Last night was my last night trying to shoot wildflowers here in the desert. We went back to the same location as the past 2 nights to try one more time to get it perfect. We had some wispy clouds in the air that looked very promising, but ultimately did nothing as the sun set. This was my favorite image from the night. We even had to deal with jet contrails a few times, which usually ruins a picture. The flowers in this location are done! If I were to stay here a few more days or come back this weekend, I would check out the lupine at the end of Di Giorgio Rd at the base of the moutains in Coyote Canyon. It looks like it will be good next week. We are headed back to San Diego today to check out the poppies at Lake Elsinore and to shoot the city skyline tomorrow night. I know that is something new for me, but with the video in my new 5D mkII, I am looking forward to experimenting more with my photography.

Last night we finally got to shoot some beautiful flowers without wind. We saw a posting on the SoCal wildflower report a few days ago that mentioned walking about 2 miles north of the road to find sand verbana and dune evening primrose flowers. After we scouted this location 2 days ago during a windy sunset, we went back to shoot it last night and got some beautiful light. I am very pleased with the shoot, but I think that we are going back there tonight. I would really like to shoot this scene with my 6×12 panoramic camera.

Speaking of 6×12, I got accepted into the Bellevue Art Festival this summer! I got an email last week that said I got in this year, after 4 years of rejections. I am very excited since it was such a good show for me 5 years ago. I submitted 4 of my panoramic images to the judges and that is what helped me get in. So if you come visit me at the show this July, I will definitely have a number of my panos on display.

Lastly, Mark made me sign up for Twitter yesterday. I am going to try and figure out how to integrate it into my business. If you are interested, you can follow me on www.twitter.com/CornforthImages.

Mark and I did some exploring yesterday and finally found what I consider to be the 2 best flower displays in the area. In the afternoon, we hiked part way up Palm Canyon and found tons of brittlebush on display, so that is where we went back to this morning to shoot the sunrise. I also played around a bit with the video function on my new camera as well as my 6×12 panoramic camera. I don’t think that I did either of them justice. We are going to go hiking again this afternoon and are really looking forward to sunset tonight when we are going to photograph our secret stash of flowers that we located yesterday afternoon.

Back home last week, I ran out of time and never got the chance to share that I was heading down to the California desert for a week with my friend and previous workshop client Mark Teskey. We met in San Diego on Friday night and then drove out to Anza Borrego Desert State Park on Saturday. When we got here it was a zoo with weekend gawkers as we scouted for flowers ourselves. The bloom is at its peak, but does not seem to measure up to some of the previous years displays. We’ve been scouting the area and last night finally captured a few images worth sharing. I am shooting for the first time with my new Canon 5D mkII, now that I sold my Pentax 67 medium format camera system. It is taking some getting used to after shooting landscapes only with film for the past 8 years. This morning we had a beautiful sunrise, nice clouds and flowers, and unfortunately 20 mph of wind! We are in the area for the rest of the week, so as I continue to get new images I will try and post them during the day.