Contrary to what you have imagined, this post has nothing to do with feces. It has to do with two photo walks that produced very little interesting pictures. The first walk was to the industrial park. I thought that I might try my hand at taking pictures that were not macro, and not nature based. It did not go well. I now own a good amount of random pictures of building. The second walk was to the wash at sunset, during which I fell twice and got little useable pictures. So this time, there is a combination of two walks and it didn’t get much. Hopefully I’ll post my newer camping pictures soon. Maybe. Let’s see
Obviously I had some trouble getting this post done, since Valentines day was more than a week ago; but they say that good things come to those who wait. I went to the Desert Botanical Gardens with Melissa for Valentines day and we walked around and visited the Chihuly exhibits at sunset. I only brought my phone camera with me, so the quality of these pictures are a bit poor, but they are still good enough for a little phlogging.
Bubbles – Chihuly is fairly famous for these types of sculptures. They are impressive, but I was surprised to find that there were other structures in the gardens that were more impressive. *PSECondoms – Okay, they aren’t really…but they kinda look like it. Nonetheless, I really like this snap because of the grains in the wood contrasting with the smooth bulbous glass. *PSECarnival Boat – Throughout the gardens we kept hearing people talk about the “boat”. I have to say, it lived up to the hype. I really like how this picture captured both the shape and color of the glass in the reflection on the water. *PSEEgyptian Eye – Not sure what kind of flower this is. Still beautiful…sorta looks like an Egyptian eye. *PSEGlass Cactus – I am undecided on whether I really like this, or don’t. It’s a confusing emotion. I’ll just post it here and forget about trying to figure out my feelings towards it. *PSEGlass Spike – In person, this looks like it’s glowing inside. Very awesome. *PSEIcebergs – This was right next to the boat exhibit. I actually liked these better because of the simplicity of them. They look so natural and unforced, unlike what most of the artwork was like. *PSELilac Flowers – Okay, not really lilac. But they are adorable lilac colored photos. I hardly touched this photo. *PSEPurple Tubes – Chihuly is really into tube art. Most of his exhibits were random colored tubes coming out of the ground. As far as they go, there were only two that interested me. This one, because of the yellow strumpets. *PSEYellow Stalks – Another random tube art piece. I mainly like this because of the way the sunset is shown in the background with these bright abstract yellow streaks. *PSE
Okay, well it wasn’t exactly romantic firelight. I literally set up a still life scene and worked on taking pictures from a single source of natural light. In this instance that was one of those long lighters that they sell to light charcoals with. The still life was made up of some gold foil paper cranes, a gold decanter, and a peacock feather. Mixed results.
Golden Bottle – this is the decanter. I like this picture alright but I am a little worried that the light spot might be a bit too distracting. *PSEGlowing Orb – I like the effect of this picture (by putting the light source behind the decanter and letting it light up the surrounding area with glow) but I’m not sure I actually like the execution. Tough one. *PSELooking Glass – This is another one of those that I’m not sure if it was a success, even if the idea was grand. I was trying to catch the reflection of the bird in the glass. *PSEPeacock and Glass – This one is my favorite. I like how the peacock feather just gently lays against the glass decanter. The opposing textures provide a beautiful effect. *PSEPeacock Feather – I have a passionate love for peacock feathers. I love how the light just gently caresses the side of this feather, lighting up only a small section. The super close zoom, makes it look more abstract without losing the actual pictoral quality. *PSE
So, I spent some time working on self portrait pictures ( to which I am not ready  yet to post on the phlog. I am still in search of the perfect one) and while I was doing this, I became obsessed with pictures of my lips. First off, I know my lips are not exactly perfect, and they aren’t nearly as awesome as Mick Jaggers, but I feel as though my lips are quite a lovely feature of mine. They are full and pouty and usually velvety smooth without any chapping. This entire phlog will showcase my wonderful, delightful lips. I’ll try and keep BJ jokes to a minimum, but no promises.
