The Enduring Beauty of Dead Cactus
Hi, I am Charlie Borland and welcome to my All About Photography newsletter. I have been a pro photographer for over 40 years and have a lot to share with you. Please join the photo adventure by subscribing to this reader-supported newsletter.
The Southwestern US is a popular destination for landscape photographers. The sandstone cliffs and canyons, native ruins, historic locations, and amazing sunsets are some of what draw photographers there.
However, I would be completely irresponsible if I did not mention one other major draw to the SW: the cactuses. Especially the Saguaro, but many more species.
There are so many amazing and colorful species of cactus that live and grow in the desert and I have enjoyed photographing many. Capturing the perfect times when the flowers bloom is a bit more challenging but well worth the effort. But for me, I was there in the winter for the warmer temps and amazing winter sunsets and there was not much blooming. Instead, I found beauty in the dead and dying cactus.
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For 5 years, we hooked up the RV and would go down for a few months and bounce around photographing the desert beauty and historic sites. Most days when it warmed up, but before it got hot, I headed out to randomly wander the desert for a good healthy hike and any worthy photo opportunities worth capturing on my iPhone. And I took my photo assistant.
Midday is not a great time for beautiful landscapes but it was a great time to explore dead cactus for colorful detail photos. But another task that proved worthy as I wandered the desert, was adding waypoints to my GPS app on my iPhone. When I found something perfect that I wanted to return to in a better light, I just followed the waypoint. I was looking to photograph Saguaro cacti that were tall and had perfect arms on them, and I learned quickly how hard it was to find them again without the GPS coordinates.
Saguaros live on average 150-200 years, so if that is accurate here, these cacti were here when stagecoaches came through town. On the right, you can see the tubes from a decomposing Saguaro. Often the cactus is lying on the ground and can be explored looking down.
During these hikes, I started to explore the dead cactus when I noticed some very interesting colors and textures on some as I walked by. So I started zooming in on the details that I found and capturing all sorts of colors and textures.
Over many hikes, I became fascinated with how each cactus decomposed in different ways like the colors they developed after death, how the skin would break away, and how needles eventually fall off.
When it came to photography, I employed many of the same techniques I do with any photos, whether personal work or commercial work, while using my DSLR. I look for good compositions that are composed of lines, angles, light, and varying tonal values. When it came to light quality during these midday hikes, I often sought out the shaded side of the cactus if that was where the interesting close-up was. Occasionally, I captured a few images that had some side light as long as it worked well and was not too contrasty.
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When it came to processing, I let loose. On my iPhone, I have an app called Mix and it has lots of filter presets as well as an adjustment panel that lets you adjust blacks, whites, contrast, etc. While I went at it, I did not change the actual colors. I like this app for creating crazy-looking images like these. As I just said, I let loose and added high contrast, saturated color, over-sharpening, and more. I was going for the WOW factor.
Here is the gallery of images:
Side of a Saguaro.
This is a dead Prickly Pear.
That’s it for dead cactus! I hope you are motivated to look for the less obvious, find the beauty in the ugly, and get out and create.
Keep shooting!
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