Day 168 – Desert Lizards

I am a day behind on posting (and there’s a story behind that) but I guarantee that these were all taken yesterday! As you know, I live in rural Nevada. And most of Nevada is desert. In northern Nevada we are considered “high desert” which means very little water, a very short growing season, and very little green. I have very few opportunities to photograph lush landscapes and overgrown properties, but what I can photograph are the creatures that live here.

I took a lot of photos for this series and will not post them all, so if you’d like to see the rest of them, please check them out at my SmugMug gallery, Desert Creatures.

What we have a lot of in our neck of the woods are yellow-backed spiny lizards. Yesterday I stepped outside to turn the drip system on our front foliage and caught this little one sipping water at a tiny stream leaking from the tubing. This one is a female, and appears to be quite young. She was quite small, maybe three inches from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail. (click on images for larger version)

She was as curious about me as I was about her

She wasn’t the least bit shy and I moved slowly enough that she allowed me to move in closer and closer to her. The detail of her face and body are remarkable.

I moved in closer . . .

And closer . . .

After shooting some more (check out the gallery for the rest), I walked around the house to the drive-way area and came upon this guy, a fully mature male who was sunning himself near our parked cars. He was quite larger than the young female above. These lizards can grow to 5 1/2 inches long from the their nose to the base of their tails. Add in the tail and they can get pretty long! This guy was huge. I can tell he is a boy from the blue under his jaw. Though I could not see his belly, I am sure it was blue as well.

Like his younger counterpart, he wasn’t particularly skittish. The creatures that live on our property are pretty much used to our comings and goings and as long as we don’t move too fast, everything is fine. So I moved in closer.

Perspective on size: the twig his forearm is on was just under half and inch in diameter. The rabbit pellet by his rear leg is about a quarter of an inch.

Don’t forget to check out the gallery!

Day 167 – Crescent Moon at Dawn

I shot this at about 5:15 this morning. The sun had not yet peeped over the horizon. I chose not include any horizon because I was so taken with the moon and the colors of the sky.

Day 159 – Out Front

Post cap on our sign at the foot of our driveway. I love what the weather and the elements have done to it.

This Desert Spiny Lizard lives under our front stairs. I think he may be a relative of a much older guy that’s been around since we moved in eleven years ago.

Real Estate for Sale

Silver Springs, Nevada – shot December 2011. This is one of the photos that I shot for my ART 141 final project. I loved the night shot, but couldn’t really get the day shot to work. I plan on posting more Lyon County photos going forward. While it may not be very green, it has it’s own character.

Day 139 – Final Project

I didn’t want to post this until the results were in. (And yes, the last photo was taken today). What follows are just thirteen of the approximately 400 photos I took of the event and the days leading up to it.

Final Project – ART 235
Medical Outreach Response Event
April 13 – 14, 2012
Silver Stage High School, Silver Springs, NV

Organizers and Volunteers
Christy (right) is the Director of the Healthy Communities Coalition. Freida (left) runs the Dayton Food bank and was the instigating force for the event. She wondered, What good did it do to give people food if they couldn’t chew it? Freida was the volunteer organizer and logistics person for the event.

Wendy organized the professionals (dentists, doctors, nurses, optometrists, etc). She is the head of Community Roots.

Rita was one of a couple hundred extraordinary volunteers. Here she is calling people who registered late for the event to let them know what services would be available.<

The Event – Friday, April 13 (12 – 5pm) & Saturday, April 14 (9am – 5pm)

Community Health Nurses consult with one another in preparation for the MORE event.

One of the dentists and his assistants heading out to the mobile dental van.

Wendy cannot contain her excitement after getting a look at the dental van. It really was amazing. It was a complete, modern dental office (five chairs) on wheels.