Angel Lips – I’m not exactly sure that I should call this picture angel lips since I think it is actually I the most provocative. Something about thow my lips just barely stick together on the left side makes this very interesting to me. *PSEKiwi – I wanted to provide some contrast to make my red lips really stand out, so I thought why not deep throat some kiwi. I consider this an unmitigated success. I particularly like the shape the center of kiwi makes. *PSELip Close Up – This is a fairly straightforward pic, and the only thing I really like about is that it makes my lips seem perfectly even. Usually, in my lip pics, you can see that my mouth lilts slightly to the right. *PSELip Shadowing – I was playing with a single point of light in the bathroom and got some interesting profle pics. I like how the shadows fall on my face in this one. *PSE
Chris and I went to go and climb a mountain…well more like a rather steep hill, in Phoenix called Piestwa Peak. Got some decent pictures, but nothing spectacular. I did have a very good time photographing the Lichen on the rocks. One could say I’m lichen it a lot :p.
Ocotillio- This tree was at the very beginning of the trail. Couldn’t say why I find it interesting. Just do. PSE.Phoenix! – This is the center of phoenix as seen from half way up a mountain. Those mountains in the background are the Estrellas. PSE.80’s primordial lifeform – Though I’m not sure that lichen is primordial to be honest. Here is some of the lichen on the rocks. I exploded the color here, but i like the abstract look it gets. PSERed Headed Stepchild – more Lichen. Mostly of the orange variety. Really liked the lichen. PSESoylent Green – This stuff reminds me of something from a b rated horror movie. I loves it. PSENorthern Ave – This picture I like because it kind of looks like there is a natural trail leading back to my house. The mountains in the background are the white tanks! PSERed Cactus – I got pricked by many of these going up the mountain. Nothing exciting about it really *PSESpider Cactus – I’m not sure why I think of spiders when I see this cactus, but I always do. *PSEViolet – It’s obviously not a violet, but it was the only purple thing in a world of mauve. *PSE
I went Geocaching with Chris and Mel and took my camera along. Took around a hundred pictures, but wasn’t satisfied with most of them. After a good deal of searching, these were the ones that I like. Actually, I really love the blood brush and bottle one, but I think that’s cause I’m weird. Enjoy!
Like a Weed brush for Blood – I found these outside of a grouping of wash drains. The sun was starting to set so the color was a little different. *PSEPoofy Flowers – For being taken in the middle of the sun, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of Arizona, this looks very cool. *PSERubbish can be Beautiful – This is just a bit of rubbish that I took of a picture of while Mel’s shadow crossed over by accident. Lucky accident. *PSENatural Beauty – Very little Photo Shopping. Came out almost perfect. *PSEBurnt Branch – To be honest, I don’t think it was really burnt, but just a type of branch that always looks like it came out of a hot fire. *PSEDead tree – Not much to say, I was really torn on adding this one anyway. *PSEReaching up – I wasn’t sure whether I liked this better in BW or Color. Maybe I’ll post the color one at another date. *PSECactus Fruit – This picture is more informational about what cactus fruit looks like. I tasted it too….a little peppery. *PSERain Perfume – Chris showed this to Mel and I while out. When this gets wet it makes the whole desert have this wonderful rainy smell. Not a remarkable looking plant, but with a beautiful secret. *PSEPuffs – I have a weird thing for puffs. I spent a good twenty minutes on my belly trying to capture these guys and this was the best I got. Sorta disappointed. *PSEGrowing through – This is one of those pictures that looks better in real life, but I love how the new tree is emerging from the old. Very symbolic. *PSEPattern Palm Frond – I’m trying to work on capturing more pattern snaps. Mild success. *PSEShadow Leaf – I was not wowed by this when I actually shot it, and I was pretty sure I was going to trash the lot. With a little photo tweaking it actually moved to one of my favorites. *PSEDomino – I think it’s pretty rare to find a completely black branch covered by a white one so I had to get this shot. Not sure if the branch is naturally white or sun bleached. *PSEFlower Power – A Picture of a flower. Why? Cause like any other amateur photographer, if there is a phlower, I must Phlog it. *PSE
As promised, here is the second part of the wash pictures. Overall, I liked the first set better than these, but these also have the two that are my favorite out of the group. Also, I added some pictures here that are not technically magnificent, but that I like. Because they are of the cloud tree. I loved the cloud tree.
