Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

The Wild West

Organ Pipe Cactus

I've lived in Arizona for almost 14 years and have had a visit to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on my list of things to do for almost that entire time. I finally headed down there on 2/14/2015 with my dog Elmer and my cameras, expecting to get some wonderful pictures.

The park is located in south west Arizona, along the border with Mexico. It is in the northern part of the Sonoran Desert. The park is the only place in the United States where Organ Pipe Cactus grow naturally in the wild.
The park offers two scenic routes that you can drive, a 40 mile and a 21 mile route. I drove the 21 mile route; the long route requires 4 wheel drive which I don't have.

Not to fear, though, there are plenty of Organ Pipe Cactus along the short route.

My Checklist

What is to fear, though, is getting good pictures. I don't mind the picture above but it doesn't make me go "WOW". I think the composition is okay. Rule of thirds somewhat applied - check. Subject isolated as much as possible - check.

But after getting home and post processing these pics I was disappointed. The pictures I took of a place I'd longed to visit for years seem flat to me. I actually increased the saturation quite a bit and futzed with getting the sky more dramatic on these, to the point when I was editing that I thought they were getting overblown. The following day when I re-visited the images I was underwhelmed.

I think the biggest issue left is just the time of day that I took the pictures. I think that if this pic had a purple or red sunrise or sunset behind it (I don't remember which direction the camera was facing for this particular image), or perhaps even if it was being hit with golden hour sunlight from one side or another, it would probably be better. As it is, the sky was fairly overcast as you can see, with almost no shadows.

It's just an even, and from a "stunning" point of view, boring light source. Sure, the cactus is to be appreciated on its own merit, but to result in an image that makes the cover of Arizona Highways magazine, this picture fails, in my opinion. And its disappointing.

I only hope that I'm learning something - but I'm afraid that what I'm learning is to only take pictures with dramatic lighting. It seems like I should be able to make a good picture of this cactus! Here's a few more pics to prove my point: