Joshua Tree National Park Photo Expedition II

It's March Madness time again and that meant another road trip to socal for some basketball and joshua trees. I planned out my routes much better this time to avoid the nasty los angeles traffic and managed to get to Joshua Tree National Park with a couple hours to spare before sundown. Although, I'm still kicking myself for not stopping and taking a picture of the hills outside of Bakersfield that were completely covered in golden poppies except for a few solitary oaks. Maybe next year.

It was a full moon night which I thought would make for some good moonlit night scenes. But all that light reflecting off the moon wasn't enough to keep it above freezing. Here's a couple shots at sunset when I could still feel my toes.



After a few freezing hours shooting by moonlight, a rough night in the back of the audi (it was too windy and cold to set up the tent at 10pm) and a wise decision to skip shooting the 5 am moonset I awoke to a beautiful day. Here's my artsy attempt at ice crystals on the car window with a joshua tree reflection.


One thing I've noticed about Joshua Tree National Park is that the skies are a wonderful blue at any time of the day. Even though the midday light is a little harsh (and quick to sunburn a face during an afternoon nap) the deep blue sky compliments the gold tones of the granite and green of the joshua tree leaves very well.



Towards sundown the colors became more saturated


And what's the best thing to do with such vivd evening colors?, drop the color altogether, of course


My love of sunsets and fear of evening commute traffic in LA made for a good excuse to stick around for one last pretty shot


Even though the moon foiled my plans for starry night photos, avoiding all the terrible traffic that plagued last year's road trip made this an enjoyable prologue to a disappointing performance by uc davis in their tournament.