I didn’t come here to watch whales, they showed up just like I did. I saw one come out of the water near Pacifica, and thought that might be the only one I saw. After a few minutes I realized there were at least four very close to shore and easy to see. They kept popping up to catch fish, which attracted a ton of birds to pick up the scraps. I could figure out where the whales were going next just by watching the birds.
As you drive into Joshua Tree, you see the namesake trees one by one. Then all of a sudden they are everywhere. I like this particular joshua tree, standing by itself and reaching toward the rocks in the distance.
This is a good road. It leads to many great adventures in Joshua Tree National Park. Fortunately, traffic wasn’t much of a problem and I was able to take the photo documenting the journey on the way in.
The colors in the sky were great, but I wasn’t in a good spot to get a classic sunset photo. After getting over that disappointment, I found something better and decided to shoot these leaves that weren’t ready to fall off the tree and were a great way to add some silhouettes to the sunset.
Some sunsets have clouds, some sunsets are yellow. This one has a crazy shade of purple and a joshua tree. I used a flash and a green gel to light the tree up in a color that offset the sunset. It worked even better than I expected!
