In my Five Favorite Photos post a couple weeks ago, I mentioned getting to travel to Phoenix this year for work. From a work perspective, Phoenix is an interesting city to visit, but also I personally love Arizona because of the starkness of it. The last time I was there I tried capturing a picture of the city; I found a good spot, but the light just never did anything terribly interesting. It happens. This year, however, I managed to catch a storm brewing over Phoenix at sunset, which I thought was amazing. It was kind of funny actually, as I had a coworker with me who had never been to Arizona, and he was all excited to see clear blue skies and experience the hot temperatures (he’s from Brazil but currently lives in Chicago), but while we were there it actually rained several days, was cloudy, and very mild from a temperature perspective! Not the Arizona he, nor I, were expecting at all! As is usually the case, questionable weather makes great photographs, so I wasn’t complaining, especially on this particular evening. The storm head was developing right over the city as the sun set off to the left, illuminating the sky and the city with a nice pink glow.
Since last week’s Picture of the Week was of a city – my city – I thought I’d carry on the theme to this week, and use it as a transition into a series on Arizona. Tune in next week as we go exploring around in the desert!
–Dan Thompson