Our last day in Anza Borrego we selected a hike to Torote Canyon. Now Torote is the Spanish for Elephant tree. We like elephant trees. They are odd trees that grow only in specific places in the park. Four years ago we hiked up to them and we wanted to see if we could find some more.
Torote canyon runs out to a broad flat plain. It is a sandy drive up to where we started the hike. Much of the hike was on the dirt road as we did not have a 4WD to get us further up the canyon. Nevermind it was a pleasant walk with hardly any people about.
The day was not particularly hot but it was warm. I found myself 'blacking dogging'* it in the shadow of the canyon however to stay comfortable.Throughout the day I felt hot and tired and worried there was something wrong. It transpired that I had picked up some food poisoning from the night before and my condition got much worse over the next 24 hours.
Never-the-less the area was beautiful and we had nice day out though we cut out the more strenuous plans as I was not up to it. I brought along my Rolleiflex and shot some more TMX-100 film. I used a green filter for a lot of these desert photos. I reasoned that a green filter would accentuate what little greenery there was and still give some good contrast for the sky. It succeeded in the latter but I need more data to see how useful it is for desert photography. It certainly did not ruin it. Though we didn't see any elephant trees close up.
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| Looking down the canyon to the broad plain at the entrance of the canyon. |
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| Here a large boulder captured my attention. Note the white granite hillside in the background. |
The canyon is in an area of the park called Tierra Blanco. It is so named because the granite is starkly white here. Crumbly and rough it is shot through with small dark inclusions. It has the look of chocolate chip ice cream. Looking around the sandy desert floor we found small round black stones. These were small pieces of iron pyrite or fools gold. These same small stones were the 'chocolate chips' in the white granite.
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| And here is alternative crop of the same boulder. |
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| Here is a nice collection of rocks and vegetation including the ocotillos jutting over the horizon. |
Often when I am out I try and find collections of natural objects that fit together in some pleasing way. Part of the sparse beauty of the Sonoran desert is it's park-like feel with sandy soil and widely dispersed plants. The photo above achieves some of this.
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| Alternative crop of the above photo. |
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| Yet another crop I like. |
For this concept of still life this is something like a larger version of what I try and achieve. Most of the time my objective is a smaller more compact collection that makes an almost a natural still life. My inspiration is taken from a photo my brother took in the Sonoran desert near Tucson Arizona. The photo below shows a nice collection of rock and desert plants which I find pleasing. What I think I am after is a bit like the Japanese concept of Ikebana.
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| Glenn Morse still-life (Ikebana?) inspiration. |
Next I think the skyline here is good with the sweep of ocotillos off the ridge. The ocotillo are so emblematic of the Sonoran desert.
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| An alternative crop of the above photo. |
One of my favorite plants of the Anza Borrego desert is the appropriately named smoke tree. The lace-like leaves can give the impression of a wisp of smoke. They vary from pale green to an almost yellow-brown depending on how much water is around.
*Black Dogging is a term we concocted to descibe a black dog's preference for shade on a hot day. One observes them running from shady spot to shady spot.
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