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.
Tag: Winter
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.
Swingset Dislocation
Some kind of teleportation accident seems as likely an explanation as any other for how a swing set wound up in the middle of a lake.
Empire Polo Club Panorama
A big panorama of Empire Polo Club helps one to understand a bit how this site can hold both Coachella and Stagecoach.
Sun Drops Behind the Mountains
Winter days in the desert are short enough already, but the tall San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains cut the light off even sooner. High up with a drone, there are still some final rays to be harvested.
Forest Fortress
Rather than a fortress in a forest, this is a fortress composed of forest—or at least, it feels that way. While the far-off mountains and the lights of Palm Springs may be visible from the air, the ground-level setting is far more constrained and cozy.
P.S. Can you spot your humble photographer in this shot?
Zenda Drive at Dawn
Though a photographer might briefly visit many locations, actually staying in a location means being present at the moment when the light is just right. In this case, sunrise pouring into Coachella Valley lights up the mountainsides and the rooftops, but not yet the valley floor itself.
Being there to capture the sunrise picture is great, of course, but being on location in this case also meant being able to follow it up with a sunrise dip in the hot tub.
Interruptions in the Coachella Valley Array
The dry seabed that is Coachella Valley provides a very flat surface for construction; as a result, modern constructions mostly fall on whatever pattern/array is convenient to the developers. In a few places, however, interruptions in those arrays stand out in an aerial view.
The palms on this golf course, for example, are on a clear grid, with the fairways and greens cut into it. Was this a palm plantation before the course was build?
Here, the green lawn of a larger home stands out, covering multiple grid positions, while neighboring homes cluster into smaller, more regularly arrayed lots.
Though this subdivision isn’t itself on a grid, the clubhouse nonetheless interrupts the pattern.
Coachella Valley Sunrise
A big, broad, western-America sunrise may feel summer-y, but this one was taken in the depths of winter.
Shopping Spaces in Dublin
Reviewing my street photography from last November’s trip to Dublin, I was interested to find this set of three otherwise-unrelated images in which the sense of perspective above a busy crowd induced an element of symmetry and order.
Desert Until the Valley Floor
Mountains and hillsides in Coachella Valley are a rocky, scrubby desert so long as they stay sufficiently sloped; the moment they reach the flat ex-lake valley floor, the housing developments begin.
Tiny Figures and Big Rocks
Can you spot the tiny figures at the top of the hill? I’m confident that tiny figures produce a sense of grand scale in images—particular desert shots, like this one, where the inhuman nature of the place can make understanding the sizes of objects difficult. Nonetheless, I find myself wondering how small the figures in an image can be before the viewer loses the ability to recognize them as human.
California Road at Dusk
Goats and Power Lines
If you zoom all the way in, there are tiny goats in the fields between the power lines. They convey a pretty mind-boggling sense of just how big those lines are.
Civilization Gradient: Denver
My favorite feature to capture in landscape images is a gradient from sparsely populated areas to dense, urban ones. A connecting flight through Denver gave me the opportunity to add a mile-high gradient to my collection.
This picture was processed using the Super Resolution algorithm, so it’s definitely worth clicking through to view the high-resolution version on flickr.
Decaseconds 