I was lucky to participate in some fall surveys in the Mojave desert.  It was a brief venture south, but a fruitful one where I got a taste of a seemingly mysterious event in this parched landscape. October is a hot, dry month.  It is a time of brutal tedium, anticipation.  Especially if you bear the heat all summer and are waiting for the nights to finally cool the earth a bit more.

It’s also a month that’s known to celebrate the summer monsoons (or Southwest monsoons).  This year we had some decent rain and enjoyed some late season blooms that contrasted sharply with the otherwise dessicated matrix of creosote.  Here’s a celebration of Pectis paposa, cinchweed.

I also had to include this rad shot of our crew botanizing the yellow line.   I threw a bit of false HDR on it to make it “cartoon-like” and celebrate the absurdness of it all.  The false HDR is certainly an acquired taste, but you can’t beat it in its silliness factor.

And the parting shot – a sunrise on State Route 58.  A low contrast shot drenched in a bit of emotionalism.  As Ernest said, “the sun also rises”.

Three pictures, three styles of processing.  You gotta love the world of digital processing.  I do. All this work was completed in Adobe Lightroom and OnOne Perfect Layers.