The end of the day

How many pictures have you seen of the Grand Canyon at night? There are a few, but mostly the work of taking pictures ends with the light. This picture shows how the Canyon is like a mountain in reverse. I am standing in the light, looking down into where night has already started. Instead of looking at a mountain where you are standing in the shadow looking at the last touches of sunlight on the peaks. Here, at the Canyon, the peaks reach only to the absolutely flat level of the Plateau. Goodnight to another good day.

Death and the Grand Canyon 2011

In the summer, temperatures can get to well over 100 degrees on most of the Grand Canyon Trails. The combination of heat and extreme altitude changes can quickly overcome even experienced desert hikers. 2011 has not been an exception for fatalities in the Canyon. In September the body of a man was recovered from Tanner Beach (yes, there is a connection) and the cause of death was ruled as hyperthermia and dehydration due to environmental exposure. Of course, the great number of people that travel to the Grand Canyon National Park has something to do with the consistent number of people that die at, in or near to the Canyon. Some, like the man who died at the North Rim's Cape Royal Trailhead, die from natural causes which means they think he would have died even if he were not at the Grand Canyon. But others die as a result of being involved with the Grand Canyon, like the woman who died in February, 2011 just below the South Rim. Earlier in the year, a kayaker died in the President Harding rapid. Some of the people who disappear into the Canyon are never recovered, like the missing plane in March of 2011. Some of the dead bodies are not recovered for days because of the inaccessible nature of the terrain. The body of a young man, who died from a fall, was discovered on April 25, 2011 but not recovered until May 6th, because of the inaccessible nature of the terrain, and extensive planning and twenty-five personnel were needed to recover the body which was located almost 700 feet below the rim. Another body was recovered in August, 2011 below the Lookout Studio.

The deaths are always a tragedy, but the Canyon claims many more injuries than deaths. Even driving into the Canyon can be dangerous. Eight people were injured in a three car accident at the South Entrance Road in July, 2011. Three people died in an RV fire at the South Entrance in October, 2011 but the Park Service ruled that it was likely a murder/suicide. Two hikers were injured in a rock fall incident on the South Kaibab Trail in March, 2011.

Considering the millions of visitors to the Park every year, it is not surprising that there are injuries and some deaths. The tragedy behind the tragedy of the loss is that some of these deaths were due to disregarding some simple rules of travel in the desert. Others, could think about the exposure to falls that comes from high cliffs. Once, in talking to the backcountry Ranger at the Park, he mentioned that they pull more than one distressed hiker from the Canyon every day by helicopter. This is not your backyard, this is the Grand Canyon. 

Form over substance

Here is the form. The trees. What is the substance? It is called negative space. There is really a lot of detail in this photograph, much more than you can see at a glance, but the real world of photo lies in what is not there, the spaces created by the branches of the trees. Surprisingly, I see butterflies and praying mantises in the spaces, but no faces. Usually, I see faces. Would you take this photograph? Suppose you were walking along and saw these trees, the grass and sky. Would you have taken the photo? The more I look at it, the happier I am with the photo as it is.

Icon of the desert

There is nothing so universally associated with the desert Southwest than the saguaro cactus. Here is a clip art design of the cactus for comparison with the real live cactus:

http://webclipart.about.com/library/clip12/blcacti1.htm

Now, what is the reality? Saguaro cactus or Carnegiea gigantea are only native to a small portion of the desert Southwest. They are generally confined by temperature zone to those areas of the state below 4000 feet and then only to areas where there is enough rainfall. For example, there are very few saguaro cactus in southern Arizona especially near Yuma in the southwest corner of the state. The cactus are also found in the Mexican state of Sonora, in a very small part of Mexican state of Baja California Norte, and in an extremely small area in the extreme east of California along the Colorado River.

The last of the bugs

I promise, this is the last of the bug pictures. I guess with bugs, if they left me alone, I would leave them alone. I only get into conflict with them when they invade my space in a way that I can't continue to ignore them. Like grasshoppers for example, they are just fine living their lives out in the fields, but when they decided to invade in huge numbers they become more than a minor nuisance. I remember being in Yuma, Arizona one day when their were drifts of grasshoppers against the walls of the buildings. Every once in a while we get a huge number here in Mesa also.

Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home

One of my favorite bugs from my childhood was the cute little spotted ladybug or ladybeetle. You can catch the essence of this small creature in this rather larger sculpture. I think if the ladybugs had been as large as this sculpture, they would not have been quite so romantically popular. Ladybugs are sold in bulk in a state of semi-hibernation to eat garden pests. I have come across huge swarms of ladybugs on the Mogollon Rim that covered an entire tree. If one becomes trapped in my house or ventures into my car, I will always carefully remove it to the outside. This and the other bug sculptures are in the 2011 exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona.

