13th and Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA in USA

This is a 360 degree panorama I took at the corner of 13th Street and Market Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania recently. The one thing I found interesting is that the temperature was relatively mild, I had on a short sleeve Hawaiian shirt and no coat. But most of the people in Philadelphia were bundled up with dark black coats. Almost no one had on anything other than black. I would guess that the temperature was between 65 and 70 degrees because otherwise I would have been uncomfortable. I didn't do too well in the cold until I lived in the snow country for a few years. I found that unless the temperature got below freezing, it did not bother me too much. Anyway, after living in Mesa for so long, I have forgotten to wear a coat and most winters I can get by without wearing a coat more than a few times all year. Back to Philadelphia, across the street is Macy's and at the end of Market Street is the City Hall. Philadelphia is slightly larger in population than Phoenix, but Phoenix doesn't have anything that remotely resembles a downtown areas with taxi cabs and people walking on the sidewalks.

Snowy Egret

 The snowy egret is a small white heron (Egretta thula). See Wikiepedia:Snowy Egret. I had never seen either a heron or an egret in Arizona during my childhood. The first heron I saw was on Saguaro Lake, east of Mesa, Arizona about 1985 or so. Since that time, both Great Blue Herons and smaller white egrets have become relatively common throughout the state. I have seen them up on the Colorado Plateau in swampy areas and they are frequent along the Salt River lakes and where the river is still running such as the area below Stewart Mountain Dam. They have been seen as far north as Maine and are common in Central America. Their relatives the cattle egrets (or cow birds) have spread around the world. This particular egret was in Florida.

Leafy Seadragon

This is called a leafy seadragon, Phycodurus eques, and is a marine fish in the family Syngnathidae, which also includes the seahorses. There are a number of particular challenges in taking pictures in a large aquarium. Flash photography is out because of the possible reflections from the glass. It is also difficult because fish don't usually sit still so their photo can be taken. The low light conditions make it hard to stop movement with a slow shutter speed. I don't usually even try to take pictures under these conditions, but this one seemed to work.

Christmas Lights at Mesa Arizona Temple

Christmas Lights, Mesa Arizona Temple, Mesa, Arizona USA in Arizona 
I have been putting these pictures onto 360Cities.net for some time now and the link is here on the blog, but I get the impression that many people who read Walking Arizona, don't know about these 360 degree virtual reality photos. I have well over 100 virtual reality photos, most of which are also shown on Google Earth. 360Cities.net is a standard overlay on Google Earth when you download the program. On Google Earth, the photos appear as a round red marker with a 360 on it. There are hundreds of photographers that contribute photos, so you would need to go to my page to see all my photos. My virtual reality blog is PhotoArizona360.blogspot.com. Yes, the photos are difficult to do.

Underground

In addition to climbing outside on cliffs, I spent a considerable time exploring caves. Although Arizona is not know for its caves, there are still some interesting and remarkable caves to explore. Unfortunately, there is one major problem, caves are dark. You can usually only take pictures when it is light. You would wait a long time for enough light to take a picture in a cave. So you have to bring in your own light source or use a light source installed in the cave. This happens to be what is called a "show cave" in California. A show cave is one where trails and lights have been installed for visitors. Only a small percentage of all the caves in the world are open to the public. Most caves are known only to a very few persistent and experienced cavers (sometimes called spelunkers). I have been in both types. Every time I see a cave open to the public, I try to take a tour. Some like Carlsbad Caverns National Park are spectacular, others are pretty but not so nice. Some of the caves that are "open" to the public have been entirely trashed and all the formations removed by vandals. All in all it is much more difficult to explore a cave than climb a cliff. Imagine climbing a cliff when it is dark and very wet outside, that is what most caves are like.

On Snow

Despite the many references to snow and cold weather associated with the Christmas season, I have lived most of my life in the desert Southwest and I have little or no association with Christmas and snow. When I lived in Argentina, Christmas came in the middle of the summer. In Panama, there is no "winter" or "summer" either for that matter. The few years I spent in colder climates do not leave me with any particular memories associating snow with Christmas. In fact, the average temperature this time of year in Bethlehem is only slightly cooler than her in Arizona (but a whole lot wetter). So the evergreen tree association just doesn't fit.

Winter in the Arizona Sonora Desert is a time to be outside, hiking, camping, biking, or just taking a walk. Some days the air is clear and cool and the days are bright and sunny and you realize the heat is the summer isn't all that bad of a trade off.

