ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)
I've been looking at and printing photos this evening -- my own, and my father's. Here are a couple of side-by-side comparisons of similar shots taken with different cameras.

Landscape )

Cactus Flower )
ellarien: cactus (desert)

IMG_0933
Originally uploaded by ellarien.

We hit 100 today, with single-digit humidity -- hot and dry enough to sting . Phoenix got 110!

ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)

Cholla flowers Cholla flowers
UA campus, May 2008

ellarien: pink cactus flower (pink)

Pink cactus flower Pink cactus flower
UA campus, April 2008



This is the cactus under the dead boojum tree, which has all its flowers at once, for a day or maybe two. This year the flowers were there on Monday, gone on Tuesday.
ellarien: claret cup cactus flower (spring)

Claret cup cactus Claret cup cactus
UA Campus, April 2008



Brought to you from the Eee. (I was a bit disconcerted to find it doesn't have plain old ftp! My ISP doesn't support sftp on the user web space, but they do have a web client that did the trick. Installing Imagemagick turned out to be easy, though.

In further Eee news, I *think* I have a reproducible way of getting it to behave on the network. One of the steps seems to be 'wait five minutes for everyone to settle in.' Will document later, if I manage to do it again.
ellarien: claret cup cactus flower (spring)
The weather today was about as perfect as it gets around here; temperatures in the seventies, with blue skies and a gentle, fresh breeze. Flowers are everywhere: hot-pink beavertail and hedgehog cactus, orangey-red claret cup, red-gold acacia. The orchid tree is one mass of white bloom, against a background of a bottle-brush tree almost as well covered in dark-red tassels.

So of course, my camera batteries were too flat to let me get more than a few quick and not very well-framed shots. Maybe tomorrow ...

Spring!

Mar. 10th, 2008 06:57 pm
ellarien: cactus (desert)

The first cactus flowers of spring! The first cactus flowers of spring!
UA campus, March 2008

ellarien: Red barrel cactus flower (scarlet)

Barrel Cactus Barrel Cactus
UA campus, July 2007



It rained! Officially! Two whole hundredths of an inch! And the temperature dropped to the high 80's, which is what the night-time low has been the last couple of days. With a bit of a breeze, it was almost pleasant coming home.

Early

Jun. 27th, 2007 08:20 am
ellarien: Night-flowering cactus bloom (white)

DSC08418
Originally uploaded by ellarien.

I caught the first bus this morning, and wandered around the campus in the early morning light and relative coolness, dodging joggers and looking for night-flowering cactus blooms. Mostly it was a case of flower yesterday or flower tomorrow, but this one I caught in the act.

ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)

Barrel Cactus Barrel Cactus
UA campus, June 2007



Not quite the first of the season, but almost. The buds on the candy-striped ones have gone, over the last week, from scaly points almost hidden among the spine to the full teardrop-shaped, bi-colored buds; there may be flowers by the end of next week.
ellarien: cactus (desert)

Saguaro flower Saguaro flower
UA campus, May 2007



And today we hit 100, just.
ellarien: cactus (desert)
I don't know what it is about this year that's bringing out things that I've never seen in flower before, but I found another one today, this one just across the road from the office, awkwardly placed but a bit more accessible than last week's.


DSC08199
ellarien: claret cup cactus flower (spring)

Prickly Pear Blooms Prickly Pear Blooms
UA Campus, May 2007

Serendipity

May. 1st, 2007 07:11 pm
ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)

DSC08180
Originally uploaded by ellarien.

This thing has been sitting in the campus cactus garden for as long as I can remember, at the base of the stump of the defunct Boojum tree, but I've never seen it in flower before. I was wandering back from lunch today and there it was, all these delicate pink flowers. I couldn't get really close, so this is more documentation than artistic shot.

ellarien: cactus (desert)

DSC08146
Originally uploaded by ellarien.

It's the time of year when the yellow (and red) prickly pear flowers are out, and it has become my habit to wander down the road of a weekend morning, taking photos and noting the scurry of lizards in the undergrowth, catching the occasional grey-furred flash of rabbit and glimpse of quail.

This was the day for that. More photos over on Flickr.

ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)
Hedgehog cactus flowers Hedgehog cactus flowers
UA campus, April 2007
ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)

DSC08056
Originally uploaded by ellarien.

I've had a lot of trouble with this particular bush over the last couple of years; the flowers are small and glossy, so that the autofocus tends to lock onto the spiny stems instead. This time, I think I nailed it.

This lunchtime the weather was so beautiful that I bought a new memory card for my camera rather than miss it because I left the others at home.

ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)
Beavertail cactus flowers Beavertail cactus flowers
Tucson, April 2007
The beavertail in the strip mall by the grocery store did particularly well this year. I think it was at its best about a week ago, when I was too busy to do anything about it, but it was still quite impressive today.
ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)

DSC07984
Originally uploaded by ellarien.

I love all the cactus flowers, but I have a particular soft spot for the hedgehogs, which bear their extravagantly lovely flowers on such unprepossessing little thorny stems.

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Reading, writing, plant photography, and the small details of my life, with digressions into science and computing.

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