The looks of excitement and joy on the faces of visitors to the Living Desert as they feed lettuce to the giraffes is pretty infectious.
Category: California
Desert Settlement at Sunset
Returning to this viewpoint year after year, I’ve watched as the small cluster of white buildings (trailers?) at the bottom of this canyon keeps growing. Worksite? Settlement? Cult? Who knows, but I feel like there’s a good noir mystery to be written from this starting point.
Zoo Nap
You and me both, buddy.
Cloudy Nightfall at Empire Polo Club
A rainbow of colors extend across the earth and into the sky during blue hour above Empire Polo Club.
Challenger in the Rain
In the rainy hills above Palm Springs, I was able to put the techniques I learned at #GRIDLIFE last fall to good use to get a dramatic shot of a Challenger driving faster than was probably advisable on the rainy road to San Diego.
Mounds, Mudflats, and Water Storage
While hiking the La Quinta Cove Trail may feel like getting in touch with nature from ground level, a mixture of water from a recent rain and a drone’s-eye view reveal the ways in which the landscape has been reshaped by people to prevent erosion and preserve the desert.
In the Rainy Valley
A work truck heading into a rainy desert valley whisper tales of a working-classic California life that gets glossed over in many depictions of Coachella Valley.
Maximum Tarmac Curvature
Just how curvy does a road have to get before it’s too curvy? Though opinions will vary, I’m sure, I have to guess that, from a civil engineer’s perspective, the Palms to Pines Highway must be pushing the limits.
Desert Rain
Cold, rainy winter days feel so at odds with the sun-baked desert landscape of Coachella Valley—and yet so necessary to the plantlife carpeting the valley floor. Experiencing it during one of those rainy moments felt like being let in on a very specific secret.
Trilogy Panoramas
Drone panoramas have really opened up the kinds of images I can capture with a light, fixed-focal-length-lens drone like the DJI Mini 3 Pro.
These panoramas from Coachella Valley, covering the Trilogy subdivision and its adjacent golf course, capture a dramatic expanse of sky and wet, reflective surfaces following a rare rainstorm.
Reflecting Roads Riding Off Into the Sunset
Welcoming in 2024 with a ride off into the sunset for 2023. A massive rainstorm in the Coachella Valley turned the roads into pools that reflected the last hints of sunset to form a golden path.
Palms to Pines Panorama
Definitely click through to Flickr for the full-resolution detail on this panorama covering the approach of the Palms to Pines Scenic Byway into Palm Springs.
Christmas After Rain in the Desert
Days of rain covered Coachella Valley in mud, but the clouds broke in time for a Christmas morning hike at the La Quinta Cove trailhead. Out in the misty distance is the Salton Sea.
Salton Skies
Bombay Beach‘s beach keeps expanding as the Salton Sea dries back to where it was at the start of the twentieth century, making for an enormous span to match the enormous arc of sky above.
The New Bombay Beach
Like a full-time Burning Man, Bombay Beach shifted from its origins as a sort of “California Riviera” in the 1950s to something with more the feel of an artists’ colony. The town’s little grid of streets amid the emptiness of the desert valley brings to mind open-world video game maps, but the eclectic nature of the beach itself makes reality (as usual) far more interesting.
Decaseconds 