A Photo a Week Challenge: ONLY One
In this challenge, we are asked to share a picture or several with a single subject. This describes probably 40,000 pictures in my files, so the real problem for me is finding just a couple that are special and singular in every sense of the word.
There’s something lonely about the desert anyhow. Here are three pictures of single subject on a bright January day in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.
Lone set of wires travel through the desert
One big saguaro cactus framed against the sky and mountains
A lonely ironwood in the dry desert
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Categories: #Photography, Arizona, Photo A Week Challenge
NATURAL STRUCTURES – A PHOTO A WEEK CHALLENGE 
ARIZONA DESERT IN BLACK & WHITE AND A PORTRAIT 
ON THE HORIZON 
THE SUPERSTION MOUNTAINS – A PHOTO A WEEK CHALLENGE 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Love that desert country! Thinking of heading to Santa Fe as some point. But Rose wants to go back to Sedona. Right now the American dollar is bludgeoning us again so … might be a while.
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Great photos. You capture the loneliness, the serenity and the tranquility/peacefulness so well. I so understand the taking of multiple photos of the same scenery – we make the most of what we can and try to add today’s flavour, weather, atmosphere, colour. Great post. 🙂
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Thank you very much. It was an interesting challenge and got me to go back and do some original processing on pictures from last January. I need to do more of this 🙂
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Lovely cactus and that ironwood in the desert is so full of character.
Leslie
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Ironwood is such an iconic tree. When I first saw one, I looked it up. It turns out that if you are in the Sonoran Desert and you see a tree (other than one obviously planted by humans or more rarely, one growing naturally near water) — it’s an ironwood. Nothing else can grow in that hot, dry place. No other tree, anyhow. Cactus and ironwood trees.
And yes, character. Lots of it. The older they get, the more character they have. These are the tough guys of the tree world.
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Just like us? chuckle
Leslie
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There’s just something about the vast loneliness of the desert that I love. On the weekends I look forward to getting away from the city- even just away from the neighborhood- and finding time to enjoy life. Sounds strange, I know. I still enjoy getting up into the mountains for solitude, too, but….Maybe it’s just the solitude I like.
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Me too, although I also love the woods and streams of home. If I could live in both places, I would. The desert and that big sky above talks to me about emptiness, vastness … and always challenges me to try and capture it.
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I think I’m getting closer every day with capturing what the desert means to me. But I doubt I’ll ever capture it 100%.
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I think we never get that 100% picture. Everything changes and we change, so it’s a permanently moving target. The capture that gets it all today won’t satisfy us tomorrow. But that’s one of the many things I love about photography. I’ve been searching for the ultimate path, the perfect “sunlight through leaves,” and so on since I first picked up a camera. I’m sure I’ll always be searching. And shooting.
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Wonderfully evocative images, Marilyn, especially the cactus. Thanks for joining the challenge!
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Thank YOU 🙂 i didn’t love cactus before, but I do now. Such a brave plant, surviving where little else can. And now that the saguaro has been protected in Arizona, they are everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE.
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perfect singles Marilyn!
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Thank you. I went back and worked with pictures I had that I’d never done before. Of course they look similar (I take a lot of pictures of the same scenes … overshooting are us), but they are not quite the same. Different angle, different processing. I have promised myself to go through folders and start using some of the backlog of stuff. There is so much!
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I love these photos and the feelings they invoke. Yes there is a loneliness, but there is also a peace about them. Love the coloration on the second one. I too, have tons of photos from many years, and I love it when I find a new treasure among them!
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Thank you! I only recently started poking around in those folders. I was surprised at just how MUCH stuff is there that I’d forgotten. Nice to find a way to use them rather than leave them sitting in folder, unseen.
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Great pictures- I can’t believe the first one is from the desert- you are right – the desert pictures remind us of loneliness, tranquility and serenity.
Susie
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The first one (my favorite) was taken in the desert about an hour outside of Phoenix. It was indeed a very lonely place. And those wires running forever towards the mountains were a great subject. I took probably 100 frames of which about 5 came out the way I really want. I had to walk a considerable distance and be directly under the wires to get the shot.
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Death Valley Days (Boraxo)
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I was expecting a movie reference, but I got TV. Good one. You fooled me.
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Great desert photos!
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Thanks 🙂
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