Category Archives: About the Photos

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What’s Blooming Now

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A walk in the garden with a camera.

As summer approaches and the little moisture we got during this winter’s rainshowers completely dries up, the native desert plants go about their late spring business. A walk around my yard with my camera yielded these photographs of what’s blooming now.

First up, some prickly pear cactus flowers. This is an Engelmann’s Prickly Pear in our backyard, which displays yellow flowers each spring. These are the same cacti we harvest for young prickly pear pads this time of year. They’re great on the grill.

We also have a purple prickly pear cacti in the side yard. Its flowers are similar, but generally brighter in color — almost neon, in fact.

I’m not sure of the identity of this one. It’s a wildflower that’s growing alongside our driveway and in various other parts of the unlandscaped portion of our property. I believe that it’s a paperflower, but I could be wrong. (If anyone knows for sure, use the Comments link or form for this article to let us know.)

This desert willow took root in our side yard some years ago and grew like a weed. As you can see, it gets very dramatic pink flowers — the entire tree is covered with them right now. It flowers twice a year and makes long seed pods filled with hundreds of seeds. The tree loses all of its leaves in the coldest winter months and is pretty messy, so a lot of people avoid them. Me, I wish my yard was full of them.

Palo verde is also blooming throughout Wickenburg right now. (It bloomed at lower elevations 2 to 4 weeks ago.)

For another look at the palo verde in bloom, check out this photo I took of the high school last week. All the yellow you see in the trees are palo verde flowers. Nice, huh?

More Than Just Business

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Some photos from a business trip.

As I type this, I’m sitting at Gate A6 at Burbank Airport. I just finished up a five-day business trip in Ventura, CA, where I worked with a new client. It was a very satisfactory week, primarily because the client picked up all of my expenses and they put me up in a very nice room on Ventura Harbor.

Yes, it was a Holiday Inn Express. But it was also one of the nicest hotel rooms I’ve stayed in for a long time. My first floor room may have lacked a patio, but it had vaulted ceilings and floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the harbor. This, in fact, was my view:

That shot’s only slightly zoomed in. The boats were so close that, if my window opened a bit wider, I could have lobbed bars of soap at them.

Let me just say a few more things about this most excellent room. It was quiet — no sound from next door, no sound from the hall, no sound from outside — even with the window open! It included a nice sized fridge, two burner stove, microwave, sink, and various pots, pans, plates, and utensils. In other words, I could have prepared my own meals. The bathroom was huge and included a glass-enclosed shower stall, deep jacuzzi tub, and vanity with stool. The main room had a comfortable king-sized bed, sofa, desk, and round table with two chairs right in the prow window. Not only was it bigger than my first apartment, but it was a heck of a lot better equipped. Although I didn’t spend much time there, it was nice to come “home” to such a nice place after a long day at work.

On Tuesday, after work, I walked to the ocean from my room. I figure it was about a mile each way, walking along the south side of the harbor. I took some photos.

Here’s a flower right outside my hotel. I don’t know what it is, but it was beautiful. And my CoolPix’s macro mode did a nice job of capturing it, even in questionable light.

Near the end of the harbor was an arcade with a tiny carousel inside. I took a few shots of the ride in motion, but I like this shot, which I took after the kids had climbed off, the best:

After dinner at Andria’s, I walked back the same way I’d come. I caught sight of what I think is a Great Blue Heron just moments after it plucked a fish out of the water. I got this slightly blurred shot of the bird with the fish in its mouth:

Last night, I could see a great sunset from my window. I went out in my slippers for a better angle and got this shot:

I had a surprisingly good time in Ventura. It’s a nice little town with lots of great dining opportunities. I ate as I always do when I’m away from Wickenburg: as if I haven’t eaten a good meal in years. Next week, it’s back to my diet.

Aerial Photos from Our Las Vegas Flight

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Better late than never.

Back in the beginning of March, while my mother-in-law was visiting us from New York, I flew the three of us from Wickenburg to Las Vegas by helicopter.

I chose my favorite route for that flight: straight to Lake Havasu City and up the Colorado River all the way to Lake Mead, then west to McCarran Airport. The flight went well, but strong headwinds turned what should have been a 1.8 hour flight into a 2.5 hour flight. (It also made the flight a bit rough in some places.) Mike, sitting in the back, had my old PowerShot camera. Here are a few of the photos he took along the way. I chose the ones where you can see details within the cockpit to put the scenes in perspective. It’s also kind of cool (at least to me) to see the instruments and gauges in the panel.

Here’s Lake Havasu City. That’s London Bridge below us — the real thing, brought over from England in the 1970s. I always start my upriver flights with an overflight of the bridge.

