Phoenix, AZ

The winter and spring of 2012 provided plenty of precipitation in the Phoenix area. On February 6, my wife, Lynn, and I visited the Sonoran Preserve Park in north Phoenix. The new park has many miles of newly developed trails that are nicely GPS-mapped. That day we hiked two trails, Hawk’s Nest and Dixie Mountain Loop. As we rounded the west side of the Dixie Mountain Trail, turning southerly, we walked through the meadow above. The meadow grass was spectacularly green. When I saw the new growth, I knew we would have a great wildflower season in a couple of months. By the way, don’t confuse this park with the McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, they are two separate parks several miles apart.

A note on the photo above… I did not retouch this photo for saturation. In Lightroom, I cropped slightly for composition, bumped up the brightness and contrast just a touch. That is all I did. I didn’t even hit the “auto” button, my usual first step.

Given the challenge, though, I had to take another shot from the same photo series, clicked the “auto” button and then from there, tweaked up the saturation. The photo below is just for fun.

One more note, I just upgraded my computer to Windows 8 and am moving my data and software to the new computer. I am also learning the tricks of Windows 8. As a result, I am behind on my regular blog posts. I couldn’t resist entering the photo challenge, though, now that I have my photos and Lightroom moved to the new box.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/photo-challenge-saturated/

John Steiner