Western Still Life
The end of a day trekking to East Boulder Canyon at the foot of Weaver’s Needle, Superstition Wilderness. I had a light pack with the camera equipment and supplies packed in on horseback.
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Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Macro work on Peter’s Trail
This is a type of daisy, formal name Rafinesquia neomexicana. This season, March 2008, it grew throughout the wilderness. You might know it as Plumeseed or New Mexico Plumeseed.
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Macro work on Peter’s Trail
Marled and rose quartz outcroppings such as this appear throughout the Superstitions. The stories are of soldiers and prospectors who return from the wilderness with hoards of gold nuggets picked from quartz.
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Inside the Saguaro
In my experience to come across the denuded ribs of an expired Saguaro cactus is to find a single one among thousands of flourishing, many-armed giants. Fourteen years ago, when this photograph was taken March 2008, a drought hung over Arizona since 1994, fourteen years. One documented effect of twenty-eight drought years is fewer young saguaro now survive into adulthood, the number of standing specimens is slowly decreasing.
Here we are below the rim of Peter’s Mesa of the Superstition Wilderness. Blue Dicks flourish as the feet of the long-expired giant, the wildflowers grow from corms long used as food by Native Americans. Behind is a large stand of Prickly Pear cactus whose fruit, called tunas, is another food source.
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Can You Find the Eye of the Needle?
I was a member of an expedition to Peter’s Mesa March 2008, a place central to Superstition Wilderness treasure legends. This is a sunset view, looking south, southwest. Light raking across the desolation and Miner’s Needle creates a fascinating spectacle. Ancient volcanism, apparent throughout the Superstition Wilderness, is here seen in the texture, form and type of rock as well as the mineral deposits. Miner’s Needle, like Weaver’s Needle (not seen in this view), are eroded volcanic summits. Look closely for the “eye” of Miner’s Needle, easier seen in the cropped heading photograph. To this day, hopeful prospectors search for gold nuggets.
There is one form of volcanism present today as an eerie rumble or hiss, similar to an enormous distant jet engine heard now and then during our two days on the mesa, louder and closer than an overhead plane could produce. The view includes many notable Sonoran Desert plants. Many young Saguaro cactus are in the form of green poles. Catching the dramatic light, on the ridge is a tall single flower of an Agave, known as the “Century Plant” it flowers once in a long life and dies.
Peters Mesa is named after “Old Pete” Gottfried Petrasch, father of Hermann and Rhiney Petrasch. Old Pete worked for Jim Bark for awhile in the 1890s doing odd jobs. Irregular employment gave Pete and Sons time to s searched for the Lost Dutchman Mine in the years following the death of the source of the legend, the “Dutchman” Jacob Waltz. The Petrasches were one of the first groups to search for the mine, and gold in general. They covered almost the entire Superstition range in their combined searches.
On our first day on the mesa, we came across the remains of one of these camps, on the top of Squaw Canyon, a deplorable junk pile discarded by searchers, presumably disappointed, too lazy to cart it out. That March, we were lucky to find the remnants of winter rains in the form of a meager trickle at the bottom of a shallow draw off Peter’s Mesa trail up from La Barge canyon. We had a good time of it until the trip was cut short by a storm front and torrential rains. We were back in Apache Junction before they hit.
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Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Romance of Ruins
Here is a photograph from our day touring the Glens of Antrim. While making our way up the coast to Torr Head a group of stone walls resolved into ruins. A cluster of cottages on grassy slopes above the Irish sea above Loughan Bay. This is the townland of Loughan. Along the road are wonderful signs providing in handsome carved letters the place name in english and gaelic. Here a signed only provided a gaelic name: “Loughan an Lochan”…near enough to meaning “Loughan Bay” in English. The bay is a shallow scallop shaped indentation of the coast, a margin of narrow sand strand.
Ruins are spread across the slope. Immediately before the views are traces of a foundation above the grass. Beyond the top of a gable, an entire gable to the left. On the far ridge, just visible, is an entire structure with doorways, gables, walls.
Across the Irish Sea, 13 miles distant, is the Mull of Kintyre. In faint outline, rising above the horizon, find the highlands of Islay more than 30 miles. Both are tips of peninsulas jutting from Scotland.
The ruins lead to curiosity over who live here? What were their lives like? Why did they leave?
On the Tain Way
On Monday, June 9, 2014, cousin John Mills dropped his son, Sean Mills, myself and Pam Wills off at the foot of the western slopes of Slieve Foy on the Tain Way. Sean, Pam and I walked the way over the mountain and into Carlingford in the footsteps of epic Irish heroes.
Happy Valentine’s Day with the original Moby Dick
Thinking about the Aran Islands for my posts, “Killeany Bouy” and “Inisheer Welcomes the 2014 Gaeltacht Irish Football champions” brought me back to Isla Mocha.
Herman Melville’s thoughts were in and around this island off the central Chilean coast when he penned “Moby Dick” in the mid-nineteenth century while sitting in the city of Boston. He was brought Moby Dick not only by his own experiences on a whaling ship, almost certainly Melville owned a copy of Jeremiah N. Reynolds’ “Mocha Dick: Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal,” an true-life account of adventures around Isla Mocha. Sometime around 1810 Reynolds personally experienced encounters with Mocha Dick after the crew of an Antarctic expedition mutinied, stranding him at Valparaíso, Chile where he remained for two years.
