Wildflowers at sunset in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, California. This is a few miles East of Borrego Springs on Highway S22.
For this photo, I used a 3 stop hard-edge graduated neutral density filter on a Canon tilt / shift lens.
Desert Sand Verbena, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
The weather has warmed up here into the low 80’s this week. We had rain in 3 of our first 8 days here, and now the warm weather seems to have jumped started the wildflowers, they are suddenly showing in many more places now. I think the next week or two should be pretty good.
Pumpkin Patch, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
This is such an interesting, almost lunar like place. I waited until after sunset and the lite the pumpkins with a flash light during a 30 second exposure. I have wanted to try this technique at this location for some time - it just seemed appropriate for some reason.
I stumbled upon this guy on my way to photograph sunset, look at the size of that camera! It captures a 20 x 24 inch image.
I was in a hurry, and I didn’t want to pester the guy as he set up, but I had to ask a few questions. (more…)
Costa’s Hummingbird Nest.
I thought I would stick with the bird theme. This hummingbird is tiny! According to Sibley, it is one of our smallest birds - it weighs in at 3.5 grams. I shot this right at sunrise with a 600, plus 2x converter, plus extension tubes and still couldn’t fill the frame.
You can see this little gal right outside the Anza-Borrego Visitor Center. Employees roped off the area surrounding the nest after a dog started sniffing near the nest; that does make finding the bush with the nest a lot easier, look for the barriers.
Anna’s Hummingbird Nest.
I found this nest a few days ago. I must admit, I couldn’t help but think of her during the night as the wind blew and the rain came down. I can’t imaging how much the branches most have been moving around as she sat there keeping the two little jellybean sized eggs warm.
They have a fourteen day incubation period, I look forward to seeing the chicks.
Another Barrel Cactus from sunrise Saturday morning.
It was actually raining fairly hard when I took this photo of barrel cactus in Anza-Borrego - I think the moisture helped with the saturation. I plan on returning to this spot again in the weeks to come, I would love to catch it at sunrise, with blooms etc. Captured with a Canon tilt / shift lens.
Palm Canyon, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
We have hiked around in this wonderful canyon two days in a row - there are endless photo opportunities. The palms have all kinds of cool patterns, but in addition to the palms, you can’t beat all the water flowing through the area right now. There are a bunch of waterfalls just like this one - they seem so out of place in this desert environment. There are also numerous Brittlelbush and other flowers just waiting to bloom - I think there could be further opportunities in this scenic canyon in a week or so when the flowers bloom.
Unlike last year at this time, we haven’t seen any sheep in the canyon. Rangers say they were seeing them regularly up until about a week ago.
Update on Friday 9:00 a.m. PST: It has been raining most of the night, and continues to come down right now - this is the second good soaking this area has received in the past week. This should do nothing but help the wildflowers!
Thick clouds yesterday morning gave me hope for a dramatic sunrise sky, or at least some dramatic light. I sat in the dark trying to make out Mark and Brian through the static on the radio and waited, but the great light never developed. The cool, dark light did seem appropriate for this Agave which I did photograph.
That’s ok, because I had planned for days for last nights eclipse. I scouted many places - my first choice was the Pumpkin Patch with the pumpkins lite by flash light - that seemed cool, almost lunar like. I had the time and direction recorded thanks to my GPS and a compass. I had even tracked the moon arch through my view finder to see what focal length I would need to capture multiple exposures during the entire eclipse (35mm by the way). But, unfortunately this evening brought wind and blowing sand, clouds and even a little rain.
It seems like most extended trips are that way. I will scratch and claw for a few images, and then all of a sudden a day will come along where everything comes together and I get a bunch of images. I guess the old 80/20 rule holds true even for photography.
Desert Lily, Anza Borrego Desert State Park, California.
One of the better areas right now is along Henderson Canyon Road. The Desert Lily is a beautiful flower with almost a prehistoric look to it. Along with the pink Desert Sand Verbena seen here, there was also plenty of Dune Evening Primrose. Numerous Lupine and other Desert Lily were just starting to sprout and should be blooming in this area in the weeks to come.
Maidenhair Falls, Hellhole Canyon Trail, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
More water than this pours off our roof on a typical summer day in Alaska, but to see a little waterfall like this in this desert environment is really a treat! It just seems so out of place, it is fascinating.
This waterfall is found at the end of the Hellhole Canyon Trail. This trail begins (more…)
Desert Canterbury Bell wildflowers, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
I found these next to some nice rocks today in Hellhole Canyon. A few clouds provided some perfect defused light.
Cactus from today in Anza-Borrego State Park, California.
After spending many months in a black and white world - winter in Alaska - seeing anything green just look amazing!
Speaking of green, many area of Anza-Borrego are really green right now - and they received another half an inch of rain here just yesterday! Even before yesterday’s rain, this was reported in the Borrego Sun;
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Ranger Steve Bier reported the area is “certainly looking good” for a spring wildflower crop, he said predicting it could arrive as early as late February. Some plants in Borrego Palm Canyon, he said are just “waiting to go”.
I must admit, we are here a bit early, I saw very few flowers today - but you can tell there should be some great areas showing in the next few weeks!
I had always heard that best way to bring attention to a blog is to write something controversial. Little did I know, my decisions to replace my digital darkroom with a PC instead of a Mac might be controversial, but 24 comments and a bunch of links later, it was by far my most active posting. There actually was a lot of valuable feedback in that post from many people and I really appreciate it.
So now that I have used my new Falcon Northwest digital darkroom for a few weeks, I thought I better provide an update to that threaed. And since I’m sitting on a plane – what a perfect time to write! (more…)
Imperial Sand Dunes, California.
In a couple weeks, we will be hitting the desert area for a couple of months, and wildflower conditions are sounding better and better thanks to another large storm. It may not be a huge bloom, but it should definitely be at least average, and probably above average - a big improvement over the last 2 years! (more…)
Carrizo Badlands Overlook in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
Well now I’m officially excited about the wildflower prospects for this year! Anza-Borrego just received another .4 inches of rain in the last few days to go with the .88 earlier this year, and the person I just talked to at the visitor center said more could still fall today. It may not be a huge year like 2005, but unlike the past two years, there should be at least some wildflower activity. I could tell the ranger was excited even though she did say there are no guarantees. Some of the other southwest desert areas sound even more promising. (more…)
I recently discovered a wonderful new Photoshop tool - the use of saturation masks. This is somewhat of an advanced tool - if you don’t use layers and masks in Photoshop (you should), this won’t make much sense, but I do believe many subscribers here may find it useful. (more…)
A bumble bee view of a California Poppy at the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, Mojave Desert, California.
This fun technique is one I would like to play around with some more this winter. What I do is put my smallest extension tube on a wide angle lens. This now gives me the ability to focus very close. I basically have the lens sitting in the flower, and I’m able to focus on portions of the flower that are a mere fraction of an inch from the front of the lens. With certain wide angle lenses, I can actually focus on the front of the lens. (more…)
Death Valley National Park, California.
Well continuing with the desert wildflower theme, here is a photo of Death Valley from the amazing winter of 2005. Hard to imagine Death Valley with huge meadows of wildflowers, but this is what it was like that year. Here are more Death Valley Photos.
