joshua tree

A National Parks Journey - Joshua Tree National Park

I was surprised that I had put off visiting the 8th National Park in the State of California for this long. Especially since I had lived in California for over 8 years. The Park itself was easy to access from the town of Palm Springs, which makes for a suitable base to visit the Park. And even though I hadn't expected to see much in this park except for its namesake - the Joshua Tree, I was pleasantly surprised to explore a thriving desert landscape with very unique rock formations.

Cacti of different species, including this forest of spiny chollas, called this rocky landscape home, as do the iconic boulder formations that have attracted boulderers from all over the continent. But framing all this are the namesake cacti - the Joshua tree, that is so emblematic of the Colorado Desert Region of Southern California. While heading out of the park on a colorful evening, I found this forest just as the sun dipped below the mountains and lit up the sky.

Joshua Tree National Park
CA USA

The Salton Sunrise

At 4 in the morning, I was still dazed in my hotel bed, wondering where I ought to be for sunrise at Joshua Tree National Park. As I gathered my senses, I started scouting the nearby locations, completely unaware of the conditions the sky would present. As I headed to the park, I kept peering into the horizon, hoping for a clue of where I ought to be to capture the magic of sunrise. In the end, I headed up to a viewpoint where I got a glimpse of the distant Salton Sea, one of the largest inland seas of the continent.

As the sky slowly transformed into the colors of dawn, the edges of the high clouds changed to a deep shade of pink, which reflected faintly on the vast surface of the sea. Surrounding this sea was the vast inland desert of California and Arizona, dominated by the distant blue mountains that were still in shadows early in the morning. I waited a bit, hoping for this vast landscape to light up, but before that could come to fruition, the sun promptly disappeared behind a large bank of clouds, dashing any hopes of a bright sunrise. Nevertheless, I tried to capture the vastness in scale of this unique vista of Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree National Park
CA USA

Desert Silhouettes

After a mere 4 hours of sleep, I thought I was seeing things when the eastern horizon started glowing in a pale shade of orange. But I wasn't, and dawn in Joshua Tree National Park was shaping up to be very colorful. The small gap on the horizon meant that it wouldn't last too long, and as soon as I got a chance, I pulled over to capture a silhouette of the classic Joshua Tree landscape. The pale orange slowly changed to a deep shade of pink that framed the spiny shape of the desert cacti. The moment didn't last long, but for those few moments, the scene was sublime.

Life is full of such fleeting moments that you have got to seek out, else they don't wait for you. And this is never more truer than it is for a photographer, where you have to be at the right place at the right time. After all, the object of art is to make eternal the desperately fleeting moment.

Joshua Tree National Park
CA USA