Granite Cliffs

These cliffs in Yosemite are really not at such an angle. But when you take multiple photographs, you often get parallax errors. Your eyes automatically correct for the change in perspective, but the camera records each frame as you see it and then, when you put the frames together, you get a slightly strange looking photo. Here, the waterfall is not falling straight down. This seems to be the case because, when the picture was taken, I was standing way below the cliffs. If I had taken the picture from approximately the level of the middle of cliffs, the perspective would have been more normal looking.

Reflections on Space

From time to time, I travel to the East Coast. While driving, I begin to notice a change about the middle of Texas. The land slowly transforms from its preoccupation with space to an emphasis on trees and limited horizons. There are relatively few places where you get an open view of the countryside. In the summer, you get glimpses of farms and cities. In the winter, you suddenly realize that there are houses and people on the other side of the trees. I certainly prefer the long view. I feel more at home, standing on a hill, looking out over the huge vistas of the West, than I do driving on narrow winding roads, closeted with trees. We recently climbed the highest hill in an Eastern County and guess what? Besides the radio tower and cell phone tower, you couldn't see anything but trees.

Plateau Point, Grand Canyon, Arizona

The extensive plateau's in the Grand Canyon plunge the hiker into a different world. While hiking on these extensive miles long, almost flat areas, you feel like you are surrounded by mountains and lose most of the sense of being in a canyon. Some, like the Plateau Point, have definite marked trails, others are so remote and inaccessible as to be virtually on another planet. When cliffs are the main point of attraction, it is hard to focus on the flat areas that accentuate the huge drop off into the depths of the Canyon.

Koi

Koi are a favorite with fish ponds around the world. These colorful fish are ornamental varieties of domesticated common carp (Cyprinus carpio). the Prussian carp (Carassius gibelio) were first bred for color mutations in China more than a thousand years ago, where selective breeding of led to the development of the goldfish. The obvious problem in taking pictures from the air into water is the reflection of the water surface. A Polaroid filter will make the water appear more transparent by eliminating the surface reflection. Eliminating reflection does not always make a good photograph, however.

Devil's Millhopper Sink Hole

 OK, so this isn't Arizona again. In Arizona a sink hole is just that, a hole in the ground with rocks. I have an extensive experience with sink holes having dropped down into a number of them. But this is an entirely different experience. First, it was raining and second it has plants and is huge. You can walk down the stairs on the wooden structure to see the sink hole but cannot get off the wood to roam around. In Arizona no one cares and few people know about the sink holes. A millhopper is in a grinding mill, a hopper from which grain is supplied to the stones. I can't imagine what kind of relationship that has to this sink hole and why the Devil has anything to do with it?

Iconic

Some images are so well known, like the saguaro cactus that they become associated with a certain part of our culture. The pink flamingo is one of those icons. You can buy a plastic pink flamingo for about $5 dollars or so. This is a picture of the actual bird, not a plastic replica. Surprisingly, the Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) is found through out the entire world in warm, waterside regions. This may be why they are so popular as lawn ornaments.

A Grand Perspective

The most visited part of the Grand Canyon is called the Corridor. It is about a twenty-mile wide strip extending across the Canyon from the North Rim to the South where most of the Park's development is concentrated. At the bottom of the Canyon are two bridges, the oldest built in 1928 is the Black Bridge or Kaibab Bridge. Previous to the construction of this bridge, the only way across the Canyon was by a cableway, that is, a cable suspended over the river with a large metal cage, large enough to carry one mule or a couple of people at a time. The Kaibab Bridge's construction posed extreme difficulties since all of the materials for the bridge had to be carried down into the Canyon either by mules or human power. The one-ton 550-foot suspension cables were carried down into the Canyon on the backs of 42 Havasupai Indians walking single file down the trail. See ASU nature, culture and history at the grand canyon.

In the 1960s a second bridge, the Silver Bridge, was built across the Canyon connecting the North Kaibab Trail with the Bright Angel Trail. This second bridge is open only to foot traffic but also carries the vital water pipe line from Roaring Springs where the water is then pumped up the Canyon to the South Rim.

Into the Depths

 If you look closely (click for larger image) you can see the trail that runs from Indian Garden to Plateau Point and, yes, the trail ends at the cliff and there is no access to the river. If you want to go down to the river, you have to hike on the Bright Angel Trail from Indian Garden. By the way, Indian Garden is visible from many spots on the Rim and it is deceptively near. Indian Garden, which is not visible in this photo, is 4.6 miles down the trail from the Rim. It is 12.4 miles from the Rim down to the river on the Bright Angel Trail. It is 2.4 miles from Indian Garden to Plateau Point, one way. A round trip hike to the end of the trail you can see in the picture is 19.6 miles, but you have to remember that the hike back is all uphill.

