Infused With Light #3
Tumacacori, Arizona
2021

The sculptural forms and shadows of adobe buttresses on architecture of the southwest are a long time attraction for photographers. This includes Ansel Adams as well as Paul Strand who both took well-know photographs of the well-known Saint Francis Church, Ranchos de Taos. But they also have drawn many other lesser known photographers and less impressive buttresses such myself and this image.

Infused With Light #2
Tumacacori, Arizona
2022

Infused With Light #1
Tumacacori, Arizona
2022

The term “infused with light” is one that is tossed around quite a bit among writers about photography. Much of the time I think it is a term not particularly informative about photographs because isn’t everything we see infused with light to some degree or another? Otherwise how would we see it. But when I looked at the group of photos I took at the San José de Tumacacori Mission Church, my first reaction was wow, these images are really infused with light! Against my usual tendency to promote deep shadows and high contrast in working with my images, I was so impressed with these rather glowing images with open shadows, I chose to buck my usual approach and process them to reflect (no pun intended) that initial feeling I got from them. And so, rather than naming the series after the subject matter itself, I chose to name it after my gut reaction to the photos.

Snow Moon
Tubac, Arizona
2022

The full moon last night was the secoand and last full moon of our stay here in Tubac. The weather this time around was very much like that for last month’s full moon–cloudy but with enough open sky just above the horizon to see the moon come up. February’s full moon is called the snow moon, which was quite apt on the local scene here as just the day before a cold snap created rain down in the valley and snow up in the Santa Rita mountains from behind which the snow moon made it’s appearance.

Cristate
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona
2022

Cristate or crown shaped growths on cacti are uncommon but not rare. I’ve seen them on saguaro cacti before where they always seem to grow at the top of a cactus (making crown shaped a very apt description). On organ pipe cacti though, cristate growth appears at the bottom rather than the top of the plant, at least in the 2-3 cacti I saw with it.

The Ripple Effect
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona
2022

This organ pipe cactus had more going on than just droopy socks.

Droopy Socks
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona
2022

Did you ever have a pair of socks that just wouldn’t stay up and kept sagging down around your ankles? Organ pipe cacti generally have gently curving arms. But some, like this one, just can’t see to keep from sagging down towards their base.

Be Mine
Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona
2022

Theirs was a prickly kind of relationship, but a heartfelt and lasting one nonetheless. Happy Valentines Day.

Bare Cholla
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona
2022

I was tempted to include this image in my Bare Tree series but a cholla is not a tree, however much it might resemble one in a way, so I chose to remain botanically correct.

Bare Tree #85
Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona
2022

This old chuck of a desert ironwood tree looks much like a bit of lava flow like that you might see in Craters of the Moon National Monument or many other locations.