California desert

Cabazon is a place not far from me, rich in quirky history. Cabazon Dinosaurs, formerly Claude Bell’s Dinosaurs, is a roadside attraction featuring two enormous, steel-and-concrete dinosaurs named Dinny the Dinosaur and Mr. Rex. When my ex-husband and I used to drive to Palm Springs to visit his sister, we would often stop at the Wagon Wheel Diner to grab a cup of coffee. The Dinosaurs loomed, larger than life, right next door. They have cleaned up the attraction and sanitized it, and my ex-husband, still my best friend, and I have laughs about the good old days. They recently tore down the Wagon Wheel Diner. I happened to drive past to see it demolished. 

While shooting at the Joshua Tree Music Festival there were so many rich and connected moments with old and new friends. It’s what I love about photography. I caught this moment while walking through the crowd.

There is an accessory for tripods know and a ‘sidearm’. It’s designed to allow a photographer to shoot ‘straight down’. I was using ‘my arms’ to replicate a sidearm because there was not way I was getting too close to this prickly character. The proper name of this strain of Cacti is ‘Cholla’, but those of us who frequent desert habitats on foot or by motorcycle refer to it as ‘Jumping Cactus’. I that an u usual quality of transferring very small pieces of itself to clothing, shoes, even tires. Using my phone, I could not see what I was getting until after I had stepped back a safe distance to review the file(s). I confess to warming the color a bit because I was enamored with the tonality that was ‘almost’ sunset/sunrise like. No ‘chollas’ were harmed in this adventure.

A bit of fun and whimsy was added to these beautiful boulders in the California desert.  This portrait of two wanderers was a way of marking our passage but leaving no trace of having done so.  The terrain is beautifully stark and majestic, a landscape of contrasts where texture, color and climate are always the same yet constantly changing.