South Mountain Coyote
Since I acquired a long lens a while ago I started a project to capture images of wildlife at South Mountain Park. The landscape of South Mountain is a bit sparse, but there’s a surprising amount of wildlife to see even if it does stay hidden most of the time. Coyotes, cottontails, and quail are common, but there’s also javelina, roadrunners, jackrabbits, ground squirrels, and a wide variety of birds to be found.
This image is one of my favorite shots of a coyote so far. I was up on a ridge when I saw coyotes down below, all converging on the same point. As they gathered, they appeared to be playing with each other much like dogs do. After a few minutes the playing stopped, and they started moving out. I guessed they’d cross the bottom of the ridge and headed down so I could get closer (but still a good distance away). Sure enough, one by one the pack came over the ridge, passed through a wash, and then disappeared into the desert. Except this one. This one stopped at the crest of the ridge and watched the others go. When they were all gone, it turned around and slipped back over the ridge, returning from where it came.
Lake Crescent
I remember when I first saw Lake Crescent. It was the end of a long day hiking the High Divide Loop and the end of a week exploring the Olympic Peninsula. I had started my explorations in the south and worked my way clockwise around the Peninsula, with this final drive taking me back to Seattle. I had no idea what lay ahead of me, and when the lake came into view, I thought it was one of the most spectacular sights of the trip.
Unfortunately, I had a long road ahead of me with no time to stop and admire the views. I enjoyed the scenery as best as I could from the driver’s seat. The fleeting glimpses through the trees, brief vistas vanishing as quickly as they came, and dim views in the gathering darkness likely contributed to the strong impression the lake made on me. The long summer evening faded into night as I slowly made my way around the sound, and I wondered at what I had seen.
Over the years I made plans to return, but one way or another nothing came of them. But finally, 14 years later, I made it back to the area and made sure there was time for exploring. My memory was not disappointed.
This picture, with the tree framing the distant shore, is an homage of sorts to my original experience viewing the lake. The trees obscure, but cannot hide, the grandeur of the lake. They beckon you to come closer and take a better look, until you find yourself standing on the shore, waves lapping at your feet.
Winter 2022
It was a good winter for Arizona, unexpectedly so. A casual observation of the seasonal forecasts at the start indicated we were going to be in for a warmer, drier winter. It seems for a while now that warm, dry winters are the rule rather than the exception, so this news was received with a bit of resignation. I figured we’d have to content ourselves with the wet summer and once again hope the fire season won’t be bad. Fortunately, the forecasts proved to be wrong. As of writing this the Salt and Verde reservoirs are full, and flows are still strong. The Salt River has actually been flowing significantly through Phoenix for the first time in a long time.
Winter has since passed us by, and spring, too. It’s that time of the year when the nights are pleasantly cool and the afternoon temperatures warm enough to lull you into a springtime nap. Soon enough the full heat of summer will be here, and we’ll look back fondly on the snowscapes of the previous winter.
I took this picture along Horton Creek after one of the many snowstorms early in the season. The creek was flowing heavy with snowmelt and the banks on either side had plenty of ice and snow. I like the simple lines and colors of this composition. The sunlight sparkled off the icy crust adding interesting highlights and the rolling surface provided some depth to the image.
Mogollon Fall Color
Typically, when fall comes to Arizona it does so incrementally, slowly working its way south from north and down from the high country to the lower deserts. There is variability year to year when the leaves start to change color and how long they last but fall inevitably comes.
Despite this regularity, I often find myself unprepared for those weekends when I do have time to go out and chase some fall color. By the time cooler weather sweeps the desert floors reminding me of the change in seasons the trees of the high country stand stark and bare, their bounty of color fading to brown on the forest floor. For 2022 I decided to be better prepared and scout out opportunities ahead of time, looking for new places to go. Oak Creek Canyon and Mt Humphreys are fantastic places for fall color if you don’t mind the crowds, but I was seeking the secluded and unexplored.
So, I spent a little time ahead of the change in season driving the forest roads of the Mogollon Rim, scouting out places to camp and hiking out into the woods looking for stands of trees that would make for good compositions. I also kept better records this time, marking locations that held promise as well as those that wouldn’t work.
I returned to one of those sites on a cold, cloudy morning that hinted of rain to come. For most of the day the rain never amounted to more than a intermittent drizzle, but there was enough to collect as beads of water on the leaves. My attention was drawn to the kaleidoscope of leaves on the forest floor, some freshly fallen and still bright with color. The sun occasionally slipped through the clouds, sending pools of light meandering across the ground, slowly fading into and out of the shadows. The light would sometimes linger in a spot, highlighting a freshly fallen leaf. The scene was fleeting, but I was able to capture the image posted here. My timing was a bit slow, however, and the light was fading when I took this shot, so I added a vignette in post processing to better convey what the scene was like.
Eventually the clouds grew heavier, the temperature dropped, and the rain began in earnest. I returned to my vehicle, reluctant to leave fall behind but content with my efforts for the day.
North Rim Milky Way
Summer has come and gone and we're well into winter. So this post is a bit delayed but I wanted to get it up as I'm planning for the coming Milky Way season.
For the final summer 2022 Milky Way shot I headed for the darker night skies of northern Arizona and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. I’ve been to the national park a number of times but haven’t really explored Kaibab National Forest that borders the park to the north. For this trip my brother and I decided to do a little exploring of parts unknown.
It was a productive trip for exploring, but the opportunity for photography was mostly a bust. The monsoon has been active this year and there was a good chance we’d have cloudy skies at night. But an active monsoon season also means a good chance of dramatic thunderstorms over the Grand Canyon, so I figured that either way we’d have good material. Unfortunately, it ended up being mostly clear during the day with storms rolling in during prime Milky Way time.
I did come away with this picture, though, which I rather like. The clouds add a sense of drama, even if they did end up obscuring most of the Milky Way. Because the clouds were blocking the meager ambient light available it was difficult to get a good exposure of the foreground. To get the foreground visible enough I ended up using multiple images with different ISO settings (250 to 800) spanning over 20 minutes. The sky is a single 30-second untracked exposure at f/1.8 and ISO 800. The stars are streaking a little bit but shooting at 20mm helped keep the streaks to a minimum.
It was a great trip despite the lack of photographic material. We got to explore some new country and see some beautiful landscapes.