aspen

Last week, the weather was crazy for us here in Flagstaff!   Several tornadoes hit west and north of Flagstaff.  In the town of Belmont, there was quite a bit of damage, but miraculously, no one was hurt.  Here’s what it looked like at our studio the morning the tornadoes hit…  the rare fog was beautiful, little did we know what was happening elsewhere.

We spent the weekend scouting areas around Flagstaff where the leaves are changing for our Fall Color in Northern Arizona workshop next weekend.  The change is just starting so most of the areas we like are currently a combination of yellows and greens, but the aspen trunks are just as photogenic as the leaves!  We also found some beautiful bracken fern.  Deciduous trees (those that lose all their leaves every year) respond to the amount of sunlight in a day, which determines when the leaves change color.  In contrast, plants like bracken fern change color primarily in response to temperature.

During the workshop next weekend we’ll have great photo opportunities and learn a little about the natural processes that are part of my favorite season- autumn!

What we call “Monsoon Season” is officially here and the Arizona northland is green and beautiful!  This sunflower next to our back patio is very happy to have some moisture!  The sunflowers in Flagstaff are just starting- soon there will be fields of yellow all around town…  I do love this time of year!

We have a few upcoming workshops-

There’s still room in our August 14-15 workshop, “Where are Those Photos?  Managing your Digital Photo Life with Lightroom.”  If you’d like to learn the best ways to store, find and use your photos, we can help!  See the website for more details…

August Lightroom Workshop

25 September 2010:  Digital Photo Basics, this one is a lot of fun if you’re a beginner or just new to digital!

8-10 October 2010:  Fall Color in Northern Arizona, a lot of field shooting plus critique, review, and classroom.  We always have fun with this one!

As always, please contact us with questions.

Ciao!

This is a map of the current perimeter of the Schultz Fire (6/23/10).  I borrowed it from a federal interagency website. Yellow is the burn area, the crater to the left of the burn area is the “Inner Basin” of the San Francisco Peaks.  Notice our Studio/House in the bottom right.

The fire is nearing a couple of our favorite spots, Lockett Meadow and the Inner Basin, a major part of the Flagstaff watershed.  However, firefighters may have a little help from mother nature in the form of aspen trees.  Aspens are high in moisture and have a thin layer of bark, which makes them less flammable than other species.  A wind-driven fire still burns through aspens, but when they are on the edge of a fire and not the front, they tend to stop or slow down a fire in their direction.

This is my way of saying there is hope!  Another positive is that fires naturally burn in what we call a “mosaic,” so the forest within a “burn area” (above in yellow) burns at varying intensity or maybe doesn’t burn at all.  A low or even a moderate severity burn can be a very healthy thing for our forest.

It has been a sad week for us watching our beloved mountains burn, but there are still beautiful areas that remain for us to photograph on our workshops!  Again, we send thanks and positive energy to all those working to keep the fire out of our watershed!  And my apologies for my longest post ever!

Ciao…