Category Archives: Photographs

Christmas Day

Photographs

No trekking involved.

While I would love to relate how I drove for hours through the desert in an all wheel drive vehicle then trekked dozens of miles to my destination, the reality is that these snaps were taken exactly 2 miles from my doorstep in Scottsdale in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve which, at 30,500 acres in area, is the largest nature reserve in the United States. Some 180 miles of trails make discovery easy and the weather today was picture perfect.

So while the northeast is buried in snow, the southeast flooded, the midwest frozen over and the northwest fogged in, Arizonans find themselves happily basking in the sun, the weather the least of our concerns.

Here’s a map of the Preserve:


Click for a big map. Image location in red; my home in green.

All snapped on the Nikon D3x with the 35mm Sigma Art (first and fourth) or the 20mm UD Nikkor (all others).

The Preserve teems with wild life and birds, not least the javelina (a peccary, related to the wild boar) which often wander into my community in search of cactus fruit, a favorite:


On my morning walk, January 27, 2018.

Update November 2019:

The scum that call themselves ‘developers’ and their low-life hangers on, realtors, sought to open the Preserve to commercial development, rock concerts, T shirt sales, booze, white trash – you name it. All the sort of things that bring white trash and crime to a pristine neighborhood and one I particularly care about as my community abuts the Preserve. Decent residents placed Proposition 420 on the November mid-term ballot and I was pleased to contribute mightily to the cause. I am delighted to report that the bottom feeders were well and truly trashed as the voters voted that there would be no development without a majority vote at the ballot box, much to the dismay of the politicians who had sought to do this by Council vote. The story is here. Next time you pay some realtor scumbag 6% to show you a bathroom that you can see free online, think about that.

iPhone6 snap.

Taliesin West

Photographs

Academy of the overrated.

Desirous of avoiding cold winters at his home, named Taliesin from the Welsh, in Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright built Taliesin West in Scottsdale, minutes from my home there.

Touring it with my son the other day I was reminded of the scene in Woody Allen’s ‘Manhattan’ where Woody and friends are exiting a cinema with two of the friends naming candidates for what they call ‘The Academy of the Overrated’, whose honorees include Mahler, Scott Fitzgerald, Norman Mailer, Van Gogh and Ingmar Bergman, the latter to Woody’s especial dismay. Well, you can add Frank Lloyd Wright to the list.

This is an architect who goes out of his way to be different yet never creates anything new. The results, as often as not, are just plain silly:


The low door entrance was explained as a ‘venturi’ to suck visitors in. In reality all it does is suck.


The pretentiousness extends to a near total avoidance of right angles, Wright seemingly being incapable of working with them.


Unimproved parking lot passing as architecture.


More silly angles. The wooden construction is so shoddy that expensive remediation with structural steel is being undertaken. A wrecking ball would be faster.


What sort of idiot makes a triangular swimming pool?


Survive these spikes and you get to the triangular (surprise!) movie theater.


Lost for ideas as to how to terminate the long run of the guest quarters, Wright came up with this excresence.

See what I mean?

If you want to see the ultimate example of Wright’s sheer mediocrity, go no further than the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue in NYC. An example, if ever there was one, of appearance attempting to err …. trump …. lack of talent.

Save your money. Go elsewhere.

iPhone6 snaps on a rare overcast day in Scottsdale.