Reflections on the Wallow Fire

This is a hill just south of Nutrioso, Arizona. The photo shows what happens when the fire gets into the crown of the trees. The hillside in the background is burned completely and all of the trees are dead. In the foreground, you can see how the fire moves in a chaotic fashion, some of the trees are burned and dying, others are not touched at all. The rule of thumb is that in a severe burn, about 1/3 of the trees will burn completely, 1/3 scorched like those in this picture and 1/3 untouched. From the news accounts, you would get the impression that the whole fire was like the hillside, this is not the case. Some of the trees will survive.

Wallow Fire Burn Photos -- Part One

This is a view of the one of the northern edges of the Wallow Fire. You can click on the image to enlarge it. If you look carefully at the photo, you can see the black ground and a few trees with brown needles. In most of this area, there was little or no ground cover, so the fire only occasionally got into the tops of the trees. The trees with the brown needles are scorched and going to die. You can barely see where the fire came over the hill in the background. The fire burn looks like a line of brown trees. There are areas where the trees are completely destroyed, but not in this area. The ground cover will recover with the rains although the sagebrush takes years to grow very large. The road in the foreground is likely where the firefighters stopped the fire.

A Dark Shadow

This is the first of the series of photographs I took in Nutrioso, Arizona showing the effects of the Wallow Fire. This shot is looking East towards Escudilla Mountain. In the foreground is a burn area. It is hard to see, but the mountain has substantial burns. For one thing, the color is dark blue to black, even without the cloud shadow. You can see the outline of skeleton trees against the sky line if you look closely. During the next few days, I plan on having more of the pictures of the fire area with some commentary. I also took a few 360 degree panoramas, which I have yet to try to stitch, so we will have to wait to see if any of those come out. I will let you know so that you can look at my other site PhotoArizona360.blogspot.com.

Natural Sculpture - Sunset with Cactus

One of the most important functions of photography is to let us see the world through the eyes of another. Photography opens the mind to the infinite possibilities of the universe in form and color. You may have looked at this scene or something similar and dismissed it as common and unworthy of notice. It is only through the photograph that you can really begin to see the interplay of light and shadow that brings out the sculptural nature of the cactus.

Chihuly Glass at Night

The Desert Botanical Garden had a glass sculpture exhibition of work by Dale Chihuly. It was a fantastic exhibition and at the end, the Garden acquired a few sculptures for the entrance for permanent display. We were at the Garden one evening as it got dark and I was impressed by the color of the glass. This was another one of the few pictures I have taken in the evening/night that came out well.

Ocotillo and the Moon

I don't usually take pictures at night. I don't care for flash photography and nearly all of my pictures, except snapshots of birthday parties, are taken with natural light. This usually means that the light is bright and the sky is dark blue since I live in the desert. But this shot worked, for a change, because of the form of the octotillo and its relationship to the moon. Fouquieria splendens Engelm. or ocotillo is not a cactus, it is a large upright shrubby plant that grows in the Arizona Sonora Desert.

Forever at the Grand Canyon

This is an old film picture I took years ago at the Grand Canyon. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get the same quality out of a scan of a film image that I can from a new digital image. Having  a digital photo gives the photographer many more options. If I had all the time in the world, I could go back and try to re-create some of this old shots.

A walk in the desert

There are two seasons in the desert, warm and hot. Any day the sun shines there is a potential for the temperature to go into what would be considered the heat wave range in most parts of the country. What is funny is that the Weather Service has started issuing advisories for high temperatures in Phoenix. I guess they think someone who lives here or is visiting might walk outside and forget it was hot. Every year lots of people die in Phoenix and in the southern deserts due to the heat. Do you ever hear about it on the news? If one person dies in a tornado it makes national news. People die every day or so from the heat but it doesn't even make the local news.

Waiting to see the damage done to the forest

 In the next week or so, I hope to travel up to Nutrioso and see what happened as a result of the Wallow Fire. I plan a series of photos comparing what is there now with my photos from years past. The first news I have had about the fire indicates that the damage could have been much greater than it was. I know from the news pictures that some of the land must have burned, but I suspect from the initial reports that the burns were confined and not too extensive. There is now a danger of mudslides and floods due to the lack of vegetation. Stay tuned for my reports.

Is there a river in Phoenix?

