I returned home this weekend from two weeks of photographing in the
incredible desert surrounding Tucson, Arizona. I had planned to spend
those two weeks shooting wildflowers in the Texas Hill Country, but
when reports started coming in saying that it wasn't going to be a
great year for wildflowers, I made a last minute switch to Tucson--and
I'm so glad I did.
The weather in Tucson was incredible; it was in the mid-80's and
brilliantly sunny the entire two weeks. The most exciting part though was
that the desert was in full bloom and I've never been to southern
Arizona in April before, so I've never seen just how beautiful the desert can be when it's awash with colorful plants. Many different types of cactus including prickly pear, barrell cactus (which had just passed it's peak) and several varieties of chollo were all in bloom. Also, while the saguaro don't really start to bloom until May, we did see many buds forming and even saw a few open blossoms.
One of our favorite desert plants though turned out to be the tall and very showy ocotillo plants. These plants (see photo) grow in clusters of tall whips (some as high as 20-feet--one of the nicknames for the plant is "coachwhip") that lie dormant most of the year and then burst into flower after the rains. The tips of the ocotillo are flame red and they are everywhere in the deserts surrounding Tucson. Photographing the ocotillo against a radiant blue Arizona sky sets the colors off nicely and I didn't have to resort to using a polarizing filter to zap the colors (though I did use one on occasion). The toughest problem in shooting them was just waiting for the wind (we had a couple of very gusty days) to subside so that the plants weren't swaying.
April, it seems, is a fantastic time to be in the Sonoran desert and I'm already making plans to return there next spring for an extended shooting trip. I'll post a lot more about the trip and my photos as I process them. Oh! Speaking of processing, I shot a ton of RAW-format images on this trip, so I'll talk more about that, too.
