Sunday, December 26, 2010

Christmas in the Desert

Oh how I miss the desert.....just not in July. While Minnesota was getting record snowfall, my precious and me were able to spend the holiday in sunny AZ. Temperatures were perfect, nights were cool, and family was amazing. We took well over 1,000 shots and these are some of our favorites.

We woke up early one morning but not early enough to catch the sunrise over Usery Pass. We paid 6 dollars to enter the park, and it was worth every penny. While Taylor and Maddy were practicing yoga on the rocks....I was able to frame up some good pics.

It is so much fun to experiment with different F-stops, shutter speeds, and use different lenses. The cacti were shot with a 50MM prime lense and landscapes all shot at 24MM....I was hoping for a 16-35MM Canon L lens for Xmas but that didn't happen:(


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We missed the sunrise but were still able to get some pictures. The sky in Arizona is amazing at sunrise and sunset.....so many different colors.

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Salt River shot midday.....the AZ sky is so blue once you leave the city. We met a guy named Dean from Minnesota who was squatting with his camper. He was building a pyramid of Budweiser cans with his poodle, after all, it was noon on Christmas Eve. He said he had our backs if the "five oh" showed up giving parking tickets. The fine to park was $100 but worth the risk to get the picture. Thanks Dean.

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Just pulled off the road north of Saguaro Lake to get this picture of 4 peaks. Nothing special....I'm sure many tripods have been setup in this parking spot.

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I convinced Ivy to walk out into the desert with me on this one. We didn't have a gun or a flashlight and it was pitch black. We weaved through cactus and brush hoping we didn't stumble upon a rattlesnake or coyote. Ivy was a brave soul and took the lead because I was a little scared. We setup several shots with long exposures without being able to see anything until the picture came up in our LCD screen.

It got a little awkward when a truck pulled up next to Krystle and Taylor. They were waiting in the car for fear of snakes and serial killers. Ivy and I decided to leave our post and venture back to the road. The old couple from Iowa in the truck looked at me strangely as I walked out of the dark desert with an 11 year old, camera, and tripod. It then occurred to me how potentially bad this looked. I immediately made small talk with my Minnesota accent and showed the old couple my pictures on the LCD screen of my camera. They were impressed and hopefully let go of any suspicions of me being "the creeper with the camera."

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Our Christmas night venture started late for our mission was to go deep into the Superstitions and find the perfect shot. We started at Canyon Lake and it was really dark. The only light we could find was in the marina and we were quickly booted out of there. We made our way back toward town when I glanced to the south and noticed the moon coming up. I thought to myself that it might be cool to try and get to the west side of the Superstitions and get the moon from behind. We found a spot in the back parking lot of an Apache Junction VFW club along with several other squatters. I'm sure they had permission to be there but we didn't. I could see old people peeking through the windows of their house on wheels. I was waiting for a drunken blue hair to storm out of his mobile home with a shotgun in hand but luckily that never happened. I just hope they were able to witness the moon rise over the Superstitions like we did.

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This picture is just a longer exposure.

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Post by Corey Johnson

5 comments:

  1. cool pictures! what a great holiday :) i've never been to the desert.

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  2. Really amazing shots! I especially like the night night shots and the moon rising over the Superstitions! Very pretty.

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  3. Holy flippin crap C-dawg. Those are really good. Um. My favorite is the salt river shot, but I also love the night shots of the cactus. Good work

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  4. wow, if that's what "experimenting" is like...gimme some more! your shots are stunning lades and the blue sky almost pops right off the screen, it's so vibrant. thank you for sharing, i'm enjoying looking through your blog at all the photography. you are one sharp shooter. ♥

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  5. Super pretty pictures, and a lovely blog! I really enjoy looking at wonderful photography! Happy New Year 2011!!!

    Liesl :)

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