Free Association in the Chiricahuas

Hiking in the Chiricahua Mountains can be magical experience, a time to unwind, a time to think, and most importantly a time to free associate.  Frequently while hiking I will look at a scene and see a possible photographic opportunity something that might make an interesting image.  Frequently at the same time a description or image title also pops into my mind.  It often is completely unrelated to the physicality of the scene and sometimes takes some thought before I understand all the details of the scene that prompted the free association description or title.

Yesterday while hiking with guests from All-Star Telescope I came across one of those scenes in Cave Creek Canyon which was accompanied, mentally, by a title and description.  I grabbed some images and then moved on.  It was only when I got home and reviewed the images that I was able to comprehend the complete picture and understood the scene I had captured.  We had been discussing the floods in the canyon as a result of hurricane Odile from several years back and this discussion must have been percolating around, bouncing between neurons, when I saw this old log sitting out in the forest.  The shot below entitle "The Perfect Wave" is the result of a found object (the old log) and discussions about flooding mixing around in my head.  Note the curl of the wave as well as the splash (the green stems) in the foreground and compare with the ocean images below it.  It us strange how the mind works and even stranger how we respond.

The search for the perfect wave.

Catching a wave from Wikipedia

A curl from PublicDomainPictures.net

I've included a couple of other shots of the log from different angles just to show the complete picture.

A view the other direction.

Some interesting textured knobs (burls) on the old log.

Puddles of Pink and Other Stuff

Below is a nice sunrise through the Antelope Pass in the Peloncillo mountains of southern New Mexico.  Pink puddles of light illuminate the edges of cumulus clouds at dawn. Closing in on the end of a 30 hr work day, I saw this as the sun was beginning to rise.  It is followed by a view of the front garden where selective colors were desaturated to create a Black & White background with the blooming Crepe Myrtle in the foreground.  I find this image pleasing as a result of the difference in contrast afforded by the partial desaturation.

Little puddles of pink at sunrise.

Crepe Myrtle in color with Black and White mountains.

Addendum:
Here is one more selectively desaturated image, this time reversed with B&W predominating the image.

Selective desaturation of clouds over the Peloncillo mountains

Portal Rodeo is a Big Place

Many visitors to the twin cities of Portal Rodeo are surprised at the scale of the area, things that look close are really much larger and miles away.  The landscape is large and snapshots rarely do it justice.  Zooming in to get a particular aspect of the view always excludes the surrounding landscape and the final image seems lacking.  To compensate multiple images are usually collected and stitched together not only to highlight a particular aspect of the landscape but capture some of the surroundings as well to provide context.  Below is a sunrise image of a short lived rainbow that appeared just at sunrise over the flanks of the Chiricahua Mountains.  To completely capture the rainbow as well as its' context, 2 snapshots were taken and stitched together to create the final image making for a much more interesting scene.

A sunrise rainbow in the Chiricahua Mountains