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Sawtooth Yucca
Cochise Stronghold, Arizona
2020

I stopped to photograph this yucca because of the way the shadows emphasized the namesake teeth but I was subsequently almost as intrigued by the (nearly) regularly spaced holes along the leaf edges. Clearly there is something about those leaf edges and perhaps the “roots” of the teeth themselves that attracts a certain kind of bug.

I Am An Island #6
Cochise Stronghold, Arizona
2020

I Am An Island #5
Cochise Stronghold, Arizona
2020

Spent Beauty #40
Cochise Stronghold, Arizona
2020

In this ongoing Spent Beauty series of images I have tried to convey the idea that withered leaves and stems, dried flower heads, seedpods and fallen flower petals of dead and dying plants can contain elements of beauty much as live plants do. Perhaps decaying yuccas such as this one challenge that notion. Or perhaps they are just illustrative of the idea that artistic merit isn’t necessarily limited to classical ideas of beauty. If it has meaningful visual impact then it must be art?

Matters of Scale
Cochise Stronghold, Arizona
2020

It’s hard to appreciate the massive size of the bolder piles and pinnacles in Cochise Stronghold until something of familiar size appears to put everything into perspective.

Enforcing Social Distance
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
2020

This is how the coyotes in Yellowstone handle the issue.

I Am An Island #4
Cochise Stronghold, Arizona
2020

No Place to Meet Your Enemy
Cochise Stronghold, Arizona
2020

No place to meet your enemy that is if you’re the U.S. Army trying to roust the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache out of their homeland in the Dragoon Mountains in Arizona. Cochise grew up there and retreated to this rocky canyon that now bears his name a number of times to successfully avoid capture. Particularly given the military capability that existed in those days, this looks like a very defensible position to me.

Death Spiral
Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona
2020

Bare Tree #36
Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona
2020

An alligator juniper tree spreading it’s cheeks, so to speak.