Enlightenment

Photo: Joshua Trees in Shadow, Joshua Tree National Park, California

Taken Sunday at Joshua Tree National Park. It was about 35 degrees and windy. I kept forgetting to put on my fleece sweater from the car so I was feeling a bit stiff while trying to shoot.

There were no clouds in the sky and the light didn’t look particularly interesting around sunset so I wanted to use the shadowed trees to my advantage. I saw this huge Joshua Tree make for a great opportunity to frame the sunlit boulders. I would have liked to have included the entire tree (actually a yucca plant) but by moving back other Joshua Trees started creeping into my composition from the left and the right. I think enough of the tree is shown though so people get the idea. The great thing about photography and the human mind is that we can fill in the missing information when we know what is there.

The enlightened one himself, Gary Crabbe was over to my left somewhere shooting climbers with his telephoto, of which you can't see in this small file at the base of the big rock but they are there in the full resolution file. I'm sure Gary got some shots like this too as well since it was his idea to shoot this location.

I hadn’t been to Joshua Tree National Park in three years so it has been on my to-go list for a while though I think I will shoot the park in spring next time since it can be quite cold during the winter in the high altitude Mojave Desert. I’ve always wanted to get photos of the park in snow though…