Lori Carey Photography

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Tierra del Sol's 50th anniversary Desert Safari Fireworks


Fireworks over Ocotillo Wells for the 50th anniversary of Tierra del Sol's Desert Safari


Last weekend in Anza-Borrego was fantastic! Jeff Sullivan is a fantastic landscape photographer who also leads photography workshops. While he was out here in California working on images for his upcoming book he generously invited a few of us to tag along with him on informal photo-walks to Anza-Borrego, Joshua Tree, Valley of Fire, Yosemite, Mono Lake and the Eastern Sierra and more. I wish I had planned to follow him and Lori straight to Joshua Tree after Anza-Borrego (especially after seeing that he got some great light out there), and I had so much fun that I'm contemplating joining the Eastern Sierra and Yosemite trips.

I spent Friday-Sunday in Anza-Borrego and made some great new friends, had fun exploring slot canyons and some new trails I had never been on before during the day, then hung out until 2am every night doing night photography and was up before 5am every morning for sunrise. The only disappointment was the boring light at sunrise and sunset every single day...no clouds.

I've always been a solo shooter and this was my first experience shooting with a group. This was the perfect size; eight of us altogether and four of us who spent our nights (and mornings!) doing night photography until the wee hours. Even with such a small group it can be hard to learn to 'share' if you've never shoot with a group before, and sometimes you just have to realize that you're not going to get the shot you had hoped for. Four people just can't do star trails with the same subject in a narrow slot canyon while the moonlight is good. But that small downside is far outweighed by the upside; getting to meet some fantastic local photographers who are a lot of fun, finding some new locations, the camaraderie of others who live and breath the same stuff, having good company when trekking around the desert in the middle of the night, drinking tequila sunrises while doing long exposures...sure is a lot more fun than being out there by myself! Thank you Jeff and Lori Hibbett for your hospitality and putting together such a fun weekend, it was really great to meet both of you. And special thanks to John Moore, Tony Payne (no website Tony??) and J. Rae Chipera for all of the fun under the stars...you guys rock!

It was the same weekend of Tierra del Sol's Desert Safari...tough decision because Bill really wanted to do TDS but since he ended up working all weekend my photography won out. I did get to hang out with some jeepers Saturday morning when I had to head out to get gas but I never found any of my jeep friends. I was there in spirit with you! This was the 50th anniversary of the Desert Safari and Saturday night they celebrated with fireworks. Jeff found us a great overlook to photograph the show.


Fireworks over Ocotillo Wells for the 50th anniversary of Tierra del Sol's Desert Safari


You can see more fireworks images in the gallery here and I'll be posting more photos from this trip soon.


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