a 'delicious' shot..and local wildflowers

For week number two of the afar.com travel highlight competition, these were the themes:

WEEK 2 February 23rd – 29th
DELICIOUS. Everyone talks about food; we want to hear the real details. A perfect ramen discovery in the middle of Paris. The best place for avocados at your local farmers market.
ARE WE THERE YET? Embarking on your daily commute or navigating the Japanese subway. What surprises have you uncovered while getting from point A to point B that AFAR travelers would want to hear about?

I submitted a few for both themes, and...I won again!

Another snapseeded photo won the 'delicious' category; see below:

above, on the home page,
below, the 'highlight' itself:

Two weeks in a row, now, in which iPhone photos won--not shots from a 'fancy' camera!

All edited in the palm of my hand--

more proof that it's not necessarily the length of the zoom

of the number of megapixels;

it's what you see, what you choose to to frame--

all in your eyes and your hands...

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Last Sunday, we went out to Saguaro National Park West to see some of the wildflowers; spring's arrived early this year, and with the decent winter rains, the poppies are putting on a show--a nice display after last year's drought-and-late-freeze-induced floral no-show:

I submitted the above photo to the local newspaper, and it was published a few days ago here.

A few more shots from that day:

 --playing with the 'center focus'  filter in order to bring out the 'yellow flower road' in the center

--some 'tilt and shift' and 'drama' work to make the lupine pop a bit; the mid-day lighting was harsh 

--a field of low poppies really lends itself to the 'tilt-and-shift' filter 

--and some more 'tilt-and-shift' filtering for the prickly-pear amidst the poppies

It's a beautiful spring in the Sonoran Desert this year; I went for another wildflower hike today--the season doesn't last long--both with the big camera and with my iPhone...will find some time to upload those scenes from Catalina State Park later this week.

AND--head to your local Starbucks if you want to get snapseed for FREE right now; it's their freebie 'pick of the week' app! Start snapseeding!