Arizona Saguaro's - Image Gallery May 2022

In May of 2022 I ventured down to the greater Phoenix area to capture some incredible landscape imagery of Saguaro Cactus. It's always a bit overwhelming to pursue incredible landscape imagery in a location you've never been. It all boils down to two things, either getting lucky, or putting in the required work. 

You would think a week is enough time right...not necessarily so. A typical landscape trip begins with google searches, pouring over maps, milage, trailhead locations, natural landmarks, and getting local opinions of popular and aesthetic locations. From there it's feet on the ground, driving roads, dirt roads, and selecting trailheads to visit and explore.

On this particular trip, I had a very challenging go. To be honest, I haven't even posted any of these images. It was frustrating, exhausting, and demoralizing. Similar trips are always challenging, but typically relinquish more beauty, more incredible imagery worthy of printing as artwork on a large scale. This time around, the landscape was already a little dry, the cactus weren't blooming, and the forecast was clear blue skies (the worst thing as a landscape photographer). 

The goal in my mind, was to find a location with aesthetic Saguaro Cactus, perhaps a distinct ridgeline that would allow me to silhouette the cactus at sunrise or sunset. Typically I will select a location, choose a trailhead and a hike that puts me in the nearby vicinity of natural landmarks or aesthetic terrain that. From there it's off to the foot race, hiking miles on trail and getting used to the terrain while looking for pleasing compositions. When I certain terrain peaks my interest, it's time to venture off the trail and explore.

Given the goal is to shoot at sunrise and sunset, I'm often exploring and scouting mid-day to capitalize on limited shooting time. Given it was mid-May, temperatures were already cresting 100+ degrees mid day. This alone posed a great challenge, but now throw in the risk of Rattlesnakes. When I'm shooting landscape imagery or scouting, I'm typically very aware of my surroundings, however my line of sight is always directed towards the horizon, combing the hillside for aesthetic features that will make a great composition. In the Mountain West where I typically shoot, sure...there are Rattlesnakes as well, but much less. In the mountains Bears, Mountain Lions, and Moose are certainly a concern, but the difference being, they don't hide on ground level. My vision can be outward, searching and scanning terrain without hesitation or worry. 

That alone changed the experience for me. There wasn't a step that I wasn't constantly watching where my feet landed, and nearly three times while on trail I almost stepped directly on a snake, two of those three times coming within a few feet from a Rattler, coiled up and ready to strike. Pretty quickly I realized how vulnerable I actually was, traveling alone, often times off-trail traversing ridgelines, or even worse-yet, scampering up an exposed rocky face to get a vantage point while placing my hands in rocky hand-holds. This is probably something a local would scoff at, just like I could really care less about black bears and mountain lions. However, it's not like I'm always on trail, or even within a few miles of the trailhead. Back in 2017, I had a trail-running friend that was bitten by a Rattlesnake while trail-running a couple miles from a popular trailhead in Colorado. He wasn't able to get to help quickly enough and died on the side of the trail. 

On my trip, I also ran into a Gila Monster. The Gila Monster is a large and venomous lizard that is native to the southwestern United States and north-western Mexico. At some point I heard that you're lucky enough to see just one Gila Monster in your lifetime...I saw two over the course of two consecutive days. I'm not so sure I call that lucky, but they are pretty damn cool! 

Early on in my week, I researched maps and scouted an off-trail route a few miles into an overlook of the Salt River. It was actually a really beautiful night with a tremendous sunset, however I wasn't able to locate a few aesthetic Saguaro to really capture what I had in mind, a sunset shot of backlit Saguaro's overlooking the Salt River (See images below). 

There was one location that stood out from the rest for me, that being "Weavers Needle", a towering spire of rock surrounded by rolling mountains of Saguaro in the Superstition Mountains. Choosing to hike in from First Water Trailhead, I ventured out in temperatures nearing 120+ degrees fahrenheit in the depths of the canyons surrounded by rock. Well prepared with plenty of water and skin coverage, dealing with the extreme temperature was more of a meditational exercise than a risk. However, I did have a rather awkward run-in with a kook, a kid from Illinois with a military-esque appearance on a solo road trip. We crossed paths a few times, and at one point he chased me down to ask me if I was following him. It was strange, definitely hilarious, and slightly scary being alone without another human for miles. I couldn't help but politely respond to the absurd exchange and quickly put as much distance between us as possible, hiking as fast as I could in the tremendous mid-day heat. 

There was one Saguaro Cactus that I found on this trip that really spoke to me, the location marked and on the list to return and shoot some day. Although I can't compress the image to increase the size of Weaver's Needle in the distance, the landscape is incredible and begs to be captured with an incredible sunset or sunrise, that or a powerful summer storm. The shot that really stands out to me here, is lighting this cactus via aerial lighting attached to a drone, essentially studio lighting the cactus from top down, while shooting an incredible nightscape of the milkyway above. Not sure this will work out, but it's on the list and I need to find a time to return in the next few years. 

All in all, it was a challenging trip, I left with barely anything in the bag. The Arizona desert is much more harsh than the Utah desert, everything is sharp and simply less inviting, fighting you could say, to protect itself from the elements and environment. 

That's just how it goes sometimes. It gets to a point and you're tired of battling and it's time to hit the road. However, I did find some locations for the next trip and have a better idea for time of year and the conditions I will need along with the gear. Below are a few more images from the trip in no particular order. Feel free to save and use as a desktop background as well. Thanks for reading!