Look out for the ants

During the saguaro cactus migration, the weaker of the herd are picked off by the ants. Since this spectacle would be bad for tourism, the local tourists bureaus long ago agreed to keep this problem under the hat, so to speak. Fortunately, as I was taking this picture of one of the herd leaders, I caught an ant in background. So, here you have proof positive of the dangers of the annual saguaro migration. Since temperatures are predicted in the low 90s and perhaps as low as 80 degrees, the saguaro have already begun their annual migration. I am sorry I really don't have time with all my blogging to follow the migration any further. Maybe again next year?

A Butterfly Perspective

Isn't there a conceptual conflict in this sculpture? A butterfly made out of wood? A butterfly is a concept as well as the reality of a flying insect. So what is the essence of a butterfly? Light, color, random flight, short life, all of these and more. Does the sculpture capture any of those concepts? The answer is not simple. The sculpture emphasizes the "form" of a butterfly, not its essence. Isn't this sculpture more a commentary on our societal perceptions today than it is an attempt to capture the essence of a butterfly? Do you think the sculptor thought about any of this? Or is this just my projection of impressions?

Reflections in the mirror of life

We cannot always see what is before us and can hardly remember what is behind us, but we can understand the moment. Quoting from Elder Russell M. Nelson, “The gospel of Jesus Christ offers hope,” I answered. “It declares joy to be part of our divine destiny. And to experience joy in the morning becomes our special challenge. The true test,” I continued, “is to be able to look in the mirror, first thing in the morning, and feel real joy.”

Self Reliance

Are you a victim? Do you feel like the world is against you and you have no power over your own destiny or actions? You need to spend some time walking in a cactus garden or out in the desert Southwest. You will learn what self reliance means. It means that now matter how bad the conditions or how poor the spot where you are living, you always have control over your own life and your own attitude. Look to the cactus for inspiration. They thrive in conditions where most plants would die.

Giant Bugs invade Arizona

Oh well, it may sound like one of those old 1950s B movies, but there actually are giant bugs in Arizona. They are bug sculptures by David Rogers. They are very nicely done and very attractive, even if they are bugs.

The Monarch of the Air

Monarch butterflies are sort-of the Passenger Pigeons of the modern world. They migrate into California and Mexico at two relatively small sites, where the entire population spends the Winter. If anything were to occur to either of those two sites, huge populations of Monarch butterflies would be wiped out. The Passenger Pigeons were killed when they nested for the night. At the moment, Monarchs are not in danger of extinction, but there is always that possibility.

A Peacock in a Tree

Can you see the peacock in the tree's burn scar? Sometimes photos show more than they were intended to show. Do you really see the world around you? Seeing involves more than having your eyes open. It also means having your brain open and thinking about your surroundings. As William Blake said,

To see a world in a grain of sand, 

And a heaven in a wild flower, 

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, 

And eternity in an hour.

A Mountain Flower

This is a crimson columbine, one of dozens and dozens of amazing flowers in the Sierra Nevada. Every time I go out into the mountains or desert, no matter what time of year, I find exquisitely beautiful details in the trees, rocks, sand, plants, and animals. The most barren spot of rocky hillside has its hidden beauty. There is almost no spot on the earth where I cannot see beauty if I look for a few minutes. To borrow from often quoted Navajo poetry,

In beauty, may I walk.
All day long, may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.

Beautifully I will possess again.
Beautifully birds…
Beautifully joyful birds…

On the trail marked with pollen, may I walk.
With grasshoppers about my feet, may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.

With beauty, may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.

In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty,
lively, may I walk.
In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty,
living again, may I walk.

It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.

Back to the Fractals

Look at the pattern of the ferns. You will see how mathematics relates to nature and how all nature is mathematics. Without a soul, nature would be nothing more or less than set of instructions. With a soul, nature cannot be understood even if reduced to mathematics. The fact that the forms of nature reflect a more general or more perfect form argues perfectly for form, purpose and plan in the universe. I do believe that as Alma said, "But, behold, I have all things as a testimony that these things are true; and ye also have all things as a testimony unto you that they are true; and will ye deny them? Alma 30:41

Fascination with Tent Caterpillars

When I was young I had a fascination with the webs spun by tent caterpillars. You have to click on the above image to see the caterpillars, but you can see the webs scattered in bushes and trees across the entire continental U.S. When they migrate, caterpillars may be seen by the thousands traveling over roads, streets, driveways, and sidewalks. Unlike spiders, tent caterpillars do not use their webs to catch food, they eat leaves, but for protection. The caterpillars return to the web nest each evening and leave again in the warmth of the day to forage for food. They have a very high yuck factor.

