Category: thoughts

’31 palo verdes’ – day 9

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young palo verde tree in the colorado desert of southern california
palo verde no. 9 – young palo verde, colorado desert, california | 5.9.26

Palo verdes are an interesting tree. They tend to grow in an endless variety of shapes and can have some incredible sculptural qualities. But they’re not all like that.

I need to curb my tendency to overdramatize them. True, a mature palo verde sculpture silhouetted against the rising sun can be magnificently dramatic, and I will of course do some of them. They can also be quite nondescript, even scrawny. To give a true picture of palo verdes I need to show some of those too as I continue this series. And I will. It isn ‘t about how I can make them look. It’s about how they actually do look.

I need to keep in mind that I’m not the point of this series. Palo verdes are.

a new series

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On May 1 I’m going to try something a little different, at least different for me. I’m going to post a month long series – ’31 Palo Verdes’.

I’ll do a new photo of a palo verde tree every day for the month of May, all taken here in the southern side of Joshua Tree National Park and the surrounding desert. My thought is to post one every morning, and it will have been taken that same morning, weather permitting. Sometimes I can’t get out due to the weather so it might not happen that way. If so I will have a few in reserve to choose from – the only rule will be that it has to be taken during May. It will all be new.

These will be done in snapshot format – square, black and white, with a snapshot border and a month/year date stamp like I’ve been doing.

So. It starts this coming Friday. Stay tuned. Who knows? It might even be interesting.

Cheers

cholla and morning sun

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teddy bear cholla along southern boundary of joshua tree national park
cholla and morning sun – joshua tree national park wilderness | 4.13.26

When you think of Joshua Tree National Park you naturally think of joshua trees and rock formations and rock climbing. That’s what the park is known for.

Joshua Tree sits on the transition zone of two deserts. The north side, the more well known side with the rocks and joshua trees is in the Mojave Desert. The south side is in the Colorado Desert, a sub-desert of the Sonoran. It’s an area of chollas and ocotillos and canyons and rocky mountain slopes. There are no joshua trees in the southern half.

The south side of Joshua Tree National Park, though not unknown, isn’t as well traveled as the north side. Other than the highway through the park there are few roads there. It’s largely wilderness and hiking trails. I live along the southern boundary of the park. I can step out my door and walk right in. It’s where I wander and take pictures most every day.

sunrise, sunset

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You know, when you scroll through desert images in Google, or any other browser for that matter, you’ll see an endless stream of super-saturated sunrises and sunsets. Thousands of them, all pretty much the same. The same is true for many photographers websites. Sure, sunsets like that happen. Not as saturated and spectacular as most of those photos suggest, but they happen. But not all that often. Much of what passes for desert photography is misleading.

I’ve managed this small campground on the southern boundary of Joshua Tree National Park for ten years now, and I’ve heard it hundreds of times. People come in to camp for a day or two and say they can’t wait to see one of those magnificent sunsets. I tell them it’s not likely though it should be a beautiful evening anyway, but expectations are high. Sometimes they leave disappointed. Now and then someone even feels cheated as if they’re owed a mind-blowing show. I sometimes think if they had to pay to camp here some would demand their money back.

The desert is an incredible place, but the reality of it is far different from the preconceived notions and expectations many come here with, and I think much of the desert photography that floods the internet has a lot to do with those misconceptions.

in praise of the snapshot

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black and white photograph of an ocotillo in the colorado desert of southern california
long tall ocotillo at sunrise – colorado desert, california | 4.11.26

“I am a passionate lover of the snapshot, because of all photographic images it comes closest to truth.”

Lisette Model

That may be a bit of a stretch, but then again… there is more than a little truth to that. There is no pretense, no theatrics, no attempt to be ‘arty’ in simple snapshots. They’re real and honest. There can be more art in that than in all the attempts to grab a viewer by the eyeballs.

I’ll play around with different things once in awhile like double exposures, adding a vintage look and the like, and sometimes they work, but mostly I just adjust the tones and contrast a bit (I use Snapseed if you care), maybe add a little grain, and slap a border and date on it and call it good. If I have to spend more than two or three minutes on a picture I figure it didn’t work and I shitcan it. I have others to choose from.

The desert, and any place else for that matter, speaks for itself, and doesn’t need theatrics or dramatic color or anything else. The art, if you want to call it that, is in how you see your world and how you choose to fit what you see into a rectangle or square. Anything more than that can be like putting legs on a snake.

fallen ocotillo and lupine

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joshua tree np wilderness | 3.4.26

Now that I’ve discovered how to get color that looks real to me I’m having so much fun with it that I haven’t been doing much b/w. It reminds me of years ago, a long time gone, when I’d talk my dad into buying me a roll of 127 Kodacolor for my Brownie Starflex instead of Verichrome Pan b/w, and just go out and shoot it up without any thought about whether it was any good or not. It was just fun. Snapshooting at it’s best.