April in a Nutshell
- joshua6029
- Apr 28
- 12 min read
Where do I even begin? The last few weeks have been a blur! Back to back to back night photography workshops to capture the April milky way. Starting with a drive south to the Sonoran Desert for the Desert Bloom workshop. This year was interesting, record high temps weeks before scorched the earth, yet the cactus and shrubbery was springing back to life from the sporadic, short spring rains and we made the most of it as we always do!
We started in the goldfield mountains, north of the superstitions. A great spot to dip your toes in the water on a hot day, which it was. We spent the evening immersed in its calming flow capturing the soft motion and reflected orange glow against the sheer cliffs. A perfect way to start the workshop! As the sun set the cliffs took on a deep almost red glow and gave way to soft pastel clouds at twilight. Its always a fun bushwack to this little spot but the serenity is worth it. We found a very tasty mexican and asian fusion restaurant which would not have been my first choice but the "bistro" we initially went to was actually a sports bar packed with folks for the UFC fight. It was a happy accident that we moved, as we ended up eating at the exican/asian fuson restaurant for 3 nights in a row! It was so tasty!
The following morning we would rise at 1:45am to get in position for the milky way from a higher vantage point of these same cliffs, using cacti and rocks to shape the scene. The moon rose shortly later illuminating the landscape which was a blessing and a curse. Some cool images were definitly made. While we were there, we waited for the sunrise. Which with such clear skies all night, it was great to see a flew clouds blow in just in time! Being pretty wiped out from the very early morning we all agreed on a quick breakfast and a big nap before we were to start our editing session for the day. We started with focus stacking and exposure blending before we got into the creative stuff, and in the sleepy stooper ended up leaving the house nearly an hour early for that evenings sunset because my laptock clock did not adjust to the time change which turned out to be time we actually needed.
We were heading to a remote spot in the superstition mountains who's access has recently seen some gentrification and the usual 1-3/4 mile trail has been blocked and bulldozed, so we found another way in. After piling the whole group plus the pup in my toyota 4runner we made the 1.5 mile, VERY rough drive to get within 1/5th of a mile from our target area. With temps over 90º it was worth enduring the rough road. We had a wonderful golden hour of passing clouds, which gave way to a stellar sunset. By now 4 of 5 guests have had their first Cholla cactus experience. All you have to do is get close and they seem to jump onto you. I always hand out combs and have pliers on hand to remove them. Somehow one of the ladies in the group managed to gracefully move about them with some sort of immunity. I always say though, if you havent gotten poked, you arent close enough. Plus, you miss out on part of the experience, HA! For some of the guests, they had a very thorough experience! It was then back to the house for a few hours of sleep and another early morning!
This time we had our sights set on the western side of the superstition mountains, a massive garden, or forest rather of very large cactus. We arrived to catch the moon rising over the mountain which made for some very cool photos. The light pollution of pheonix actually helps illuminate the landscape and balance out the light of the moon. check out this shot of the only cactus free guest on the trip more than an hour before sunrise. At one point we nearly left as a large black cloud was closing in on us and I was getting mixed information from the various radar maps in the area and I like to play it safe. But as we were almost back to the vehicles it began to clear up and everyone quickly found compositions and began shooting once again. The stormy clouds at sunrise were spectacular! We even had a rainbow behind us at one point, although very low in the sky.
Checkout this short timelapse of some of the crew at work as the moon rose that morning.
Somehow everyone seemed to have more energy that morning as we went to one of my favoroite breakfast spots for a nice group meal before another big nap and more editing! We got deeper in the mud on day two and covered a lot more ground. Its hard to show everything you've learned in 13 years, in just a couple of hours but man do I try!
That evenings Sunset was to be spent overlooking one of the lakes in the verde river chain north of Pheonix. An annoying wind picked up as we made the drive up there but thankfully settled just in time to get to work. Everyone spread out and found their little spots and we enjoyed a beautiful golden hour and sunset overlooking the lake in quiet serenity.
That was until one of the guests alerted me to the presence of an animal. Anyone who has done a workshop with me or spent any time around me knows I am a nature fanatic and what I thought initially was maybe a rattlesnake, I had hoped it was a gila monster, the worlds most venomous lizard, it was neither. But maybe even more exciting was that it was actually a subadult spotted skunk!!!! I've only ever seen one other in the wild, while shooting the milky way here in moab on a photo tour back in 2016. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I mean just LOOK AT IT! Tucked between these granite boulders.
