Anza Borrego Desert State Park 3/01/09
I got up around 3am last Sunday to take a day trip to the desert to see the wildflower bloom. The plan was to go with a friend, but she got sick. This was my last day with the 11-16mm lens, so there was no way I was going to miss a chance to get photos of flowers that live for a few weeks in one of the hottest, driest places in the USA.
By 5am, the sun was beginning to light up the sky over Cuyamaca Lake. It's amazing to this city boy how many stars there are in the sky, and how quiet it is when you don't live between two highways.
Once in the park, the next thing I saw was a field full of golden animals.
I don't know why there were so many of them fighting, I guess it's more dramatic then just having them wandering around, like the elephants.
I got the the visitor's center about two hours before they opened, and it was at that point that I realized that I had no idea where to go to see the flowers. Luckily, there was a birdwatching group about to start a tour around the area. All of them were retirees, no one had a camera, just binoculars. I felt a bit out of place walking with them for a couple hours, but they were pretty friendly and I had more in common with a couple people than I would have thought. I also had a chance to focus on birds for a little while, which I would have never noticed otherwise.
Cacti in morning light are pretty.
Reptiles stay more still before they've had a chance to warm up, I had time to change lenses when I found this guy, and he never moved a micron.
But I didn't come all the way out here to shoot critters, I came here to shoot wildflowers.
Since I don't have a macro lens, I had to fill the frame by using my telephoto lens cranked out to 250mm. This isn't ideal since it means I'm shooting at f/5.6, which isn't good for creamy background blur and also increases the shutter speed, leading to blurrier shots. One thing I noticed was that for every flower in bloom, there were several buds that hadn't opened yet, which probably means that the peak is actually happening right now, a week later.
Bass clef caterpillar!
The ultra wide angle let me get some interesting points of view.
I was dead tired by 3pm, having been running around for a full 12 hours by then with half that time in the hot sun, and I still had a 2 hour drive home. I decided to leave and head home before sunset, which I now regret. I should have just napped for an hour and kept shooting.. oh well, there's always next year.
By 5am, the sun was beginning to light up the sky over Cuyamaca Lake. It's amazing to this city boy how many stars there are in the sky, and how quiet it is when you don't live between two highways.
Once in the park, the next thing I saw was a field full of golden animals.
I don't know why there were so many of them fighting, I guess it's more dramatic then just having them wandering around, like the elephants.
I got the the visitor's center about two hours before they opened, and it was at that point that I realized that I had no idea where to go to see the flowers. Luckily, there was a birdwatching group about to start a tour around the area. All of them were retirees, no one had a camera, just binoculars. I felt a bit out of place walking with them for a couple hours, but they were pretty friendly and I had more in common with a couple people than I would have thought. I also had a chance to focus on birds for a little while, which I would have never noticed otherwise.
Cacti in morning light are pretty.
Reptiles stay more still before they've had a chance to warm up, I had time to change lenses when I found this guy, and he never moved a micron.
But I didn't come all the way out here to shoot critters, I came here to shoot wildflowers.
Since I don't have a macro lens, I had to fill the frame by using my telephoto lens cranked out to 250mm. This isn't ideal since it means I'm shooting at f/5.6, which isn't good for creamy background blur and also increases the shutter speed, leading to blurrier shots. One thing I noticed was that for every flower in bloom, there were several buds that hadn't opened yet, which probably means that the peak is actually happening right now, a week later.
Bass clef caterpillar!
The ultra wide angle let me get some interesting points of view.
I was dead tired by 3pm, having been running around for a full 12 hours by then with half that time in the hot sun, and I still had a 2 hour drive home. I decided to leave and head home before sunset, which I now regret. I should have just napped for an hour and kept shooting.. oh well, there's always next year.
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