When you visit Tucson, Arizona, you have the opportunity on the same day, to walk among a forest of saguaro cactus in the desert and snow covered pine trees atop a mountain peak. Tucson is definitely more famous for its cactus, but Mount Lemmon is a fantastic change of scenery to have just a short drive from town. If you time the drive just right, you can arrive at the peak (or rather near it, as there is no defined peak you can actually drive to) in time to see the sunset over the sweeping valley and smaller peaks below. This means when visiting Tucson you can pack both your shorts and your snow pants and use them on the same day!
Whenever I am out of town, or in this case out of state, on extended rural land real estate shoots, despite being very busy, I always try and visit some local point of interest. So while in Show Low, Arizona for three days, I fortunately had time one morning to take a stroll around Fool Hollow Lake. The fool part of the name comes from a settler in the 1880s thinking he could farm the rocky ground surrounding the lake area. As it is today, it’s a peaceful place to walk among pine trees with changing views of the lake as you circumnavigate it.
The beauty of Angel Fire in winter in drone aerial photos
For regular readers of this website, it is no secret Angel Fire has become my favorite place in New Mexico. I have been here many times in the past, but all in summer, and since Angel Fire is most famous for being a ski area, it was great to finally visit the town in winter with snow on the ground! I had a dual mission here, getting drone video of a vacation rental house (which the owner kindly let me stay in!) and working for my main rural land client getting drone photos of his property that just happened to be only 8 minutes from the rental house. I actually thought there would be a lot more snow on the ground here in Angel Fire, but it is the start of March, and the temps have been in the 50s the past few days. It has been great to be in the quiet and beauty of Angel Fire in winter. If I could only run my business from Angel Fire, that would be fantastic!
Tucked away in the far southeast of New Mexico, Rockhound State Park is a place you probably have seen in the distance if you have ever traveled on I-10. The mountains standout from all the dozens of miles of flatness. The first few times I was in the Deming area, I thought to myself, what an odd name. What is a rockhound anyway or who is it? Only very recently did I learn that a rockhound is a person that goes out looking for rare rocks. Who knew there was an entire state park for such a thing in New Mexico!
Farewell to a loyal friend in the Jeep Renegade Trailhawk
It is the end of an era in vehicle ownership for me, as I have had the last adventure in my beloved Jeep Renegade Trailhawk. What started in March of 2019 and took me on 73,000 miles all over New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, comes to a conclusion in February 2022. In all those miles the Jeep never let me down once, not on road or offroad. It is very bittersweet selling it, just like it was selling the Mazda3 I had before the Jeep. I guess this is the way it goes. In the last two months though, the Jeep went out in style driving on the national seashore in Corpus Christi, up to the top of a mountain in Tucson, and on the snow in Valles Caldera National Preserve with four people and three dogs in it! Just like the Mazda3 got me and Kiki out of Florida, and the Jeep was at the heart of desert adventure in New Mexico, perhaps the next vehicle will take us to the completion of our journey all the way to where the Road meets the Sea.
If you are a mountain biker in New Mexico, the trail name Dragon’s Back is probably known to you. It is my single favorite trail to ride in the state that I’ve found so far. If you just like to explore hidden gems and hike, this is also one of the most incredible landscapes in the world, not just New Mexico. Check out the range in topography and geological features the aerial drone photos reveal for this area. It truly is an alien or martian landscape. Is it hard to hike this trail? Not at all. After a bit of a steep incline from parking lot to trailhead, the tail is mostly a rolling trail that even a beginner hiker could do an out and back on. Pack for a longer hike and do the full loop to see the other side. This was also my first time flying my brand new DJI Mavic 3 Cine drone! It was really windy, but you could not tell that from the drone footage. I would like to come back with the drone and better light, and more practice flying it, to really show you what the Dragon’s Back Trail is like and how it definitely is a New Mexico True experience.
Cosmos photos across 13 years of photography history
The first time I photographed cosmos flowers 13 years ago, I was just learning how to become a more serious photographer. That meant I could still be stunned by the amount of bokeh created in these cosmos flowers I made in Tachikawa, Japan. Now many tens of thousands of photos later, I am no longer stunned by creating very shallow DoF in a photo, but I do still appreciate the magic of it. These cosmos were photographed in the ABQ Biopark while bees were busy collecting pollen on a warm fall afternoon. In 13 years will we still be using what we traditionally think of as a interchangeable lens camera to make such photos?
