All posts by Marianne Skov Jensen

banana yucca flower bud

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One of my Banana Yuccas has a flower bud. Of course I have to document!
Here’s the whole plant as well as two close-ups.

Canon 100mm macro at f/8
banana yucca

Close-up at f/4
banana yucca

Same distance but different angle and at f/2.8
banana yucca

All images were taken last night as the sun was setting. The background color in the last one is a Creosote bush being kissed by last light. What a difference an f/stop makes!

what’s blooming in the north preserve

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Almost nine miles (8.64) of hiking in the North Preserve yesterday revealed wildflowers galore! The same but more of what I posted on March 6th and March 7th along with new sightings. There were some nice large areas of Poppies and Lupine on the Tom’s Thumb trail but we got there before they opened. They were scarce in the Rock Knob area but I definitely see evidence of plants so it may the last area to pop out.

Photographers FYI: Most Preserve flowers are VERY small so take a macro lens.

Click on Image for Slideshow of almost everything I saw yesterday:
bee and lupine

Tech stuff: Canon 7D with Canon 100 Macro, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/1500 sec

agua fria national monument video

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As promised, here’s a video from Sunday’s day trip across Perry Mesa.

Agua Fria National Monument Day Trip Correction: Mining dates should read 1882 not 32

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMzpGSN8FNc

Video Tech Info: Not aware of the consequences, I made the mistake of capturing video of our day trip in High Definition (Canon SX1). Even with endless editing/cutting yesterday, the smallest acceptable movie was still over 9 gigabytes. (YouTube only allows 2GB). Trail/error and googling and asking for help (thanks Michael), I finally got it down to a manageable size. Any jerkiness or abrupt transitions are my fault….the result of my drastic editing trying to reduce the file. I’m going to master this yet!

agua fria national monument petroglyphs

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Hike leader extraordinaire, Larry Levy, treated us to a day in the Agua Fria National Monument yesterday. Imagine walking a few miles across a field of canon balls and you get the idea of how tough it was to hike across Perry Mesa! (Not for hikers with weak ankles). Well worth it, though, if you have a love of Native American history and early mining history (Larry is a mining expert).

We visited several dwellings and also an old mining camp. Today I’m sharing two images of petroglyphs found high on a hill above the mining camp. (tough lighting conditions) Tomorrow, I hope to post a little video/slideshow of the day (maybe!).

Petroglyph and Agua Fria River
petroglyph an agua fria

Petroglyphs above Mining Camp
petroglyphs

joshua tree stars to infinity and beyond!

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Is that noise or are they stars? This came up during our trip to Joshua Tree this week. One of my photo companions handed me his powerful binoculars and directed me toward the Milky Way. I could hardly believe it! There were many more stars than we could see with our naked eye. So what I had assumed was noise in my images turns out to be mostly stars! Grab some binoculars and check it out for yourself.

Here’s one of the last night images I took this week. Is there noise?…sure…but stars rule 🙂  (Click Here for info on Camping)

Starry, starry night at Joshua Tree
stars and joshua tree