Artful Views at Joshua Tree National Park

We had two wonderful days at Joshua Tree National Park, and some really lovely photographs were possible there.  Let’s take a look –

Black & White Joshua

As lovely as the Joshua Trees are in living color (see next image), I thought it would be striking to process an image in black and white.  The starkness of the limbs of the trees gave me the idea to try this.  The desert landscape and rocky mountains added to the effect, with only the clouds above to soften things.

Looking Up a Joshua Tree

As interesting as the gnarly limbs of a Joshua Tree are from afar, I thought it might be cool to look up a tree.  I was careful not to get too close (I wasn’t sure if touching the trunk would be a painful experience), but was able to get a good view of a complex structure.  Again, the softness of the clouds offset the roughness of the tree.

Rock Formation

I posted a similar image to my travel blog.  I decided to include it in my art blog because I loved the tonal quality of the formations.  I processed this image in “true” HDR, merging 3 images taken with different exposures, so that the subtle qualities of the colors could be highlighted.  Don’t you just feel like you could reach out and touch the smoothness of the stone?

Taking Wing

There were many ravens around, and I took many images of them soaring overhead.  This image looks like I’m capturing a shadow on a rock wall.  In reality, this is the actual raven with a rock formation as a background.  He was flying around the very large boulders in the area.  This image just has a sort of magical feel to it.

Enjoy!