’t mountain biking for exercise, we would come to this area for a trail run.  Thanks Scottsdale!

We are moving on for a brief visit to Tucson before heading back to Alaska.  It was a bit tough leaving Fort McDowell.  We had the best campsite tucked way off in the corner with no one around.  We over looked the Verde River and could see an active bald eagle nest – it was a great, quiet little location.  We received nearly daily visits from a road runner pair, some baby rabbits, flickers and a wide variety of birds.  We even had a brief visit from javalina.

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The light rail Valley Metro and Phoenix Convention Center North, Downtown Phoenix, Arizona

This photo epitomizes one of the reason we returned to Phoenix.  Two years ago, the downtown streets were completely torn up due to the construction of the Valley Metro light rail project, and this block was giant construction project as they were hard at work on this brand new convention center.  The downtown area is much nicer now that these big projects are completed.

As a side note, I found it difficult to capture a photo of the Valley Metro without an accompanying automobile even on the weekend.  It didn’t take me long to realize that the train appeared to control the signals at all but a couple of the busiest intersections, and I’m sure it didn’t take drivers long to figure that out either.  So a car that mirrored the speed of the train could be assured of hitting most signals during a green light.  The few lights it didn’t seem to control were major arteries running perpendicular to the rail and I assumed must be timed signals for traffic flow.  How is that for more then you ever wanted to know about downtown Phoenix traffic!

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Flowers along Highway 60 near Superior, Arizona.

I have linked here to Carol Leigh California Wildflower Hotsheet a number of times over the years and have always found the hot-sheet and her forum to be an extremely valuable resource.  Yesterday it was brought to my attention that Carol stopped maintaining the hot sheet, a decision that may become permanent.   She writes:

Right now I cannot in good conscience continue to distribute “where-to-go” wildflower information. Private property is being destroyed. Flowers are being trampled. Rude and inconsiderate behavior abounds.

I don’t know Carol, but it is clear she has a real love and passion for wildflowers.  Although I will miss her updates, I respect her decision to put the wildflowers first.  But it does raise a larger question;  how much should we share, and as photographers, are we helping to destroy  special places by publicizing them?

I have had this discussion with many photographers over the years, and have some photographer friends who keep everything close to the proverbial  (photo) vest, and others who share most anything.  I personally tend to share far more then most, and I think it is a big reason why my photo blog has become popular.  Not just locations, but techniques and most anything I know.  There are topics in which I have drawn a distinct line, the main one that comes to mind is the location of winter animal sightings for animals like lynx – because I know a trappers love of animals directly competes with my own.

But in recent years I have decided to keep some physical locations private.  This amazing spot in Valley of the Fire is one that immediately comes to mind.  I would like to say I have some noble motivation to keep the location secret to help protect it, but frankly, often motivation is largely selfish.  I like the idea of having an amazing location all to myself.  To have a spot like that crawling with people, muting the colors with their footsteps would “ruin” it a bit for me, and could ruin it for generations to come.

But there is more to my motivation.  I like to think of myself as a photographer, and tend to avoid the label businessman, but truth be told I am in business and this is our sole source of income, and frankly the fewer people who have photographs of an area I have found,  the better it is for me.  Certainly Ford would never share a discovery with Chevy, and no one would expect them to, but the same expectation isn’t always applied to photographers.  I have been surprised at the questions other photographers have asked me over the years, and disappointed in how few take the time to email a quick “thanks” in response – more often then not I end up asking myself why did I just share that information?

I know there isn’t a right or wrong answer, and my opinion will likely continue to ebb and flow over the years, but I’m interested in how much others are willing to share and why?

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Bartlett Lake, Tonto National Forest near Phoenix, Arizona.

Bartlett Lake has some of the best wildflowers of any place we have visited so far this spring.

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Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

This was a cloudy evening late last week – I thought chances were good for a sunset, but it didn’t happen.   I intend to explore this area some more this week – I love the rocks!

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Mountains along the Apache Trail, East of Phoenix, Arizona.

Yesterday, photo blog reader Joni reiterated a prior recommendation for the Apache Trail – I figured I better heed her advice, so we drove out that way yesterday evening.  I wasn’t disappointed!  It is a beautiful area.  I’m looking forward to returning and driving a bit further, we didn’t make it too far past Tortilla Flat.  There are a few places with nice flowers, and lots of places that are very green!  I think the wildflowers should start looking nice in about a week.

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Tonto National Forest, outside of Phoenix, Arizona.

Wildflowers are beginning to come along nicely around Phoenix, there are even some nice patches of poppies and lupine to be found – not the widespread fields yet, but it is looking promising!

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Pink-Flower Hedgehog Cactus, McDowell Sonoran Preserve, Scottsdale, Arizona.

During my photo workshops a few weeks ago I was reminded just how rich and colorful the desert looks during a rain storm.  So yesterday morning as I heard the rain pouring down – I couldn’t wait to get out with my camera.  I had my eye on a stunning Graham’s Nipple Cactus bloom that I spotted while running the day before, but evidently they don’t open on cloudy days.  So I had to “settle” for this Hedgehog cactus.

I find it fascinating that such a sharp, potentially painful plant can produce such a beautiful bloom!

Speaking of my workshop – as much fun as I had hosting them, I think the follow up emails and photo attachments from the participants may have been even more rewarding!

Most participants don’t have websites that I’m aware of, but a couple do and I would like to share them here.

First is Samatha – on this website of Samatha’s photos she writes about the workshop, some of the things we talked about and places we visited during the second weekend – it was a fun to relive the weekend through her images.

Greg Lato posted a couple photos of our group during the first weekend on his photo blog.  And be sure to check out his photo from Anza-Borrego.  It is fun to see the different interpretations of the the same area.

I have more photo tours coming up including one where we will be up close to grizzly bears all day!

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