Desert Sunflowers or Desert Gold, along Henderson Canyon Road, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California. This is looking up toward Coyote Canyon at sunset.
In 2005, when I heard about the amazing desert bloom, I quickly caught a flight from Alaska and lived out of a rental car for 6 weeks as I traveled around the and photographed the Desert Southwest. The one place I was sorry to have missed seeing were the fields of Desert Sunflowers on Henderson Canyon Road – By the time I got down here in February, a rainstorm had pretty much wiped them out.
So when we arrived in Borrego 3 weeks ago, this was the first place I went. But 3 weeks ago, there wasn’t a single flower in this field, it was all green. It really has undergone an amazing transformation in the past couple of weeks, mostly in just the past week.
The best news; most of the plants have one, maybe two blooms, and about five buds ready to bloom, so I think it is going to get even better in the days to come!
It is interesting how the timing of the bloom varies from year to year. In 2005, this area was wonderful during the first couple of weeks of February, this year it will be an entire month later.
Comments 6
I didn’t noticed any desert lillies this weekend, but yeah I do agree about Henderson Canyon being the most impressive. the end of DiGiorno Road is the other spot I found good stuff.
Author
Andre J, new name Richard?
I’m going back to the end of DiGiorno in the morning, things are changing fast is seems.
Oops, wrong pseudonym! 🙂
DiGiorno was also a hotspot back in 05. It was wet that day though so it interesting trying to get in there w/ 2WD.
Hey Ron,
Sounds like you’re having a whale of a trip man, good for you guys.
I’m curious how many photos you’ll end up with from say, this spot right here. A vertical, a horizontal, a wider, a tighter, maybe? After you get home and all edited, how many images of this particular scene do you think you’ll keep the RAW files of?
Thanks man.
Cheers
Carl
Author
Hey Carl,
Yeah it has been a great trip!
You know from this spot I will keep a horizontal and vertical. I have some tighter versions without sky, and will keep a horizontal and vertical of that as well, along with a vertical with a lot of sky.
I also shot this scene with a nice strip of pink flowers at the bottom of the frame, I will keep a horizontal and vertical of those.
And finally, there were a lot of people in the fields and I have a few shots that include them – I will keep all of those.
So I would say I will keep 15 or so raws, and one or two might get converted for the website.
I shot this same scene last week, and now it is much better. If it keeps getting better – I will probably re-shoot it again, and never use any of these. 🙂
Hey Ron,
Thanks a lot for that, man. I appreciate the detailed reply.
Cheers
Carl