This was another week of travel in southern California. After working for the week in Redlands and Palm Springs, my family flew in on Friday for a spring break vacation. We immediately drove to one of my favorite places in the world, Joshua Tree National Park . There are two deserts within Joshua Tree, the Mojave, with the signature Joshua Trees, and the Colorado. Right at the border between the two is a palisade of Teddy Bear Cholla cactus. They’re so named because from a distance they look fuzzy and huggable. Up close, their true nature is revealed to be a hell of barbed anguish. On my first trip here, I watched a teenager crying in pain as a nest of needles was pulled from his thigh, one spine at a time. With pliers. My favorite image of the week:
Teddy Bear Cholla
Fujifilm X-T2, Fujinon XF 18-55 f/2.8-4 R LM OIS at 55mm, f/6.4 at 1/320; ISO 200.
Digital Darkroom. Curse you, Fujifilm for creating such lovely jpegs! I generally prefer the greater control of RAW files, but in this case the jpeg was too nice to pass up. I made the usual sorts of adjustments, including a big boost to clarity. I popped the highlights and added more sharpening than usual, trying to accentuate the nasty needles.
Alternate Image. This week I really agonized over which image to pick for my favorite. I went with the cactus because of the unique framing that I pulled off with the blurred cactus around the sharp cactus in the middle. But this image of a set of stairs in Palm Springs was a close second. I love the bold yellow and the crisp outline of the banisters and the shadows.
WIRR stands for Weekly Image Rich Ruh. This regular feature on Das Has von Ruh will show and describe my favorite photo created during this weekly period. My weeks start on Mondays, as does the WIRR. I’m hoping to include commentary on the story, the setting, the specs, or the sentiments, depending on the circumstances.
Das Haus von Ruh 