Located 38°21’45.62″S, 73°55’6.91″W, around 8 miles in size north to south, 3.5 miles east to west Isla Mocha is surprisingly simple to find. A ridge of mountains run the north south axis, just 20 miles off the coast, a ship following the coast will find it easily, as I did from the balcony of the Oceania Regatta during a “sea day” of travel between Valparaiso and Puerto Montt.
Since waking that day I was on the lookout for Isla Mocha. In preparation for our month-long cruise around South America every mile of our itinerary was scoured for interesting sights, experiences and information. When I first learned of Isla Mocha (Mocha Island in English) and the connection with Melville reading about it in Boston, just as I was in Ithaca, one of my goals for that day was to catch sight of Isla Mocha as it rose from the horizon.
My goal was made easier for the cloud formation from the island mountains. Here is my first photograph, taken from our balcony on the port side. I chose the port side just for the landward view as the ship progressed southward on the western coast of South America. The Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III was tripod mounted with an EF 70-300 f4-5.6L variable lens set to 70 mm. We are northwest of the island with the coast just visible.
Another view with 188 mm focal length. The ship must have turned eastward, as the view progressed the island came closer. It was a fantastic thought to cruise above the subduction zone where the Nazca plate dives beneath the South American Plate. In the distance, on a clear day, the volcanic cones Villarrea and Quertrupillan are visible.
With the island due east, only a few miles away, the lens at 221 mm focal length. A fisherman is having an easier day in a calm sea. The indigenous people told stories of the souls of the dead travelling west to Isla Mocha. Pirates used the island as a resupply base. The fishing boat was the only sign of life.
That was February 14th Valentine’s Day. With Isla Mocha passing into the distance I changed for an evening with Pam. Here we are headed to dinner, somewhere off the coast of Chile’s Lakes (and volcano) region.
amazing resolution with the Canon 24 mm lens
The resolution of the Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM makes this lens a favorite of mine for landscape work. Let me show you why.
The valley today’s posting lies behind the tree. It is a broad valley shaped by ancient glaciers.
Here is the Google Earth view, from an elevation of 9,400 feet, with the ship position marked. Northwest is a pushpin titled, “Hanging Valley and Waterfall.”
The waterfall marking the hanging valley is visible in the following photograph. All photographs in this posting are from a Canon EOS-1Ds MarkIII, 24 mm lens (see above for complete name), on a Manfrotto travel tripod. ISO 500, f5.6 or f6.3.
With a point of view about 50 feet above the water the valley bottom is hidden behind an 800 foot hill and the water fall is just above the hill. See it? …..I didn’t think so.
There is the island with the tree, to the left. The following image is the same photograph, with the central section enlarged.
The enlargement brings out the play of light, the low clouds, deep in the valley. To provide scale, know those are full sized pines on the hillside, foreground. The waterfall is just about visible. I will enlarge the image one more time.
There it is!! I stepped up contrast, as well.
Here is another version of the original view. That patch of sky had opened up seconds after the first shot and, as a result, the 3,000 door mountain and waterfalls, on right, are better lit. Notice the bare rock face on the mountain slope, marking a landslide.
Click this image for a high resolution version, in your browser.
A different landslide Scar is featured in two previous blogs,
A Far Country VI: View of Tempanos Fjord
The Regatta’s course brought us closer for the two following shots.
The lovely sky is still visible…..
….one minute later the clouds gather and relative darkness returns.
amazing resolution with the Canon 24 mm lens
The resolution of the Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM makes this lens a favorite of mine for landscape work. Let me show you why.
The valley today’s posting lies behind the tree. It is a broad valley shaped by ancient glaciers.
Here is the Google Earth view, from an elevation of 9,400 feet, with the ship position marked. Northwest is a pushpin titled, “Hanging Valley and Waterfall.”
The waterfall marking the hanging valley is visible in the following photograph. All photographs in this posting are from a Canon EOS-1Ds MarkIII, 24 mm lens (see above for complete name), on a Manfrotto travel tripod. ISO 500, f5.6 or f6.3.
With a point of view about 50 feet above the water the valley bottom is hidden behind an 800 foot hill and the water fall is just above the hill. See it? …..I didn’t think so.
There is the island with the tree, to the left. The following image is the same photograph, with the central section enlarged.
The enlargement brings out the play of light, the low clouds, deep in the valley. To provide scale, know those are full sized pines on the hillside, foreground. The waterfall is just about visible. I will enlarge the image one more time.
There it is!! I stepped up contrast, as well.
Here is another version of the original view. That patch of sky had opened up seconds after the first shot and, as a result, the 3,000 door mountain and waterfalls, on right, are better lit. Notice the bare rock face on the mountain slope, marking a landslide.
Click this image for a high resolution version, in your browser.
The Regatta’s course brought us closer for the two following shots.
The lovely sky is still visible…..
….one minute later the clouds gather and relative darkness returns.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 