Image{s} of the week

Every year Chris's family spends Spring Break at his grandparents' winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona. When we were there last year I kicked myself for not taking pictures of the desert, so this year I vowed to bring my camera and capture cacti on film. Chris's grandfather, Merlin, was more than willing to oblige by planning a trip to see the desert at the end of the week. I explained that I wanted to get there before the sun came up so the light would be just right, which didn't seem to phase the rest of the group. I didn't, however, expect the inner battle that ensued when my alarm went off so early that it was still dark.

"Ugh it's too early. And even earlier in Seattle." I grumbled.

It was too bad for me that this whole desert excursion was my idea and everyone else in the house was up and ready to go. I surely couldn't be the one to back out so I threw on some clothes, poured some coffee, and tried to act more awake than I actually felt. 

These kind of photography trips are like trying to get yourself into a gym - building the momentum to change into your gym clothes, put on your tennis shoes, and actually drive to the building takes the most amount of will power. Once you're through in the doors, you're happy you made it and the reluctance fades away. In the same way, once we made it up into the desert and I was snapping images of prickly pears, I forgot how early it was. 

Fast forward a few months later when I finally got around to developing the prints and I'm even more thankful that we went...although we missed a turn and were lost for a while there, but that's just part of the fun isn't it?

All images taken with a Canon EOS Elan7e and scanned.