This is our fourth installment for our project, “It’s Beautiful Where We Live”. Like most everyone across the country we have been staying home 23 hours a day with just one hour of freedom for exercise. It has now been a month since our last landscape photo shoot, our cameras gathering dust, and our trigger fingers getting twitchy. We needed to find a place to shoot where there are no people. We decided on Granite Mountain at sunset. (Granite Mountain is part of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve 25 minutes northeast of our home). Since the park closes at sunset, we are hoping to find a limited number of people. We carefully monitor an online tool called the sunset predictor. This tool uses various weather sources to come up with a prediction for the quality of the sunset or for what we hope is magic. The warmer the colors the better the sunset. Last night showed the possibility of a great sunset.

April 30 Sunset WX

No need to point out the location of Scottsdale, all of AZ is in the red!

To get to our shoot location, we walked about ¾ mile under heavy duty power lines. There were pins and needles up and down my arms, vellus hairs dancing away, feeling safe from the virus. How could it survive in these conditions? Also, there was no one other than us for as far as we could see.  We settled on a spot at the crest of a small hill, giving us three subjects to photograph: a scenic field of saguaros with mountains in the background, the famous four peaks, and a hillside of silhouetted saguaros.

Granite Mountain Valley

Not spectacular but certainly pleasant.

Four peaks in the distance as the clouds lit up. [photo by Kathryn]

The sky became ominous with its deep orange color.

Saguaros on Fire

Moments later the sky became fiery with nice silhouetted saguaros.

Thanks for stopping by. And, remember, it’s all about the light!