Much farther up the river, we reached Hoover Dam and the bypass bridge, which is still under construction. Hoover Dam, in case you don’t know, holds in Lake Mead. The white line right above water level is about 60 feet tall and marks the high water line. (The water level is way down.) We would have gotten some better photos of the dam and bridge if the area weren’t so darn congested. There was a tour helicopter high over the dam and a pair of military helicopters that would be cutting right between us, less than 500 feet over my head. I didn’t waste much time there.

After crossing the southwest corner of Lake Mead, I headed west toward the city. Here’s a shot as we were getting ready to cross Lake Las Vegas. If you’ve got sharp eyes (or the full-sized photo) you can see the Las Vegas skyline on the horizon on the right side of the photo.

Air Traffic Control at McCarran instructed me to fly toward the Stratosphere when I was still 15 miles out. I wound up flying just south of it — my altitude was below the glassed-in restaurant/ amusement level of the tower. (At the time, I recall wondering what people looking out at us must have been thinking.) I’m particularly fond of this shot because it’s so damn surreal.

We made our approach to McCarran flying down I-15, then descending between Luxor and Mandalay Bay to land on the ramp. I have video of it from my POV.1, but I don’t think it’s all that good. I’ll have to do it again one of these days with the camera mounted in its new position. (More on that another time.)

April Flowers

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Experimenting with a new camera.

I like to keep a camera in my purse. You never know when a photo opportunity might crop up. While some people would be perfectly satisfied using the camera on their phone, I’m a bit picky. So when my 7.1 megapixel Canon PowerShot became unreliable earlier this month, I replaced it with a 10 megapixel Nikon CoolPix.

[A side note here: I cannot believe how advanced and inexpensive digital cameras have become. This was the least expensive of all the digital cameras I’ve purchased, yet it has more capabilities than all of them except my Nikon D80 digital SLR. And the pictures speak for themselves.]

I took the camera along on my afternoon chores at the horse corral and snapped a few photos of what’s currently in bloom around my yard. It’s been warm out during the day — in the 80s — and although there was some rain to the north of Wickenburg today, it remains dry here. Still, there are more wildflowers this year than I’ve seen in a few years.

A close-up shot of some desert marigolds, including a flower bud. Unfortunately, the guy who takes care of our yard pulls these out as weeds.

Globe mallow. (Remember, I’m still playing with my camera, so I’m experimenting a bit more than usual.)

Brittlebush. These took seed in our yard, grew into bushes, and flower every year.

Aerial Photos from Quartzsite

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Just a few shots taken by a French photographer.

Back in January, I wrote a blog post called “Over Quartzsite.” In it, I told the story of a photo shoot over Quartzsite, AZ.

The post was remarkable in that it got a comment from someone who had heard about my overflight from one of the folks on the ground that day. It’s always rewarding when I write about one of my experiences and someone who was there from a different point of view comments on it.

Anyway, I didn’t hear anything from the photographer after the flight. Until today. He e-mailed me:

My story about QZ was published last week in France, six pages in a weekly.

I attached few of the aerial shots. Photos 1 & 2 were published.

For your private record you can post it but don’t give them away.

Also, I did again overnight park my camper outside a motel.
On Superbowl Sunday, I drove to Blythe and book a room to watch the game.

Good flights in your lovely state.

Attached to the message were five images that he took that day.

I asked his permission to reproduce low-res versions of the images here. He graciously said yes. If you read French, you can find his article at http://www.vsd.fr/contenu-editorial/photo-story/l-oeil-de-vsd/
58-arizona-les-papys-font-de-la-transhumance. All of the aerial photos were taken from my helicopter.

Here are the three I like best.

Quartzsite FisheyeThis photo shows a super wide angle view of Quartzsite from the south, right around sunset. No, we weren’t high enough to see the curvature of the earth — that’s the effect of the photographer’s wide-angle lens. (Apparently, I’m not the only one who likes fisheye lenses.) In the foreground is the big tent for the RV show. This is the biggest week in Quartzsite. This, by the way, is what he refers to as Photo 2. I think it’s the best of the bunch.

Quartzsite from the AirThis shot was taken from the east side of town looking west, not long before sunset. The main road you see is I-10; it’s in the other shot, too. All those white specks are RVs — people dry camping out in the desert on BLM land.

Circle the Wagons!I love this shot. It shows a typical area of RV campers. Makes you think of old westerns, doesn’t it? Circle the wagons, boys! We must have spent 20 minutes circling this huge parking lot — I think he took dozens of photos. I think I like this shot because it makes you feel as if the same pattern of circled RVs exists infinitely in this area.