happy V day
All posts by Marianne Skov Jensen
land of giants
This morning, I and three other photographers joined MSC steward and Saguaro expert, Dave Lorenz, on a scouting trip for his “Big Saguaro” hike on Sunday. During the hike, we found several unusual Saguaro but this was the best discovery. Dave counted 32 arms! Note also the big shadow in the foreground. It helps show that we really were in the land of giants!
act of nature
A more acceptable cause of death in Saguaros is an act of nature. In this case, it was probably a lightning strike.
Note: For those digital darkroom users out there, you can probably tell that I’ve been playing with High Dynamic Range (HDR) this week. It’s hard to resist when you have clouds. Forgive me for getting a little carried away sometimes 🙂
heartbreaking
It’s been heartbreaking watching these giant 100-200 year old cactus being cut down. According to APS, the water laden cactus could cause potential arcing under the power lines but it seems to me that if the higher ups at APS were educated about the desert, they could have come up with an alternative to destroying so many. Thankfully, a public outcry has influenced APS to reconsider how these giants are removed thus saving some from this fate.
tres amigos
I’ve been hearing about Tres Amigos ever since I first starting hiking with the MSC so I was excited to finally have a chance to photograph them. What makes them unusual is not that there are three standing so close together but that they are in perfect alignment….as if they had been planted. The general consensus is that it’s a fluke but maybe someone planted them about 200 years ago? Either way, they make a wonderful photo op. We’ve been having stormy weather for a few days so I thought these three friends would look great with a kind of antique look.
weather vs geology hike
Only a small group took a chance that we might get to enjoy MSC steward Dan Gruber’s excellent geology hike but it was not to be 🙁
what was blooming in the desert today?
The desert is blooming VERY early this year. I saw the following today.
saguaro vs APS
Saguaro cactus vs APS……Saguaro losing 🙁
We’re overwhelmingly sad over the loss of so many Giant Saguaro along with Mesquites and Palo Verde trees. Click here to read story.
Click here to read a response from the Arizona Corporate Commission regarding this destruction.
super zoom compact cameras
The Canon SX10 IS with 20X OPTICAL zoom camera continues to amaze me! Although I usually carry an SLR when I’m hiking, I do not like to carry big lenses so I miss many animal and bird shots but this test shows I won’t have to miss them anymore. At first I was just using the SX10 as binoculars but now I realize that I can get pretty good
photos from extreme distances. I would need to carry a very heavy 600mm lens to get this close. Since I’m usually just documenting flora and fauna, this kind of result is more than adequate for me!
I read yesterday that Nikon is introducing a 24X optical zoom compact (available in March). Compacts are obviously are moving up in quality by leaps and bounds. Both the Canon and Nikon are under $400.
sign of history
Today I finally saw something I’d head stories about since I started hiking in the Preserve.
The story was about a cactus that had grown through a glass jar.
So how did it happen? Back in the old west days, cowboys would set jars and cans out for target practice
and this cactus obviously grew up and through the neck of a broken jar. Pretty cool!
We saw remnants many old glass jars in different colors and lots of tin cans.