Ocotillo Cameo

/

Under a Sonoita Storm. Sonoita, Arizona.
Nikon Z7 with Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/4 S at 24mm, 1/60 sec, f/8.0, ISO 64.

Cameo? Be sure to read to the end!

I mentioned two weeks ago that I missed the Arizona summer monsoons. (Note that the emphasis there is on the word monsoons, not summer, but of course you don’t get one without the other.) The Sonoran desert is the wettest desert in the world, and the summer monsoons are why. In Julyโ€”typically a peak monsoon monthโ€”of 2021, Tucson had its wettest single month on record with just over 8 inches of rain. It should be pointed out that monsoons tend to be localized, so the official recording spot at the Tucson airport could be getting blasted when most of the area is bone dry. And vice versa. Nevertheless, it was a very wet month and the desert was very green.

The post before lastโ€”too bad penprevious is not a wordโ€”focused on a brief window of time during that month, but I actually made three trips down to Sonoita over a two week span. For me, one of the attractions of the area is the abundant ocotillo. Ocotillo is not a cactus, but a shrub, although admittedly a rather vicious one if crossed. They are usually leafless, but several times a year they will respond to rainfall by leafing out before dropping their leaves a after a few weeks. Much like the springtime leaves on a deciduous tree, they begin as a vibrant green:

Verdant Gauntlet. Sonoita, Arizona.
Nikon Z7 with AF-S Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR at 1/500 sec, f/9.5, ISO 450.

The preceding image uses a long telephoto to emphasize the density of ocotillo and all but eliminates anything that isn’t green from the frame. The next image uses the long telephoto to isolate the yucca against a blurred pattern of ocotillo. I like the color palette in this image, with muted greens and yellows set against the rich vibrant greens of the background:

Wannabe Ocotillo. Sonoita, Arizona.
Nikon Z7 with AF-S Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR at 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 160.

If it wasn’t clear from the image at the top of this post, it should be clear from this next one that when the ocotillo are in leaf, they are the greenest thing around. I like the way that the angled sunlight in this image lights up the ocotillo while setting them against a much darker slope behind them. As this image shows, ocotillo really light up when backlit: their leaves are not dense enough to significantly shadow the near side of the plant from the sun on the far side.

Grazing Land. Sonoita, Arizona.
Nikon Z7 with Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/4 S at 27.5mm, 1/180 sec, f/4.0, ISO 64.

And now for the promised cameo! I enrolled in an online course by David duChemin called Shoot What it Feels Like, which has a follow-on called Develop What it Feels Like. When the latter started, David solicited raw images that he could use as examples to edit in Adobe Lightroom. His course isn’t about trying to fix or repair an image that has problems, but about how to edit an image so that it conveys a mood or feeling. Anyway, I was game and looked for an image that had potential but seemed challenging. I submitted the following image, which David used in Episode 5. He kindly agreed to send me his version so I could share it here:

Fatigue. Sonoita, Arizona.
Nikon Z7 with Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/4 S at 62mm, 1/60 sec, f/8.0, ISO 64.
Post-processed by David duChemin.

Editing an image is a rather personal effort, and I might edit the same image very differently today than I would a year from now, so it is not surprising that David took a very different approach than I would have. And, in fact, that is why I sent him an image at all, because I thought it would be fun to see what someone else did with it. I will be honest and say that as I watched his edit on the video, I didn’t like it. (Who adds green to a sky!?) But after looking at it for a while, it has grown on me. It isn’t the direction I would take the imageโ€”the whole point of exercise, of courseโ€”but it does, indeed, convey a feeling. I thought about it for a long time before I titled David’s version “Fatigue”. It makes me feel like the ocotillo and the little sidekick agave are contemplating tomorrow’s long march to the distant mountain.

As it happens, between the time that I submitted this image for David’s consideration and seeing it appear in his course, I edited this image myself and ended up here:

Ocotillo Fold. Sonoita, Arizona.
Nikon Z7 with Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/4 S at 62mm, 1/60 sec, f/8.0, ISO 64.

The only change I made after seeing David’s version was to shift my crop up slightlyโ€”I had initially removed all of the sky, but eventually decided that the ocotillo looked crowded against the top of the frame. The extra bit of hills along the top of the frame also give the image more depth.

Comparing the two versions, the obvious difference is the crop, of course. In the end I decided that the bright sky was too much of a distraction from what I considered the main event in the foreground. (David’s addition of green to the sky, on the other hand, actually connected the sky and the foreground, something that never occurred to me.) My foreground is more contrasty and I emphasized that line of golden grass across the frame. I also went through (somewhat painstakingly) and highlighted the barbed-wire fence, too. In fact, when displayed at a larger size, you can see the individual barbs on the fence catching the light:

Detail from Ocotillo Fold, above.

One difference between David’s edit and mine is that his is more of a grand landscape where the ocotillo is a supporting element whereas mine is more of an intimate landscape where the ocotillo is the subject and everything else is context. Mine also highlights all the parallel lines that go across the frame at a slight diagonal, something that is much less prominent in David’s version. Overall, my version is more graphicโ€”more high contrast lines and patternsโ€”whereas his is more atmospheric.

Two very different renditions. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

I want to thank David for choosing my image to process and allowing me to use it here. I highly recommend his books and blog and courses and podcasts.

Thank you to all of my subscribers. I hope you enjoy receiving these posts every week!

If you would like to receive my weekly post as an email, please subscribe:

Categories:

Tags:


6 responses to “Ocotillo Cameo”

  1. Quite a lot to take in this week. Of the various versions of Octillo Fold, I prefer yours. David’s edit has a bright sky that draws attention at the expense of the plant. Your first re-edit is attractive but the patch of sky is distracting. Everything about the third version seems better judged in terms of the diagonal lines and the light on the plant and fence.

    Having said all that, the image in this blog that I really like is Wannabe Ocotillo!

    • Unfortunately, I can’t put emojis in the comments. Because I really want to put in a face-palm! I think it is hilarious that your favorite version of Ocotillo Fold was not intended to be a version at all, but a zoom-in to show a particular detail. Oh, well, what can you say.

      I went back and forth on the little bit of sky in the corner. In the end I decided that it helped give a little depth and I toned it down to mitigate it being too distracting. There was a matching (although smaller) bit of sky in the very top left corner that I just cloned away because I thought it was distracting; certainly ping-ponging between them was. I think the patch of sky I left is big enough to not seem like a mistake and adds to the overall lower-left-to-upper-right flow of the image. Also, it is really too big (it seems) to edit out, and cropping it out crowds either the top of the image or the right hand side of the image or both depending on how you do it. That was my thinking, anyway; I could be wrong.

      I do like the excerpt (if I can apply that term to a tight crop) you do, though. It’s rather tidy.

  2. A very thoughtful post. I think it underlines the importance of knowing what the image is about for you. As the photographer you have a decided advantage in that regard. Your edits focus the attention more specifically, where mine could only assume that your inclusion of the sky and the background mountains were intentional and an important part of the story. But knowing what the photograph is about is where we start, and our decisions will either refine that, or take us in a different direction. Thanks for letting me be part of this!

    • You are very welcome, David, and thank you to you as well! It was fun to see where you took the image and, in truth, I often decide to go in directions in post-processing that I did not expect to at shutter-pressing time. Obviously, as you state, I have context that someone else wouldn’t have; that doesn’t make it better, just different. I chose that image to submit, in part, because it seemed like a challenge to process and you have given me some ideas to use in the future. Thank you!