Into the Clouds at the Grand Canyon

Sometimes life verges on the abstract. Symbols become more important than reality and reality takes a backseat to feelings and emotions. The forms of the Canyon are more than reality. The mere outlines of the cliffs and bluffs have become a symbol for the wilderness. It is ironic that a place so inhospitable to humanity, has become one of the most recognized and visited locations in the world. Sometimes we need to step away from the iconic and move to a new perspective. Some would think their visit to the Canyon wasted if they were confronted with the frequent Winter snow storms, but others, like myself, see this as an opportunity to view the Canyon from a different perspective.

Back to Basics

OK, we're done with cute little animals and the Eastern states for a while and we're back to the land that I love. There is something to be said about green trees and forests dripping with rain, I just happen to be a desert rat and love rocks and cliffs that don't have moss growing on them. The Grand Canyon is just that "grand." I am almost sorry I don't live there full time, but I do enjoy the city also. But I think the East is a little too much city and not enough country. As usual, you can click on the photo for a larger view.

The Flower and the Ant

Click on the photo to see the detail of the ant. Most of the time photographers try to achieve a hyper-realism in their photos. When you go to most of the photography websites, you will often see ads for retouching software that erases lines in faces and any blemishes. We get so used to seeing altered photos, we would not recognize the people depicted if they were standing right next to us. The same thing happens with landscape and other photos. I see the photos by other photographers and I can immediately tell that they are a better Photoshop user than photographer. Any photographic depiction is suspect. All photos lie either by the choice of what to include and what to exclude or by post-production manipulation. In the above photo, I purposely included the ant. This photo is about the ant on the flower. I could have easily erased the ant from the picture and you would have never known that it was there in the first place. What else is missing from the news photos and all the other photos you see each day?

Just so you can see what I mean, here is exactly the same photo, without the ant.

Complexity

The universe is infinitely complex. Even something as common as a sagebrush plant holds the complexity of the universe. Some of the most famous abstract artists of the past have tried to create art out of the chaotic interplay of colors and light. Take Jackson Pollack for an example. But with all the genius and all the effort, not one of them could match the complexity of a little bush on the side of hill in the deserts of Utah. Why did I take this particular picture? When I look at a bush, or a tree, or a flower, I instantly see the design in the underlying arrangement of the elements of the scene. When I look through the viewfinder, I can move inches one way or another and tell if there is a picture or not. It is not a random, walking through the desert, snapping pictures sort of activity. Some views turn into a picture, most do not. Sometimes there are no pictures. If I look at a snapshot made by someone else, I can instinctively tell if it is a picture or a snapshot. With hundreds, perhaps thousands of images every day, every hour,  every minute, it is wonder I do not make more pictures.

Death in the Arizona Desert

Newspaper reports commonly chronicle the death of those who venture out into the Arizona deserts unprepared. This tragedy is common among illegal aliens trying to cross the border. Through July 31, 2011, 132 deaths from exposure and dehydration had been recorded in the deserts south of Tucson, almost all certainly illegal aliens. But this danger is not limited illegal aliens, anyone venturing unprepared into the desert in the summer can quickly succumb to the heat.

From Wikipedia:

Symptoms may include headaches similar to what is experienced during a hangover, a sudden episode of visual snow, decreased blood pressure (hypotension), and dizziness or fainting when standing up due to orthostatic hypotension. Untreated dehydration generally results in delirium, unconsciousness, swelling of the tongue and, in extreme cases, death.

In the desert, symptoms can start appearing within a very short time, even a matter of an hour or less depending on the hydration of the individual.

It seems like we regularly hear of a winter visitors to the low deserts who drive out into the desert, only to have some sort-of mechanical or tire failure and die from dehydration before they can be found and rescued. Headlines such as "European tourists die of heat stroke in the desert" are not uncommon although this particular article refers to an incident in California.

The answer to the question is rather simple. Stay out of the desert in the summer (or anytime actually) unless you have adequate water, more than a gallon a day per person, and always leave your estimated time of return with a responsible person. Do not leave your car unless you have a specific destination and can physically make it that far. Never hike during the heat of the day, hike in the evening, at night or during the early morning. If you hike at night, only do so if you have a very clear idea where and what direction you are going and know how to navigate and walk at night. If you do leave your car, leave a note telling the direction you left and the time you left. Remember, a gallon of water weighs eight pounds.

