If you are a rock climber then you probably already know of Joshua Tree National Park. It's the winter home of the Yosemite climbing crowd. I went in April of 2014 for the second time, but took my camera and lucked out with the cactus in bloom, an overcast day and pleasant temperatures. The campgrounds there are pristine.

[/url]



March and April are definitely the good months for photography, since cacti don't bloom for long.







The plant species in Joshua Tree are also worth the trip. I don't think there is anything like this elsewhere.



















If you like the desert this is a "must see" place. The specific plant life and the rock formations are only a three hour drive from Los Angeles. All photos with a 50mm Nikkor at f/5.6 or a Nikkor 28mm at f/8 on a D700. I don't need no stinking zoom lens anymore.

Very nice Wink....I love primes too

I caught this rabbit exceeding the speed limit.




Sometimes the signs seem a little incongruous.

Thanks for sharing Wink.
Back in the mid '70's while driving OTR. I went thru there on that hwy. Can't tell you the number now, too many yrs ago.
Sure did amaze me to see those tree's that looked like way over grown yucca plants. Nearly the same spikes on 'em from what I could tell.

Thing is, those bigger one's are several hundred yrs old. Maybe you took some pics of signs next to some of those tree's.

The way it looks in these pics, no graffiti, wonderful.

George

Nice!

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
Thanks for sharing Wink.
Back in the mid '70's while driving OTR. I went thru there on that hwy. Can't tell you the number now, too many yrs ago.
Sure did amaze me to see those tree's that looked like way over grown yucca plants. Nearly the same spikes on 'em from what I could tell.

Thing is, those bigger one's are several hundred yrs old. Maybe you took some pics of signs next to some of those tree's.

The way it looks in these pics, no graffiti, wonderful.

George

In my photographs there are several types of yucca plants and a Joshua is a kind of yucca. I should probably go back and identify them, since they aren't all Joshua Trees:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca

Wink:
Lots of yucca around these parts in some areas too. Shucks, even have a neighbor that's planted the blasted things just down the block.
Some people, huh?
Some areas are thick with 'em, mostly they're scattered though. Nothing grown up like those tree's up here though. Far as I know that's the only area in the world that has the Joshua tree's.
Sure nice seeing them again. Did you take pics of some of the signs telling about their ages? IF you did, please post them too. Help educate folks that have never seen such things before.
George

Moving to the 1800 pixel wide format is a pretty exciting development for posting photographs on the forum. It's almost a paradigm shift for landscape photographs, since sweeping panoramas lose all interest in dinky little photos and are usually visually too "busy" to make out any detail when viewed at a small size.

























Joshua Tree is truly a desert garden. I'm still impressed with its beauty.

amazing place, I would love to visit someday.

A couple more just to get a sense of scale:

Still life:

Almost like a fireworks finale:

Beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing.

nice work...

been through there a few times did spend the time to do it justice.

You probably noticed in some of my pictures that Forrest was also carrying a camera. I realize this is old stuff, but it's never too late to set the record straight. Besides, it's the right time of the year to think about a visit to Joshua Tree National Park.












A couple of Forrest working on his photography:





For most of his shots above he was using his ultra-wide Nikkor 10-24mm zoom.

Thanks for the photos. In my callow, misguided youth I lived in southern California for a while and spent a lot of time in Joshua Tree National Forest, rock climbing and camping. This brought back many memories.

Well done. These are really good pictures. THanks for posting.