An untidy spider

Spider webs are supposed to catch things for the spider to eat. This one seems to catch a lot more than just food, but apparently, this spider is quite healthy. We often admire things in nature simply because they are visually appealing forgetting the blue collar workers of the animal and plant world just as we ignore them in our own day to day world. Perhaps we all need to become more aware of the beauty of just doing our jobs in a way to provide for ourselves and where appropriate our family.

Yosemite Valley - Nature's Miracle

Yosemite Valley is a study in contrasts. The Valley itself is spectacular. But driving into and being in the Valley at the time of year of the photograph, is like the mall the day after Thanksgiving. There is almost no parking and most of the scenic points of view are so congested that you can hardly avoid stepping on the people. The contrast between the quiet and solitude of Sequoia National Park just a few hours away and the crowded roads and trails in Yosemite is dramatic. I had to wait a number of times for the crowds in Yosemite, just to take a picture. We went out to the Mariposa Grove and left without seeing anything because of the crowds. Maybe I will go back, but if I do, it will definitely be when the weather is very bad and windy and cold.

Reality or Perception?

This is a photo of the base of a juniper tree with a light dusting of snow. The question is, what did I see? Was this the lighting condition at the time? Is the photo "accurate" in that it reproduces my experience? What would I do to adjust the photo to more accurately reflect the time and place? For some purposes, the photo is fine as it is. But the real question is not what the conditions were at the time I took the picture, but what do I want this picture to become? Here is a first pass at adjusting the white balance.

The top photo is dominated by a blue cast. The bottom photo adjusted for the cloudy conditions of the day, gives a richer, reddish hue, that is more faithful to my idealized image of a juniper tree. Are there any other adjustments that can be made? Of course. I could do quite a bit with the exposure, recovery, fill light, blacks, brightness, contrast, clarity, vibrance and saturation. Perhaps you are getting the idea that adjusting a photo is truly like painting with light. Here is a second try at adjusting the image using some of the tools:

You can begin to see my internal concept of the tree. Which one did I see when I was standing in the snow storm? I saw the potential of a picture, not the actual picture. I liked the composition but it could be made a little tighter. Here is another try, this time with some cropping to take out a bit of the extraneous.

What do you think? Am I "done" with adjustments? I think the final picture is just fine, thank you. But just in case, I have actually done any adjustments to the "original" and could go back and start over again with the same picture.

Some more before and after at the Grand Canyon

 This is a dramatic shot of the Grand Canyon from the South Rim during a snow storm. Do you see what the camera sees? Is the picture accurate? Are the colors faithful to the scene as you would see it with your own eyes? Without a reference point, the picture can appear well done and very nice.

Here are a few changes made with Adobe Camera Raw. The white balance was changed from default to cloudy. The exposure was reduced a little to add some drama to the picture. The recovery mode was moved almost to the maximum and there was some clarity, contrast and vibrancy added. Which of two pictures looks more like what you see if you were standing on the Rim? Now comes the question, which of these is closer to reality? Does that matter? When I take the picture I am not thinking about recording what is visible to me at the time, but what can become visible through my vision of the photograph as it can become rather than what it is. Believe me, they really are the same picture. Do you see why I like to go to the Canyon when there is a storm brewing?

Another photo in the grass series

Here is your second chance at grass pictures. The two pictures are only superficially alike. Here is what I see. I see a hugely complex ecosystem based on grass varieties growing in the high desert of Arizona. This photo contrasts with everything iconic about Arizona. No sunsets, no saguaro, no canyons, no blue sky, no mountains, no cliffs, no waterfalls, no slot canyons, no colorful Autumn leaves, nothing that would identify this as Arizona except to me. This is my Arizona. The Arizona of shapes and shades and colors and textures and details and light and shadow and more detail. When will you start to see Arizona? Probably, when you start to walk.

A simple photo is not simple at all

Ho hum, a picture of some grass. Why would he take a picture of something so ordinary? Either he is losing his touch or there is something there I am not seeing. The answer is yes, you are not seeing what I am seeing. This anything but a simple photograph. If you could see it full screen like I can, you would start to see some amazing details. It is sort-of like a where's Waldo picture with hidden details that only become visible as you stare at the image. Although it appears flat, the image is really very three dimensional. There are a lot of things that you can just barely see in the background. It is also interesting how the colors blend but retain their individual nature. It is anything but a simple picture.

