Dawn in the Desert

The best way to get great photos is simply to go get them.  Put yourself in the right place at the right time.

Clambering up a ridge to get a distinct vantage point pays off here in the Creosote Bush Scrub habitat of the Sonoran Desert.

For landscape photography that means being on location at dawn.  Often I rise well before dawn to get to a garden, but for wild lands and nature photography that means camping.

Here, car camping by a dirt road in Anza-Borrego State Desert Park in Southern California I can be shooting within five minutes of waking with the first light.

Before and After Slider

Just as the best sunset photos come just after the sun has slipped below the horizon, sunrise is best before the actual dawn. Yes, I was lucky to have some clouds to work with that morning – but I was there.

After sunrise the light is quite warm and golden. Turning away from the sun the side light shows a fresh clean morning.  This next photo was taken 12 minutes after the predawn cloud photo. Note only a slight hint of color in the wispy clouds.

The color of light quickly changes, but coming low from the side is a great way to feature hardscape and mountains.

This is Coyote Mountain and is the same mountain in the distance of the golden dawn photo above, only photo 20 minutes apart.

I have now been twice in two weeks to see the superbloom of wildflowers in the Southern California Sonoran Desert, at Anza-Borrego State Park.  I am astonished and thrilled by what I found.  Here is a gallery from the first shoot.

Watch for a longer article of the entire shoot soon.