Daren Sefcik: January 2011

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Squirrel Staring Contest

Taking my dog to the lake is always an adventure, he is Mr. Wild Hunting dog. He was having his usual staring contest with the squirrels and I happened to get a couple of close up shots of them as they stayed motionless for minutes at a time.

Got this one with a bee flying by

He would not move

Water Drops

I decided to try and take some pictures of water drops this weekend. It wasn't too hard, I looked around on the Internet for some guidelines and found one site with some simple ideas so I tried them as best I could. I did not have any of the more fancy equipment, just a regular Sony DSLR camera and built in flash. Below are some of the pictures I liked best.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Nude Wash & Sky Art Sculptures ABDSP

Baby Camel Sky Art in ABDSP

My son Christopher and I headed out to Borrego Springs again this weekend with Rocky Bones our dog. We drove out Saturday morning and found a spot to camp out in Nude Wash. There was a short dirt road into the wash with several places to camp. We had a great campfire and 'Bones was busy sniffing all the new smells out in the desert. In the morning we hiked around Nude Wash and then crossed over into Sunset Wash. Sunset Wash leads up to Sunset Mtn and looks like it would be great backpacking trip.

Be sure to see all of the Sky Art Photos here http://www.darensefcik.com/Photography/Anza-Borrego-Desert-State-Park/Sky-Art/16733252_WcCZts

Road into Nude Wash

Bones guarding our campsite

View of Villager and Rabbit Peaks from Sunset Wash

Tinaja in Nude Wash

Ocotillo in Nude Wash

Sunday we drove around trying to find all of the Sky Art in the park. I think we found all of them except the Bighorn Rams and the Juan Bautista de Anza ones. I am only posting a few pictures of the many, many sculptures there are to see. These are amazing scultptures and if you go to Anza Borrego you should stop to look at a few at the very least. You can find out more info about the Sky Art sculptures and a map of the locations on the Galleta Meadows website http://www.galletameadows.com

Amazing detail, look at how the artist welded around the rocks

Again, amazing detail

We also stopped off at the Visitor Center. That may sound kinda dorky, tourist'ishy but the Visitor Center is actually really cool. They have a free 15 minute movie you can watch that show cases all of the four seasons in the park and they also have a garden of most of the plant life you will see in the desert. There is a lot of information you can get by a quick visit there.

We saw this lizard out in the plant garden area, amazing how well his colors blend in to the sand

Some Cholla Cactus near Mine Wash

We camped Sunday night at Arroyo Salado and Monday morning we drove out to 17 Palms before heading home. It was a long 3 day trip and the weather was awesome, mid 80's during the day and maybe mid 50's at night. The coyotes treated us with a late night song and some nearby owls and kangaroo mice kept my dog busy most of the night.