Waiting

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting... Rudyard Kipling. Waiting is a real part of life and too many think of waiting as negative to life's positives. But waiting serves a purpose also. We can have a productive or destructive waiting time. If we think and dream, reflect and consider, waiting can be a blessing. If we fret and worry, squirm and suffer, waiting can be a torture. When I was young, I used to count the days until things would happen. At some point in my life I decided I would never count the days again. Of course we must plan, but living is waiting but we don't need to wait to live.

Blue Heron and Reflections

There are times when you see yourself in a reflection and wonder who is that person? I don't remember being that old. Once you realize that each days passes like a shadow and leaves its tiny impressions on your face, you can look again and see into your past and likely into your future. Herons spend a lot of time standing around which is why they make good subjects for photographs.

A Window in Time

When we look ahead in our lives, we see the world in broad brushes of possible events. This window reminds me of how limited is our view. We know the future holds a myriad of details that will be experienced in the moment and then forgotten. So, the stark outline of the window is the present looking towards an indistinct future. One thought, all of the light of world comes through our windows.

Christmas Candlelight Tour

Quoting from the Wentz Farmstead Society website, "The Peter Wentz Farmstead was established in 1744 by Peter and Rosanna Wentz. By 1758 they had completed the large, Georgian-style stone house with many architectural features that reflected their German heritage, including interior paint decoration throughout." When you live in a city that only has a history back to the mid-1800s, it is interesting to see a farm that is almost 100 years older than the oldest buildings. On the other hand, we like to visit Pueblo Grande near downtown Phoenix, Arizona, a ruin of a 1,500 year Hohokam village. It sometimes helps to get some perspective on age.

George Washington really slept here

The Peter Wentz Farm is a gem of a historical landmark. It is where George Washington planned the battle of Germantown during the Revolutionary War. We visited the farm during their candle light tour on a cold clear night in December. This is shot taken without a tripod with the camera sitting on a fence post. The light is mostly from candles except for the one electric light by the door. You can see the typical Pennsylvania German (Dutch) stone construction with prominent white mortar between the stones. All of the tour guides were dressed in typical Revolutionary War era clothing.

Elfreth Alley

Elfreth Alley claims to be the oldest residential street in America. I guess that depends on how you define residential street, since Old Oraibi in Arizona has been around much, much longer. But this is very interesting place in downtown Philadelphia. When I was in high school, I took a class in mechanical drawing and learned about perspective drawing. This photo is a classic of perspective. The two stone tracks merge at the vanishing point and all the lines on the houses are parallel and also merge at the vanishing point.

I would rather spend time in this type of place than all the commercial attractions a city has to offer. I liked this much better than Macy's for example.

Woman Dipping Candles

Woman Dipping Candles is a clay tile creation of the Mercer Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, a National Historic Landmark, located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The originator, Henry Chapman Mercer, a historian, archaeologist, collector and ceramist -- a Renaissance man of the early 20th century, began his enterprise as a result of his archeological investigations and his resultant interest in pottery. He became one of the most successful practioners of the arts and crafts movement of the late 19^th and earth 20^th Centuries. His designs come from much older European craftsmen. Unlike many craft oriented businesses, Mercer’s Tile Works became extremely profitable. The style of this tile is called brocade work, because it mimics the designs in woven material.

Natural Light

I used to think that I "needed" a flash unit on my camera. I have moved so far away from that position that I don't even have a flash unit on my camera and didn't even realize it for some considerable time after I had purchased it. There is nothing about this picture of a pottery kiln that needs a fill in flash. All of the necessary light comes from the south facing window. With a flash unit, you would lose most, maybe all of the texture of the bricks and the color of the pottery containers. Perhaps when we think we need something that appears to be an obvious choice, we need to rethink what it is we are trying to accomplish.

Two Doors

Life if full of choices. I couldn't help thinking about the consequences of making small, seemingly unimportant decisions that have a life changing impact. In every minute of the day we are faced with alternatives. The choices are not necessarily morally bad or good. Most choices do not seem to have any positive or negative consequences, kind of like choosing which of the two doors you are going to go through first. OK, so now you are thinking about Robert Frost and the two roads. But it is impossible to tell which is these doors is the less traveled.