While it may be obvious from my constant babble about weather, storms and lightning, that I LOVE that stuff with passion, there is also something else I enjoy immensely. The cool pine trees of northern Arizona. Being a desert-born dude who lives in the Phoenix area almost year round, minus the occasional excursion elsewhere, getting out of that blistering sunshine is of vital importance, especially during the summer. Ever since I was a kid my dad used to take us camping once or twice a summer. People who don’t live in Arizona have no idea that the pine trees are…

I continue to dig a little here and there into the pictures I took in the middle of May when I went up to northern Arizona on a work trip. I made a detour on the way home to visit Grand Falls and stopped to snap many photos along the way. The weather was gorgeous, storms were plentiful and something I had not expected. This was along Indian Route 6910. I loved the giant rock formation in the middle of the generally rocky terrain, but also the cool part of this shot is the San Francisco peaks that you can…

This photo is from a few weeks ago on my trip to see the Grand Falls in northern Arizona. The clouds were stormy, but not really dropping a ton of rain…like these in the shot. Mostly virga, but still awesome to see. The skies were amazing that day and I had to stop every few minutes to snap another photo. Helped that I was on a 10-mile dirt road going only 25 mph. This is panoramic made up of two, 3-bracket HDR photos stitched together in Photoshop. The clouds were so tall and spreading, I almost needed a third shot…

I’m not sure how to describe or talk about this photo. I was driving to Grand Falls and the sunlight was really streaming down through the clouds like some archangel was descending in a rage of glory. I saw only two trees on the 10 mile dirt road and this was one of them (if you can call that thing a tree…but it was the closest thing to one anywhere around). I was eying it from about a quarter mile away because it clearly visible sitting atop this little hill. As I got closer, it was just magic that somehow…

My buddy Jon who was in town with his family this past weekend joined me for a hike of the San Tan Mountains just southeast of the Chandler-Gilbert area. It’s a neat little regional park that I never really paid much attention to until I started getting into photography. The views were great, but one of the main reason I went out there was to capture the greenery that is now covering much of the desert floor here in Arizona. The incredible amount of rainfall has created greenish tints to all the mountains around town and when you examine them…