Last weekend I went with a friend to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in Southern California to see the spring blooming of wildflowers. The park has had about 4" of rain this past rainy season which is a good average for that region so there was a pretty good display of desert flowers this spring.
We spent most of our time in Plum Canyon and were well rewarded for our efforts as there were many flowers blooming and the start of some cactus blooms too.
This is a photo of one of the cactus blooms. This cactus seems to tend to grow along the ground rather than upright, and the entire crown of the cactus is covered with a circle of flowers. So beautiful!
You can see this and other desert flowers in my
desert flower photo gallery. For visitors with slower internet access, you may prefer to visit this
dial-up optimized desert flower photo gallery.
Not only were the flowers spectacular in the Anza-Borrego desert, but so too were the caterpillars! Cleverly camouflaged against the gold flower was this spectacular caterpillar.
This is the same photo as the previous posting, but with significant work done with it. Notably I have blurred and darkend the wing at the right front to provide a sense of depth of field. To draw attention to the bird's eye, I used Photoshop's "Lighting Effects" filter placing a soft omni spot on his eye and also a spot light running from the lower right to the top left across his face.
This beautiful blue and gold Macaw lives with his buddy, a scarlet Macaw at the Sheraton Hotel in Kaanapali on Maui.
Fourth in a series of photos of a bodyboarder at the beach in Kaanapali, Maui. This photo along with others in the series can be seen in the action photography gallery.
Third action shot of this bodyboarder at the beach in front of the Westin Hotel at Kaanapali, Maui.