It is always interesting to drive through the dry Salt River bed with newcomers to the Phoenix area and point out the river. We tend to forget that the Salt River Valley was an attractive place to settle in the pioneer days because of the lovely river lined with cottonwood trees. It was only after the dams were built and irrigation became prevalent, that the river disappeared entirely. Although, there were times that the water did not reach much past Mesa even in the early days, before the dams. Today, this sight of the river flowing is rare and there are no trees on the banks. In fact, the river has cut a considerably lower channel than existed in the early days. Sometimes, I have to remind myself, that the "mesa" where the city was built, is actually the bank of a very large river.

Have you seen my 360 degree panoramas?

View of Mesa, Arizona USA LDS Temple in Arizona

For some time now, I have been developing a parallel site called PhotoArizona360. This site displays some of the 360 degree panoramas I have created during the last couple of years. If you aren't familiar with 360 degree panoramas, they show a 360 bubble of a photo with views in all directions including straight up and straight down. Of course, they can only be viewed with aid of a computer. My photos are featured on 360Cities.net and on Google Earth. The technique has been in development since the early beginnings of photography, but only with the advent of really powerful personal computers has the idea of having a complete virtual reality been practically possible.

Since I am almost completely phasing out my legal practice, I am hoping to take my lifetime interest in photography and develop a business of taking 360 degree photographs for both commercial and personal use. Imagine having a 360 view of a wedding party or of your commercial development, a hotel, a restaurant, an architectural site or any other area where there is a greater impact showing the complete picture. 

Why is this mountain called Four Peaks?

Visible from most of the East Salt River Valley, this prominent mountain is obviously called Four Peaks. This is one of the few peaks high enough to get snow more than once a year. If you click on the photo, you can expand the screen to see more detail. Once one of the local Scout Troops got stranded up on Four Peaks and they had to be "rescued." This happened mostly because they didn't give the Scouts time to get back down before calling out the rescue efforts. But you never know. There is a road that climbs up from the desert north of Mesa on the Beeline Highway called the Four Peaks Road. Although it becomes a true four-wheel drive road, it does get almost to where you can see the patch of snow next to the cliffs on the west side (left) of the photo.

Some images are just strange

Some images that come from scavenging with the camera are just strange. Can you tell what this image is? Yes, I do know what it is. If it is any help, it was taken on the shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Chihuly at the Desert Botanical Garden

Even though these images are now more than a year old, they still come back to haunt me with their ethereal beauty. I'm glad I was at the Desert Botanical Garden when this exhibit was there and visited more than once. The lighting was perfect to emphasis the color of the glass. Chihuly glass may be extremely expensive, but it is worth the cost.

Boat in Blue

One of the most impressive artistic exhibits ever was the Chihuly Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden. The combination of art glass sculpture and the fantastic plants of the garden were an unforgettable experience. As members of the Garden, we were able to visit the exhibit several times and I found endless delight in photographing the wonders of the glass and cactus.

Updated Fire Map for the Wallow Fire

The fire has slowed the last few days and is confined to the areas in red.

Saguaro Section

Saguaro cactus are not the largest cactus in the world, but they are well up there in the size category. They can grow over 50 feet tall and weigh into the tons. This huge plant structure is supported by an internal skeleton made up of extremely hard rods surrounded by the fleshy components. The structure also allows the cactus to expand and contract depending on the supply of water available. All saguaros are protected by law. We planted a small 6 inch saguaro about 25 years ago. At that time, the plant was probably about 5 years old. When we moved, we took all of our cactus with us and transplanted them in our new home. Some of them died, but the saguaro thrived and is now about five feet tall. We are still waiting to see it flower. I understand they don't flower until they are well over 30 years old, so that might happen any year now.

The Bridge at Roosevelt Lake

Water is a precious commodity in Arizona. The Salt River Valley grew into the location of a major metropolitan area only through the storage of water in huge reservoirs along the Salt River. The largest of these reservoirs is Roosevelt Lake, located at the junction of the Salt River and Tonto Creek. Roosevelt Lake was once the largest man-made lake in the world and still ranks among the largest. When it is full the lake covers 17,000 acres. Natural barriers, such as the Salt River and its canyons have always restricted travel across Arizona. When the original Roosevelt Dam was built, the only road east and west across the Tonto Valley had to go across the top of the dam. The Lake is located in Gila County and the lake and river effectively cut the county in half. Residents of Payson who wished to travel to the county seat had a two to three hour drive across the dam. Road improvements have come dramatically and the travel time is now much less partially due to the construction of this beautiful bridge bypassing the old road across the top of the dam.