Once the sun set we made the drive to dinner. Its always bitter sweet knowing it's almost over. I think we all indulged a little extra that night. I say this with a lot of my groups but this was another great one. Everyone was already planning a reunion for next year on another workshop! It makes me feel good that despite having gone through some extremely difficult times over the last handful of years that I am able to bring folks together for a great experience still. I felt renewed and refreshed as I sat there in immense grattitude listening to everyones conversation. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to the guests for coming, and thank you guys for reading this!
The last morning came, and the 4am wakeup felt like a sunday sleep-in compared to the previous two mornings. That morning took us to the first lake in the salt river chain. A great east facing spot overlooking a small corner of the lake. The thin and wispy clouds ignited bright pink as the sun rose that morning. A fitting send off for what was a great few days of photography despite the lack of wild flowers and cactus blooms. Then it was time to say goodbye before high tailing it back home to moab for a 24 hour turn around to swap rigs and head out to New Mexico in the van where the weather, the landscape and the workshop would be VERY different to the Desert Bloom.
Join me Next year! Were moving the workshop up by nearly two weeks and timing it a little better for the milky way!
The Alien World - Spring
Honestly, theres no place I enjoy spending time in more than the badlands of New Mexico. Doing some rough math I have accumulated many months of time wandering around these badlands, around these ghostly, otherwordly formations by day AND night. Hundreds of miles hiked, hundreds of nights camped. If its not for the amazing photography opportunities its the abundant in situ dinosaur fossils. An open air musem for all to enjoy. Theres dinosaur bone in every photo I captured this year! Fun fact, theres a HUGE theropod limb bone in our group photo hiding behind a hoodoo!
Its amazing that after so much time, so many return trips, that new compositions just appear each time I return. There truly is something to returning many times to a location. Im fortunate to always see these places through the literal lens of half a dozen folks each time I visit. This year started out as good as it could, although it was a bit colder than it shouldve been given the time of year. That wouldn't prove to be very challenging as it turns out. It was the wind that eventualy got us. And maybe a mild case of exhaustion.
Once we met up, we convoyed out to our first camp of 3 over the course of 3 nights. Not far between as the crow flies but different outcrops of this formation, the Fruitland and Kirtland formations of the late Cretaceous period when dinosaurs, early mammals and giant turtles roamed this once lush wetland. The evidence of which appears abundantly in the thick coal seams found strewn almost everywhere around the landscape. Fossil fuel! Giant trees buried in the silt petrified and stand as monuments to this bygone era. But also acting as a host for very specific type of lichen that grows on the fossils here.
That first evening was wonderful. Perfect weather for hiking and although quite moody, the chance for rain was minimal which is exactly the right recipe for great photos in this area. We setup camp and immediately began preparing chicken fajitas for that evenings dinner as it would be a late evening out in the field. We also go all out on meals, with all of the sides and accoutraments, freshly prepared on site and fajitas are a camp favorite, always a hit. Everyone scarfed their meals and we set out for the first evenings excursion!
We had several hours out there to capture images with great clouds. Golden hour stretched on and on and sunset glowed for an hour after it set and we lingered well into blue hour. Most people would've long since hiked back but honestly, in my opinion, you miss out on some of the best light during blue hour. I call it the afterglow. When the last vestiges of sunlight refracts off of the atmosphere and the landscape comes back to life in a subtle glow. Pinks and peaches caress the highlights of the landscape.
Everyone was pretty beat when we got back to camp that night. Typically we have a campfire and smores before bed but with a 3am wakeup to image the milky way with trackers and panoramic heads no one really seemed interested, so to bed it was! When we woke, the skies were crystal clear and the stars were shining bright. So we setup and began to captured the milky way for a couple of hours. Seeing that no clouds were blowing in for sunrise, something interesting happened. For the first time in workshop history, unanimously, no one wanted to hike back out at sunrise! HA! Hey, a sleep-in was welcome!
Breakfasts on these camping based workshops are also nothing to gawk at either. Complete with locally smoked thick cut bacon and sausage, pancakes, hash browns and eggs, everyday! Oh and all the coffee you need to survive. This year I thought it would be really fun to bring a treat for the guests. Since we were in fact in dino land, why not try a living dinosaur egg? It would happen that the day before my partner Shawna would be traveling up for the workshop from Tucson and passing by an Ostrich farm that sells fresh eggs. Equivilent to 18 chicken eggs and a souvenir shell, its a no brainer for a unique experience so we grabbed 2! Farm to table!