A Survivor

This is a prickly pear cactus (opuntia) growing high in the White Mountains of Arizona above 8000 feet. We often associate cactus with the desert and hot temperatures, but prickly pears grow north into areas where the Winter temperatures drop to 20 degrees below zero or lower. How does a plant that is mostly water survive the low temperatures every year, year after year? If you want the technical reasons you can read, Water Relations and Low-Temperature Acclimation for Cactus Species Varying in Freezing Tolerance from Guillermo Goldstein and Park S. Nobel of the Department of Biology and Laboratory of Biomedical and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, California. This is one of those topics that seem to be difficult for scientists to handle. You have a problem that seems obviously impossible, a plant that is mostly water that doesn't die when it is subjected to extreme freezing temperatures. So, the scientists dismiss the problem for years until someone points out the obvious, that this cactus is growing in an area where the temperatures are well below freezing. How old is this cactus? How long to do they live? All of these questions seem like they are begging for answers. Don't you think that if you want to better understand what you think is normal, you start with what seems impossible?

Photo tricks revealed

Here is a photo I took of the Grand Canyon. The photo was saved as a Camera Raw image which preserves all of the information from the digital sensor but is similar to having an undeveloped film image.

The sky could have been better, but it was snowing at the time. Here is what the photo looks like after a little work in Adobe's Camera Raw:

 Whether you like the first or second image better might be a matter or taste, but the second image is more of my vision of what the Canyon should look like. By the way, once you use Photoshop for a while, you will never trust the fidelity of an "original" photograph again.

Tenacious Grass and Lichen

Both grass and lichens are tenacious. This desert rock pile would not seem a very inviting place to grow, but both have thrived. The lichen are barely visible as green patches on the rocks. Lichen is a combination of three plants, a fungus and either a green alga or a cyanobacterium. Lichens are poikilohydric, meaning they can survive on extremely low levels of water content. The grass grows in the spring when the temperature is warm enough and there is still adequate water from the Winter storms. By late Spring, the grass has dried and appears dead, but it will send up new green shoots the following year.

Desert pavement

This picture shows something that is called desert pavement. When conditions are right, the ground has lots of little pebbles and as the wind and water transport away the smaller particles, only those pebbles of a certain size and larger remain. This type of covering can stretch for miles or only exist in small patches depending on the weather, the terrain and the soil conditions. The color comes from mineral dissolved in the water on the ground that slowly coats the pebbles with a combination of iron oxide, manganese and other minerals. If you pick up a rock it will be a much lighter color on the bottom than on the side exposed to the elements.

Forest Bone Pile

Wood is the bone of trees. This is the lost Ponderosa Pine graveyard, where all the old and dying pine trees go to die and collect in huge piles of potential firewood. You can tell this forest is in the desert. There is no evidence of rot or moss or fungus (maybe a little) on any of these limbs. This is the kind of pile you wish you could find when you are camping and want to roast marshmallows.

The smell of juniper bark lingers on

I love juniper trees. We used to call them cedar trees or mistakenly, salt cedars, when I was younger, but I long ago learned of the virtues of these hardy plants that grow where nothing else can live. Junipers are so common that they go unnoticed. Cattlemen in Arizona considered them to be weeds and spent huge sums of money running large Caterpillar tractors across the desert dragging a huge chain to knock them all down. The wood lasts so long that even though that practice was discontinued years and years ago, because it did not have the desired effect of increasing cattle yields, the dead trees are still there spread out for miles in the desert highlands. But like the forces of nature, juniper trees continue to grow and spread in areas whenever the rainfall increases slightly enough to support them. Oh, did I mention the smell of the wood and the bark? That smell becomes part of you and you then become part of the desert.

High Mountain Corral

The most gorgeous area of the whole state of Arizona. There is no place to compare. High in the White Mountains in the country where the sky rules and the clouds are his army. The timeless attraction of the old. So old, that it looks like part of the landscape. If you wonder why I walk Arizona, here is the main, prime, best, ultimate reason. Remember to click on the image for a larger view.

New Life from the Burn

Fire is a natural process in the forest. The vegetation, except in extreme cases, begins to recover immediately. Where there is life, there is hope. The fact that the forest rejuvenates does not diminish the tragedy and the destruction of the fire. Would the forest be a better place without fire? Would the forest exist without fire? The controversy is not over the management of the forest, but over the management of ourselves and our understanding of how the forest grows and dies. The forest could get along very well without us to manage it. But when we alter the built in management system, as we most certainly do, then we do need to take steps to stop the forests' further destruction.