Second Place Ocotillo Birthday by Steve Piepmeier
Untitled by Bob Johnson placed third.
First Place Tom Mix Wildflower by Larry Phillips
The Photo Club of Quail Creek continued into 2017 with its monthly members’ contest having a theme Plants and Flowers. This month it drew another large number of entries – we had 42 shots submitted by members, all of which can be seen on our Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/129343350@N08/sets/72157686115855015/with/35459407140/
Larry Phillips won First Place with his photo Tom Mix Wildflower. Larry said: “The flower was a Desert Globemallow located 50 feet from the highway at the Tom Mix Memorial on Highway 79 south of Florence, Arizona. The speck on middle blossom is actually a beetle. I went looking for poppies but found this before we encountered the poppy fields. I darkened the background in Photoshop. The lighting was natural midmorning muted sunlight.”
Larry used a Canon 60D with a EFS 18-200 mm lens at ISO 320, 100mm, f/10, and 1/1600sec.
Steve Piepmeier won Second Place with his photo Ocotillo Birthday. Steve commented: “The photograph Ocotillo Birthday was taken on the road to the Whipple Observatory with Elephant Head of the Santa Ritas in the background. The Ocotillo is an AM Spanish diminutive that means Torch. There are acres of these Ocotillos blooming that create a torch-like haze that floats above the desert floor. A birthday celebration of the blooming Ocotillo was photographed late afternoon with my Canon Powershot.” The settings were: f/5.0, 1/640 sec, 100 ISO and a focal length of 29 mm.
The photo Untitled by Bob Johnson placed third. Bob said: “Timing was very important in taking this photo. These cactus blooms do not like the intense heat and wilt early in the day. One half of the buds bloomed late the day before. Normally they only last one day, beginning at midnight. The remainder of the blooms came out the second day, combining with the first bloom to give what is seen in the photo.”
The photo was taken with a Samsung Galaxy S7 with the lens at 26 mm, ISO 50, 1/2200 sec. at f/1.7. The photo was processed in Windows Photo Editor.
The Photography Club of Quail Creek has a monthly photo contest for its members and also schedules numerous photo field trips for members throughout the year. Meetings are held the second Wednesday of the month at 7:00 p.m. at the Kino Conference Center, Mesquite Room. Room venue could vary each month. Consult the club’s constantly updated website http://www.pcqc.org as well as the weekday HOA What’s Happening for additional information.