Category Archive

Salt-River, Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

The Salt River is a popular tubing location during the summer.  Looks fun!  And, I bet much warmer then the Gulkana River in Alaska – a place my friends and I would go tubing on warm summers.

One of the drawbacks with shooting a lot of 3D video on this trip is that I haven’t had as many still photos as I normally would for my blog.   So recently, I have made more of an effort to grab more stills while out shooting 3D – this is one.  For 3D, I like to find scenes like this with many layers to it.  Unfortunately, I won’t know what really if it “works” until I get home – I’m looking forward to processing the video from this trip.

Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

What may not show well in this small photo is the nice field of yellow ground wildflowers.

This is definitely been a very poor year for wildflowers, but a stretch of warm weather followed by some a pretty heavy rain last Monday has seemed to produce a mini bloom of wildflowers.

In the two placers I have been spending time, Tonto National Forest, and McDowell Regional Park, I’m beginning to see a few poppies, lupine and brittlebush in bloom.  It isn’t the dramtic colorful hills and fields of wildflowers I have seen in past springs in this area, but at least it is a little something, something.  And, I would think it could get a bit better over the next week or so.

I’ll be making my way to the west side of the state in a few days, it will be interesting to see how that area is doing after the recent rains – I’ll follow up with a report if I find anything worth reporting on!

Saguaro cactus, Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

With clouds in the sky, and a gap above the horizon to the East – I though sunrise this morning could be epic!  But, it was nothing.  So, I used the nice light to play with these guys instead.

Saguaro cactus, Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

This was last night at sunset. I love the unique shapes of these guys – saguaros are cool!

Scottsdale Waterfront, Scottsdale, Arizona.

Any water feature seems to really add to a community whether it is a river, lake or ocean.  Towns like Scottsdale and San Antonio, where such things don’t occur naturally have had to get creative in creating a “waterfront”.

This area of Scottsdale has changed a lot since we first visited this region 4 years ago.  Back then, this area was completely under construction.  Last year it was finished, but not much of the landscaping had grown in.  Now, it really is a nice little waterfront with outdoor restaurants, galleries and residential towers.  It is a big change from the sprawling, low density development that has typically taken place in this region.

Downtown Phoenix has changed even more.  Four years ago everything was torn up thanks to the addition of a mass transit rail system, construction of additional convention facilities and office buildings.  Today, all those projects are complete, and it is a nice improvement.

Lesser Goldfinch, Fort McDowell, Arizona.

I noticed a few people having good luck with bird feeders at this campground so I decided to put one out.  Well, it only took about an hour before goldfinches began to show up!  These colorful birds are a lot of fun to watch and photograph!

Sunset, McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Arizona.

We have now moved a bit east into Arizona.  As you can see, there aren’t any wildflowers.  We are here a tad bit earlier then normal, but the lack of wildflowers has much more to do with a dry and unseasonably cold winter that included some freezes.   In some parts of McDowell, many plants appeared dead, hopefully they are just damaged by the freeze.

It is possible that late rains, and now unseasonably warm weather might give us a few flowers – but we definitely won’t be seeing the hills of solid color like we did in 2008.