Modern Photos

This is a high resolution, focus-stacked 15-image photograph created with a Nikon D850 camera, Zeiss Milvus f/2 100mm macro lens, and a Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod with Manfrotto 410 tripod head. The silky-white flowers and buds are found on the giant saguaro (sah-wah-roh) cactus. With its outstretched arms, this cactus has long been called the icon of the American West. It grows only in the Sonoran Desert in southwestern United States and northern Mexico. There are multiple challenges in photographing these flowers: the flowers bloom late at night and are usually dead or wilted by the afternoon; they bloom only for a few weeks in spring; and they primarily bloom only at the ends of the arms or at the very top of the cactus, which usually places the flowers out of reach, 10-40 feet above ground level. I photograph the flowers at first light, usually between 4:30 and 5:30 am, well before sunrise when the light is soft and even and the flowers are still fresh. Finding saguaro cactuses with "low hanging" arms that may possibly display photographic-worthy flowers the next morning is how I spend most of my sunlight hours in the Sonoran Desert. But oh, the excitement of finding a specimen like this one makes the hours of searching worthwhile.