spring

Announcing a Monthly Free Print Giveaway!

Win this print. “White Water Lily”, 10″ x 15″ fine art paper print, digitally signed. Shipped for free worldwide to the winner. Winner to be announced May 1, 2020.

April 6, 2020

In these strange times, as we socially distance ourselves and hunker down in self-isolation, meanwhile the earth keeps on rotating and the seasons continue to come and go. Spring has arrived in full force here in Arizona. The temperatures are balmy, the wildflowers are blooming, and I saw the first waterlily blossom of the season show its face on our pond just this week. The cottonwood trees are fully leafed out, and the mesquite trees are thinking about it!

Speaking of cottonwood trees, a pair of Cooper’s hawks have a nest of youngsters in the tree right outside my kitchen window – but I can’t see them because of all those green leaves! I’m jealous of a photographer friend in Scottsdale who has a nest of red-tail hawks in the arms of a saguaro. He has a great view of the fledglings. Did you know a baby hawk is called an eyas? I didn’t – I had to look it up.

On my Facebook and Instagram pages I’ve been sharing some photos with a springtime theme, just to bring a little beauty into our lives. And that has inspired me to initiate a monthly free print giveaway. The free print for the month of April is “White Water Lily”.  Anyone who subscribes to this blog and is on my email list is automatically entered. So if you are reading this now in your email, know that you’re already in the drawing.

For anyone else who’d like to participate, just add your first name and email to this subscription page, and you’ll be entered for this drawing and future monthly giveaways as well! Share the good news with your friends!

Click below to enjoy a gallery of spring images. All are available for purchase over on my website if you decide you’d like to bring the outdoors into your home to brighten those four walls!

 

 

 

 

Posted by Carol in Arizona
Summer Nostalgia

Summer Nostalgia

It’s high summer here in Tucson. The clouds building up each the afternoon, the lightning flashing on the horizon and thunder rumbling in the distance – all are tantalizing hints of monsoon rainstorms. Sometimes there’s even a payoff with a sprinkle or a deluge, our reward for suffering through the high humidity of the season.

June as always was hot and dry, burning the spring flowers to a crisp. So it is a pleasure to go through my files and relive that glorious season of just a few months ago when the desert was bursting with color, blanketed in rampant wildflowers and cacti in vibrant bloom.

CBPP_20130501_Cloud-199-Mstr

Nikon D4, 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 1600, f/3.5 @ 1/8000 sec, 0EV

I photographed the lavender Santa Rita prickly pear cactus with its profusion of yellow blooms, hand-holding a 105 mm lens to narrow the focus down to just a few very fine details. And I crawled on my belly at dawn with a wide angle 14-24 mm to capture a landscape blanketed in pink by a bumper crop of Mexican primrose.

Enjoy. I did.

Click on any photo below to open up a slideshow.

Posted by Carol in Arizona, USA