featured: architecture in Los Angeles...and saguaro blooms

This week, a snapseeded photo ('transplanted') featured on the afar.com homepage:   

(always a thrill to be published!)

--and here's the highlight:

I took the photo a few years ago, pre-iPhone,

and then the other evening, going back through some things,

I thought this scene would benefit from just a bit of tweaking--

just a little of bit of vignette to soften the edges

and pull the eyes even more toward the sky in the middle...

So--a 'transplanted' snapseed,

taken with a Canon, then edited with snapseed...

===============================================

This morning, after I finished my Sabino Canyon run,

I grabbed my iPhone out of the car

and went back to take a few photos--

this year, a few weeks earlier than usual,

the saguaros are already blooming:

The cacti can be decades old before they start blooming,

and each hand-sized bloom stays 'fresh' for only a day;

bats and doves love to pollinate them...

The blooms are often hard to photograph since they're usually on the arm-tops,

but occasionally, you get a low-reaching limb:

  

(tilt-shift and center-focus filters used on all of the saguaro photos above)

Saguaros aren't the only cacti blooming;

cholla flowers are coming out too...

(no filters used here--just cropped)

Summer's almost here...and the thermometer is climbing...