Joshua Tree National Park
Our next stop was Joshua Tree National Park where we spent a couple of wonderful days photographing in a new environment and where I had constant U2 of the brain (pretty much a non-stop loop of the instrumental leading up to the lyrics of “Mothers of the Disappeared” - much more melancholy and staid than I’d expected, I rather thought it would have been more driving like the lead into “Where the Streets Have No Name” or "Bullet the Blue Sky", but we don’t get to choose our earworms).
However, first we had to get there and that meant driving through parts of desert California that I’d never driven before. I’ve said it a million times before, and likely will a million times again, but we really do have an incredibly beautiful country with landscapes that offer you one amazing view after another.
Eventually we made it to Yucca Valley just outside Joshua Tree and, after a final stop for fuel and provisions, quickly found out why the park got its name.
As amazed as we were, and we stopped several times driving into the park, we knew the first item on our agenda was to find a campsite for the next couple of days. Given that it was a Sunday we weren’t too worried, but we knew we couldn’t take it for granted when our first choice, the Hidden Valley Campground, was full. We were successful on our second stop, but had to settle for a less than ideal site. Fortunately for us (at least the first night) no one came to occupy the three other campsites (and parking spaces) right next to us or any of the sites even close by.
Then we were off to scout around for early morning shooting sites.
All too soon the sun started setting, and while we hadn’t intended it, we weren’t in too bad a location. But given we’d been walking around on our scouting efforts, our main cameras were in the vehicle and conditions were changing rapidly, so it was iPhone time.
After photographing this, I decided to turn around and see what it looked like facing the sun. I quickly ran across the streetto capture this:
Which quickly turned to this:
And then a few moments later, gave us that lovely blue post-sunset light.
Ann and I were very excited for the next morning.
Which started very early for us - well before sunrise. We wound up coming back to the same general area (a bit east of Happy Valley) where we ended up at the evening before, but we couldn’t quite figure out where we wanted to be. I remembered that we have a remote-controlled spotlight on the top of the rig and decided to test it out. WOW is that thing bright! We were able to scan the hillsides with it, and decided that we were in a good enough spot.
I got out to make some coffee, but morning came all too quickly and we had to leave the mugs in Beast more than half full. (Maybe my poor imagery from that morning was the Coffee Gods punishing me . . .)
As is so often the case, that pre-dawn light was amazing.
As things lightened up, I realized that I was in a sea of color. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t notice all of the wild flowers the previous evening. This was simply amazing, how could I have been so blind?
As the sun kept rising, it began to play with the clouds in another direction, so I rushed as quickly as I could to find a composition that took advantage of that all too fleeting color you can find in the clouds.
As I mentioned in the previous post, these two mornings were two of the most wonderful photography mornings I’ve had in a long time. Ann and I just kept shooting and shooting. Eventually, the sun popped out, but we kept at it.
Eventually we both wound up working our way around the big rock feature in that first morning image, off to the left and into a small valley behind it.
Finally the heat started rising, and after about three hours of shooting, we were beat. So we slowly made our way back to the rig. On the way, we realized that all the flowers that had been out earlier had withdrawn to protect themselves from the heat. The place suddenly seemed barren and lifeless. I no longer blamed myself for not seeing the color the night before - it simply wasn’t there.
If you haven’t read the Shooting the Shooter Joshua Tree blog post, you should because that’s what we wound up doing when we got back to the rig. We weren’t quite done yet!
We then made the short trip to Hidden Valley (the hiking area, not the campground) to have some breakfast and decided to take a hike. We really should have brought our cameras, and will for sure the next time we are there, but we enjoyed the hike and the freedom to wander without thinking about image making. We still had our iPhones so . . . of course they came out.
Sometimes it seems as if it’s much easier to just play with the iPhone than with a bigger camera. It shouldn’t matter, butit does unfortunately.
From Hidden Valley we decided to drive around and explore the park. First stop was Keys View, which looks over into the Saline Valley and the Salton Sea. Then we headed down hill and pulled off at my next planned stop. Unsurprisingly, we decided to skip the Geology Tour Road (and the Berdoo Canyon Road that leads from it as I’d previously planned) because the sign described it as lots of washboard and steep climbs with ledges - 4WD highly recommended. After our (mis)adventure, we decided that we’d had enough unknown adventures for the week (and to not trust the guidebook when it says “easy”, the classification for Berdoo Canyon Road).
Instead we drove out to Skull Rock and hiked around that area for a bit. Leaving the main camera behind, I grabbed the point and shoot and managed a few photos.
How can I put it, the rocks in Joshua Tree are just plain fun!
And even with the high contrast you get in the middle of the day, you can always photograph in B&W.
As the afternoon wore on, we did go off-pavement down Desert Queen Mine Road and Queen Valley Road - visibly flat stretches of road that pretty much gets you away from everyone else. It’s a strange feeling being out there with nothing but Joshua Trees all around and not a person to be seen.
We eventually wound up back at Hidden Valley, but instead of going to the valley side, we walked around the rocks to the east to think about whether we wanted to photograph there in the morning. It then turned into more than a scouting trip, which was just fine with us.
That night was, well . . . interesting given that a bunch of guys came in around 11:00, parked across the way from us and were up talking and having a rowdy time until about 3:00. So we didn’t sleep very well. But that meant that when our alarm went off at 3:30, we had no qualms with being just as loud as they were (we weren’t even close). And somehow, when I had the back of Beast facing them, I managed not to flip the switch to hit them with the floodlights. I thought about it . . . but I’m too nice.
We made it to our target destination with plenty of time, and this morning we were able to drink much of the coffee before we headed out.
Like the previous morning, the pre-dawn light was lovely.
When we hit that period between pre-dawn and dawn where the sky is just too bright to make a decent image, Ann actually posed for me when I asked her to! It must have been the lack of coffee.
Instead of just waiting around, I decided to do something productive and ran back to get our coffee mugs! It was a cold morning and I’m not as dumb as I look.
Eventually the sun came and offered us a quite different view of our location.
We didn’t have as much flexibility to wander around at this location as we had the day before, so we quickly packed up and headed back to Hidden Valley where we were the previous evening. There, I had fun with the Joshua Trees.
We wound up staying there a lot longer than we both thought we would, having found a wider variety of images than expected. Ann wound up photographing some of the plants, to include a lovely cactus in bloom - with her iPhone!
Me, well I started getting Dr. Seuss eyes (to go with U2 of the brain) and started working with some interesting shadows.
And yes, that shot was made not far from where the Face shot was made.
We finally realized we were hungry and decided we wanted a real breakfast, which mean stopping off in Twentynine Palms. During breakfast we realized we had a 4 hour drive instead of a 2 hour drive (how did I get that wrong in all my planning), so we decided to drop the leisurely drive through Wilson Canyon and the Cottonwood Spring areas of Joshua Tree and to haul our way as quickly as possible to Phoenix.
Next stop - Dad!