A Short Stop at DBG

After an early morning shooting at Three Sisters, Rick, Tom, Greg and Barbara headed to Desert Botanical Gardens.  Spring butterflies are on exhibit and it is always nice to check for spring wildflowers.  I am still out of town so I offer the following goodies without the benefit of being there but certainly enjoying the images nonetheless.  Enjoy.

Wooden bowl.

Image made me smile!

Love those flowers.  Nice foreground.

This is so beautiful and delicate.  I went back to see what lens camera combination he used.  Tom used his Nikon D600 with the old manual lens I gave him that is so tack sharp.  It is a 55mm prime Nikkor and I am betting he had it wide open.  Trick to this is that I cannot imagine shooting moving butterflies with a manual focus lens!  But, if I could get images like this one I just might give it a try.

Thanks for viewing and joining us.  With the weather so nice this week I would have to go check DBG out if I were there.  I have an idea!  Go for me and send your photos!

DBG Noches de Luminarias

During the Noches de Luminaries the Desert Botanical Garden takes on a whole new look and feeling.  Of course, it is dark.  But, it is way more than that.  First there are the crowds.  They are happy crowds, some walking around with glasses of wine (in some cases bottles).  They chat excitedly with the wonderment usually reserved for children.  There are five bands spread out through the garden.  The new entry that leads you back into the Garden has been finished and  is very nice.  To top it off, we had a full moon rise!!  We slowly made some progress in getting shots . . . very slowly.  Then we sat down, listened to one of the fine bands, had a glass of wine and enjoyed just being in such a wonderful space with a great friend.

These ladies were back.  I think of them as the 'official greeters'.

There were several times when I felt as though I was at the bottom of the ocean.  I love these prickly corals.

Part of the new entry way. It wraps around, is open and inviting.

We laughed and asked how many shots of the same scene we could take and make them look differently on the blog.  I promised to crop mine in a different way.  Ultimately, this shooting scene was one of that challenged our patience to get shots not dominated by people.  We lost and went on to get wine!

Bottom of the sea again.

We got skunked on getting a decent image of the rising moon.  What was fun was the number of people standing behind us watching to see if we would ever get one!!  With gear like ours they must have thought we knew something!!  LOL

A beautifully decorated tree was the site for many 'couple' shots. 

On the way out Tom got us into some Tom foolery as we tried to practice zooming in or out on a long exposure.  Sure, Tom!!!!  Fortunately, before getting too  discouraged with our results (which were lousy), our stomaches saved the day and we decided to get dinner at Thai Basil in Tempe.  We hope you have plans to attend at least one night at the Gardens this season.

Now, why would we think we wanted to do this?  

Of Monarchs, Chili and Chocolate

The Queens and Kings of Wings enjoyed music all day from the entertainment on the patio where the annual Chili and Chocolate Festival at the Desert Botanical Gardens was underway.  The day was just wonderful in every way from perfect weather to people watching, food, and butterflies to photograph.  Karen and I even took in a cooking demo on making mole from Gertrude's chef.  To top it off, the students and instructors from Yumi La Rosa, a flamenco dance school, put on several flamenco dance exhibitions.  Enjoy our day without any parking hassles!

Hold still please!!

For Cory.

Of course, there is much more to the Garden than butterflies.  Here are just a few examples of how much fun this place can be.

I was trying a new composing technique that Karen had just shared with me and in my viewfinder I spot the following image.  Rescue this poor critter that is trapped in cactus!!!  I had just enough sense to try and stay with my subject this time (some of you may chuckle in remembering the beach scene).  But, he was quickly gone, scampering up the back of the cactus only to appear happily on top!  He pulled one of the loose fruit up from the cactus and settled in for lunch.

"I think I will just have my lunch in the sun."

"You will need a model release and my posing fee is not included in your admission.!

Yum!!  Yum!!

I watched him eat for 8 minutes, slowly moving my tripod ever closer.  I wanted him to hurry up and scamper back down.  I had a plan on how I was going to capture him going down.  You know the old saying, "The best laid plans . . . "  Some 50 shots later, he set down his fruit.  I did not capture his descent as he quickly turned and went down the back side of the cactus.  The fruit he left behind on top was quickly picked up and carried off up by a nearby bird.

"OK, did you get it?  Would you like me to do it again?  He scampered right back up the back.  Once he realized his food was gone he quickly went down the backside again.  I think he believes I took it!

To celebrate chili and chocolate, the patio and surrounding garden is turned into an indoor/outdoor market with about 30 vendors, most of them small local businesses.  It looked to me like most of the products were organic, utilized local ingredients and had a bit of kick to them!  Some had a LOT of kick and came with names like Scorpion Hell!   We had lunch on the patio, watched flamenco dancers and just kept mentioning that we hated to leave.  So we didn't!!

If I thought flamenco dancing would make me look like that I would spend hours a day at her school. 

The young 'man' in the middle had the personality to go with his fancy footwork!  He could pull off the 'looks' like the one below . . . only when on a young face it was cute instead of . . . . well, sexy.