There were so many who needed dental work, that it was meted out via lottery tickets. On day one 8 numbers were drawn every half hour. The dentists did their best to keep up, but many clients with tickets had not been served by the end of the first day, so those patients came back the next day, as did anyone else who had a lottery ticket in the raffle can. There was no way all who needed help were going to be seen. And yet the people waited and hoped. Once their number was called, it was still a long wait and I saw some people who had been standing in line on Friday morning still waiting for dental treatment on Saturday at 4pm when I left , No one who was lucky enough to get their number called complained. They waited and waited and waited until they finally saw the dentist. And among those lucky enough to get their ticket pulled, well, in some cases they gave their place to someone else in their family whose needs were more urgent.

One client speaking to a volunteer at the lottery table.

Other services were also offered. Immunizations were by far the most popular after dental work.

We had optometrists on hand as well. The Lions Club volunteers did vision testing and screening, and prospective patients were sent back to the optometrists.

Dental work was, by far, the most requested and labor intensive service offered at MORE 2012.

Mark needed a filling in his front incisor.

Dr. Brad Munninger of Desert Valley Dental in Fernley worked his magic.

Mark’s reaction was pretty typical of all the dental patients. Big smiles, hugs, and even some tears.

“If I cannot eat, cannot smile, cannot kiss without pain, do you think I can work, attend school, participate in the normal affairs of my family, peers and community?”

~ Shaun Griffin

I was very proud to have done this project and I’m honored the organizers trusted me to do the event justice. I’m happy with the result, but more than that, I’m happy that the photographs I took will be used to influence support for further events of this type in the near future, and legislation and change in the coming years.

Icing on the cake:

Light a Structure at Dusk – Assignment Re-Do

Our 10th assignment for our lighting class was to photograph a building at dusk with multiple flashes, taking care to show the texture and dimensions of the building. Once we’ve gone through critique night, we have the opportunity to re-shoot the assignment, if we wish.

My original shot. Really, I only was able to get off two flashes before the timer on the camera clicked off. Further, it was freezing when we were out shooting and I thought I’d done okay. The sun had been down for at least a half hour, but the clear sky stayed brighter than I would have liked. Exposure time: 20 seconds.

My instructor said he would have liked to see more detail on the right and in the area to far left, so I went out last night to re-shoot. Here is the result. The sky was overcast, I was dealing with a street lamp to camera left and I used a longer exposure time (about 45 seconds). In this shot I got six flashes off.

Hope he likes this one better.

Day 78 – Rock Point Mill

I’ve driven by this spot for years, but desperate for a photo for the day, I stopped here today during my run to the grocery store. Just off Hwy 50, the Rock Point Mill:

Founded in the early 1850s, after gold was discovered in the area, Dayton is one of Nevada’s most historic mining communities. A trip through the town reveals a quaint and historic downtown with a handful of well-preserved buildings.

However, the east edge of town, adjacent to Dayton State Park, is a lesser-known historic site that helps tell the story of Dayton. Nestled in a grove of graceful cottonwoods is the Rock Point Mill, one of Dayton’s oldest remnants of its mining glory days.

Charles C. Stevenson, who was Nevada’s governor from 1887 to 1890, built the mill in 1861. Constructed at a cost of $75,000 (a considerable sum at the time), the mill had 40 stamps that crushed silver and gold ore carried over the mountain from Gold Hill via an elaborate tram system.

I knew none of this when I pulled over to the side of the road to explore. I didn’t have much time, and I’d like to go back and give the place a closer go-over, but here are a few shots from my cursory visit.

There were three hawks flying overhead, but I only managed to get this fellow’s picture.

Detail!

As I mentioned, time was short, so I jumped back in the car to head to the grocery store, but on my way I was distracted by what I thought were more hawks. Nope. Turkey vultures! There was this handsome guy.

Actually, there were three (but just two in this photo).

Day 43 – Fort Churchill

Sweetie and I took the dogs to Fort Churchill today. We’ve lived here for over ten years, and though we’ve talked about going to see it, we never have. Until today. Fort Churchill is a Civil War era fort built in the middle of the Nevada desert about 35 east of Carson City. It was a harsh post for the soldiers and many deserted.

I took lots of pictures and the ones that I liked best I have posted to my Flickr account here. This one I loved the most. I love the framing of the far window and the framing of the tree in the distance. I love the texture and the color.