An Interesting Comment on Commentators

There is no topic so innocuous that when you espouse your opinion, that someone will not take the opposite and call you stupid. This is especially true of comment to news articles, on talk radio and responses to blog posts. In a long ago post, I made the observation that it was unwise to try to survive in the desert by using barrel cactus for a water source. A commentator to my post, obviously much more experienced in his young life than I, expressed disdain that I did not endorse barrel cactus as a source for water. Having tried they personally, I was not writing from lack of experience. However, as is the rule, the commentator, because he disagreed with my post, immediately took the position that I was ignorant of the subject. His attack was not supported by any facts or authority other than his opinion. Somehow, he is entitled to his opinion, but I am not entitled to have one because (a) I can't write and (b) I am stupid.

Of course, he never got to my main objection to using cactus indiscriminately, that it damages the cactus and may kill a cactus hundreds of years old. This self-identified survivalist had no remorse about killing off cactus to illustrate his ability to "survive" out in the desert. I he is so experienced, why didn't he learn to carry enough water for an emergency or stay out of the desert altogether when it is too hot for safety. Perhaps, he hasn't noticed that barrel cactus are not all that common and you just might spend more energy and hydration trying to find one, than you would avoiding the activity altogether.

I am kind of sorry now I deleted the comment, mainly due to the poor grammar and misspelled words. It is always nice to be noticed. I did post a nice picture of the Grand Canyon, remember this is a photo blog after all. This shot looks right up Bright Angel Canyon towards the North Rim.

Most informative photo so far about the Wallow Fire

Here is the most informative photo so far of the Wallow Fire. You can see where the fire is burning and where it has not burned. In a departure from the norm, this is obviously not my photo.

A desert repose

If I lived in the Eastern portion of the U.S., I would probably have a lot more pictures showing trees and flowers rather than the desert. I have to travel quite a ways to find anything that looks like a forest or whatever. I remember standing on the edge of the jungle in Panama, when I lived there, and staring at the wall of vegetation and trying to decide where I could safely step without being in danger. I don't have that problem in the desert. I am very used to avoiding cactus and other sticker plants.

A High Country Requiem

“Every man is afraid of something. That's how you know he's in love with something; when he is afraid of losing it.” Paraphrased from Sven Goran Eriksson.

“Grief is the price we pay for love”  Elizabeth II. 

Painting with light

Clouds over the Four Peaks Wilderness Area from the Superstition Wilderness Area. I guess I will turn my thoughts down to the desert and try to forget the loss of the high country up on the mountain.

Escudilla Lost

This morning's fire map tells the story, the Nutrioso valley is surrounded by fire from the Wallow Fire. I will have lots of pictures to compare in the future.

We will have to wait and see what happens.

A rose by any other name would be a cactus flower

I love cactus flowers. So do bees and other insects. They are so colorful and waxy looking in contrast to the spines and green of most cactus. I have had a cactus spine or some other type of spine in my finger for the last week and it is not particularly pleasant. The question is, whether or not the bad experience with a cactus spine in the finger will affect my love of cactus flowers? Some people seem to make the connection with people and their foibles all the time. I have a tendency to discount the cactus' intentions and still be friends.

Just for Fun

This is a round-tailed ground squirrel Xerospermophilus tereticaudus. Living in a park in Arizona, they quickly learn to beg for food. I am not much of a wildlife photographer, I seldom have the time to spend waiting for the animal to appear and pose for a photo, but I was lucky this one decided to stand still for a few seconds.

Texture

I could spend the rest of my life taking pictures of rocks. Of course, there is probably no market for the photos and my heirs and assigns would probably through them out after I pass away, so I take an occasional shot from Chaco Canyon to Papago Park, anytime I see extraordinary rock work. I would have a house built like this if it weren't for the fact that it would have more scorpions than I already have to deal with.

A Prickly Abstract

Jackson Pollack had nothing over cactus. They are Nature's original abstract artists. I have been to probably hundreds of art galleries in my lifetime and I am still more fascinated by the forms and colors of the natural world than any man-made attempt to emulate, copy, approximate, or even depart from the forms I see around me every day. You cannot look at a picture of cactus up close and not wonder about the design of the Universe.

The glory of man as the flower of grass

22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

1 Peter 1: 22-25