A different Flower by the log – I know in the last post that I also had a flower by the log, but hey? What can I say? Arizona has a lot of flowers by logs. This one was actually a very lovely peach color, but it got washed out a bit with my camera, and despite best efforts I couldn’t revive it. So instead I decided to focus on the lovely shapes and lighting effects with a nice BW. *PSENot actually Chili Peppers – When walking through the wash, I saw what I thought were Chili peppers. Wrong. Apparently despite living in the southwest, chili peppers do not grow just anywhere. Still, the color of the plant was so striking that I had to snap. *PSEAnother cotton plant picture – I was really obsessed with this plant. I just loved how it looked all soft, and when the “cotton bits” left there were these little white paper flowers. *PSECotton Plant Again – Oh, the main reason I liked this snap was that the camera caught a bit of a rainbow effect from the sunlight and it contrasted beautifully with the color of the plant. Really more interested in the effect than the snap itsself, but nonetheless…. *PSEThis is what I imagine pollen looks like – it was all over this tree too. It was like a mass of pollen, and yet, I didn’t sneeze once. *PSEThought it was a bug – When I first went up to this little plant, I thought some really gross bug was on it. Turns out its just the plants pod or flower. *PSECOLOR!! – I love the colors in this pic. I photo enhanced a little, but honestly, the colors were there to start with. It is just so…Horton Hears a Who-ey *PSEI think this is where clouds are made – This is actually the same plant as the cotton tree, but in this snap it looks like its a tree for growing clouds. I just loved this tree. Loved. *PSEMeh. – Not the best picture in the world, but this is a more broad view of what it looked like inside the wash. *PSEHorton Hears a Who – Here is another Horton Hears a Who plant. I guess this one is more traditional than the spiky one, but I think the spiky one is more magical. Still, fluffy white flowers garner an instant snap. *PSE
I had a lot of pictures in this batch that I wanted to upload, so I broke it into two parts. I went to the wash with Chris on January 9th and here are some of the pics that I caught while there.
A different view of the same flower – In part with the other picture, this is just another view of the flower. I couldn’t tell which way I liked it best, and now that I’m at home, I wish I had gotten some pictures with less light, but this worked out okay. Photo taken next to Chris’s house. *PSEArizona’s Snowflake – This is a piece of cottonish stuff that comes off a tree that we have in AZ. Seeing this tiny little bit of the ground made me feel like it was a perfectly formed snowflake. I literally spent like ten minutes trying to get the perfect picture of this microscopic fluff. *PSEAnother View of the Flower – This ones from a little further away. Not sure what the flower is, but I liked it. it was very tiny…like small as a dime kind of tiny. *PSEA view of the flat green area that I took pictures in before the wash – This log was just a log. Yet, I loved it. I think the coloring of the log, that grey stonish look, was so beautiful. It looked like a dinosaur bone or something…anyway, It also had a pretty little flower hidden behind it, which I also took a snap of and posted here. *PSEI guess a better name would be cloud… – I know you can’t really see the hawk in this picture, but I felt the way that it lead the cloud made it feel epic. *PSENo, it’s not hay, and no, I don’t know what it is. – Not a clue on what this plant is called, but I’m pretty short, and so the fact that this plant was such a pretty color and the blue sky framed it, I had to have it. I hardly touched this one with PS. *PSEAlmost positive this is a Palo Verde tree – The way the light was hitting this leaf, made it look like it was made of gold, and I couldn’t resist snapping it, even if it is a little boring. *PSEHidden flower – In the desert there aren’t a ton of flowers, and the ones there are, are usually hidden. This one was hidden behind the gray log in the above picture. Not sure what kind of flower it is, but I love how the leaf came out almost perfectly white and framed the flower against the grainy grey background of the log. *PSEJust hanging on – Another bee photo, this one was a little less perfect, but I still think it is good enough for this. *PSEBee Buzzing in the Tree – While on my way to the wash, I passed by this tree that was literally swarming with bees. At great risk to my own life, I hung around and tried to grab a couple of photos of the bees. I have a friend (JP) that adores bees so I wanted to get something good. *PSE
In Need of a Good Phlogging 