Well, the 2008 Joshua Tree Gathering was this past weekend (Jan 18-20). The Saturday morning sunrise shoot was down toward the Pinto Basin on the road to Cottonwood Springs and the park’s south entrance. It was nice because it was much warmer down there, above freezing by several degrees.
The plan was to shoot a sunrise series. The challenge was to shoot the series as 360 degree panoramas. And it was made even more challenging by not having a pano head. So for the next good hour we shot these sequences. I learned a lot, one thing being I’d have to try again the following morning.
On the way back we decided to stop at Cholla Gardens to catch them drenched in early morning sun. We pulled into the parking lot and grabbed our cameras. Ignoring the path I wandered amongst the chollas, ever mindful of their disastrous beauty. And beautiful and terrible they were with their halos of densely packed spines.
