Category: Stories Behind the Photos

Close-Up with Cacti

Published on by tbeckerphotosLeave a comment

As a rule you want to stay away from cactus.  The spines can be quite sharp depending on the species and some will shoot their spines at you (teddy bear cholla also known as jumping cholla).  Even so, in the spring the blooms on the cacti are amazing.  All colors of the rainbow can be found.

Saturday night my husband and I went to the Desert Botanical Garden so he could see the Chihuly in the Garden exhibit.  There was a Chihuly exhibit at the garden in 2009 and I made several images.  I haven’t been happy with my photos from the current exhibit, but here is one I shared previously.

I have been watching several of the night blooming cacti and a few others that have yet to bloom and went to do more scouting.  I made a few photos in the late afternoon/early evening light.  This time of day I tend to make better images of cactus blooms at the garden than in the early morning. It was very busy in the garden and we didn’t stay late.  I was hoping to find a night blooming cactus bloom that would be opening and watch it open.  The garden has been staying open until midnight on Saturdays for better viewing of the Chihuly exhibit at night so it would have been the perfect opportunity to watch a bloom open.

There were a few shots that I thought would be better in the early morning light, so yesterday I made another trip to the garden arriving at 7 a.m.

Here are a few from this weekend with two taken in the early evening and one in the morning.  Can you tell which one was taken in the morning?  Click on each one for a larger image.  Let me know by leaving a comment!

Blood Moon in the Desert

Published on by tbeckerphotos5 Comments

Last night I stayed up late to watch and photograph the lunar eclipse and the blood moon.  Fortunately here in Arizona it wasn’t as late as the east coast of the U.S.

There were three of us plus Molly as she is a traveling dog.  My husband, his brother and myself drove about 40 miles north of where we live in Phoenix to get away from the city lights.  We pulled off the freeway and parked in a dirt parking area near Agua Fria National Monument.  We decided to stay in the parking lot instead of traveling further down a dirt road.  We were all a little nervous about the wildlife in the area.  I kept Molly in the car as I knew any coyotes in the area would not be domesticated like they are in the city.  I carry a very loud whistle with me when out shooting in case I need help or to scare wildlife away.  And it does work, a few weeks ago a coyote was too close while walking Molly and I blew it and the coyote took off running.  Yes, even in a very large city we have coyotes.  And as far as rattlesnakes, I was nervous, but knew that it was too cold for them to be out slithering around the desert.

The temperature was much cooler than I expected and was sorry my fleece jacket and gloves were at home.  I do keep a blanket in my small SUV at all times and actually gave that to my brother-in-law to use.  My husband had on a t-shirt and a long sleeve shirt.  And me?  I only had on a short-sleeve t-shirt.  I was able to handle the cold better than the guys and they are originally from Michigan and I’m from Iowa.

My 70-300mm lens is old and I should replace it with a better lens.  For some reason it doesn’t like to talk to my Nikon D7000.  Knowing my images wouldn’t be as sharp as I would like, I still stayed up late and made the trek further north to watch the lunar eclipse.  Why?  Because I wanted to experience watching this incredible event.

This first image was taken when the eclipse was just starting.  Even though we were away from city lights, the moon was so bright we didn’t see as many stars as expected.

20140414-_DSC1345

Here are a few more images as the eclipse was happening.  Several times I had to adjust my composition to keep the moon in the frame.

20140414-_DSC1369

blood moon

 

The next image you can really see the star to the lower right of the moon.  And it looked this blue to my eye.

blood moon

 

Here is my final image of the blood moon in the desert.  I did use the adjustment brush in Lightroom to bring out more of the stars.  This is actually how I saw the sky.

 

blood moon

So for those of you unable to watch this incredible event, I hope you enjoy seeing my photos from last night’s lunar eclipse and the blood moon as see in the Arizona desert!