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.

My Truck Runneth Over
Why, Arizona
2022

Another Desert Dropout
Tucson Mountain Park, Arizona
2021

Not “pretty” by any stretch of the imagination, this bit of decaying prickly pair really caught my attention. Think of it as an abstract image of textures, shapes and shadows and maybe you’ll see what I was drawn to.

Bare Tree #84
Tucson Mountain Park, Arizona
2022

This image puts off a bit of a vibe from Muench’s “The Scream.”

The Scream (lithograph detail)
Edvard Munch
1895
The Munch Museum

The Wide View
Tucson Mountain Park, Arizona
2022

After concentrating so much on close-in shots of the Sonoran desert since our arrival, I realized I’ve yet to post any wider shots to better set the stage these images. Here’s one that I really like. When I first converted it to black and white it had a look that hinted of a finely detailed pen and  ink drawing. So I leaned towards enhancing that look in my adjustments to the image.

Bare Tree #83
Tubac, Arizona
2022

Mesquite trees cast their shadows on an adobe wall.

A Monument Unto Itself (Bare Tree #82)
Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, Arizona
2022

Standing alone in a grassy field, the massive size this dead cottonwood tree is an impressive sight. It’s not clear if it succumbed to the long drought in the area or simply died of old age. I do know that it seemed about half of the other cottonwood trees in the area also were dead. Whether that’s an unusual ratio of dead to living trees, I don’t know. Cottonwood trees do seem to grow fast and die young compared to other tree species.

Bone Dry
Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, Arizona
2022

This water depth gauge in Arivaca Cienega is actually measuring slightly less than zero. “Normally” this cienega (Spanish for 100 waters) is a rare wetland attracting many species of birds (and birders) to this part of Arizona.  But the new normal seems to be that the area is almost bone dry due an extended drought. The unusually wet monsoon season last summer didn’t seem to have any lasting effect. I wonder where the birds are going these days.