Once everyone had their fill we slowly began packing up camp and headed out to the next location. Debatably my two favorite of all of the valley outcrops out there. Most of my favorite images from the whole area were made there in what is comparably two very small sections of a huge valley. All of my personal images I've included in this part of the blog were captured there during or after this years workshop including the few below.
On our way out to our target area, we stopped at what I call Toadstool valley to get a feel for what we'd be coming back to in the dark, in the morning. I always like to see a place in the light before just showing up in the dark. Because I think everyone feels the same about things when they see these places for the first time. One, "I thought they'd be bigger" and "wow, where do I start?". It can be overwhelming. Its a place unlike any other. There is stuff everywhere! For me it always starts with a story, or an interesting composition. Im a big fan of natural frames, "cradles" and fun alignments. I like to play a bit of "Tetris" with the layers in an image. "How can I get the foreground to interact with the midground, the midground with the background and the background, if any, with the sky. Nestling things between other things in another layer adds dimension. It all comes down to balance, symmetry, and juxtaposition.
After a short scout session in Toadstool valley we moved on to the our target area. A place of endless intrigue and interest. Remnants of a channel deposit, the cap stones or rather the sand and mudstone layer that creates them is harder and more abundant, and more eroded. This layer and the concretions within it protects the underlying silt and clay and over time, millimeters per year, hoodoos emerge. This place s REAL, it isnt a figment of Picassos imagination. Or mine.
Each little nook and alley is like a window display in a shopping mall. Perfectly arranged little and BIG hoodoos stand like manequins sporting their best greys. Everyone, every year, including this years group agreed that this was their favorite location of the workshop.
The next morning we again rose at 3 to make the short hike to Toadstool valley and get in place for the stars and sunrise. The clouds unfortunately never rolled in that morning but we tried! After another full breakfast we broke camp and headed another 30 miles east to our next nights location however the wind began to pick up, strong winds with stronger gusts and just as we were making our last turn I got a wind advisery on my phone saying things were going to get worse. We stopped dead in our tracks roadside to powwow with the group and even though it was ribeye night, all agreed they wanted nothing to do with hunkering down in that wind. We were in a new area, new to this workshop but 58 million years old geologically yet the hoodoos here dwarf anything anywhere else. With some soaring more than 30 ft tall. A short but steep scurry up a ravine is th ebest way up but only a few were up for scouting it before the wind picked up. Most wanted to high tail it to the nearest hotel for a hot bath and a big meal out of the wind. It was a first for me, having to cut a workshop short. You can never predict the weather, and of all of the places I spend time in, some of the most unpredictable is in New Mexico. However it was a phenomenal workshop in all.
Shawna and I decided to stick around, not wanting to make the 4 hour drive home in my big van, we found a camp site tucked away mostly out of the wind. We hunkered down and feasted on steaks. there was enough for all 3 pups to have one too! HA! Sensing a lull in the wind I decided to grab my gear and scurried back up to the land of giant hoodoos at sunset to capture a big panorama. Trying to shoot in gusts over 40mph was no easy feat. When the 3am alarm went off it was dead calm though. Eerily so. But as the sun began to rise the wind picked back up, stronger and more constant than the previous evenining. The drive home that morning was nothing short of frightening when youre in a big, tall van. Thankfully we made it back safe. Although we cut the workshop short, it felt longer than 3 days with just how much shooting we did in that time. Thank you so much to the folks that assembled from all over for this one, too! See on zoom soon!
Theres two more chances to join me in this amazing place for 2026. Ill be hosting a 1 night, all night photo workshop Saturday May 16th for a small group of folks attending the Nightscaper Conference and a more in depth full on workshop, the fall version of this workshop, the Alien World - Fall workshop! Read more about both at the button below.
Another 24 hours later I would be in Hanksville, Utah to another alien landscape, for a multi day private astro workshop, the wind would seem to follow me there, too! This private workshop followed a similar schedule as the groups. Up at 2 for milky way, get to the spot and start shooting, nap, edit, eat, back out to the field! For 2 days we visited some of the coolest spots in search of interesting compositions. Heres one from Goblin Valley. Or as I like to call it, orange New Mexico, ha!
If youd like to join me on a trip like this, please checkout the lineup of workshops I offer. If camping isnt really your style I offer lodging based trips as well as a mix of both to get your feet wet! You can find them HERE
If youre interested in where folks rented their overlanding rigs: Outdoorsy.com and Turo.com
I am also in conversations with a company with a fleet of overlanding rigs that may become a steady resource for these trips.
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