African Art Village, Bull in the Neighborhood, Winter Skies over the Canyon

There's been plenty of visual fodder for iphoneography here in Tucson the past few days...

                   ...starting with where I went last Friday after work: the African Art Village:

For about two decades now, this city in the Sonoran Desert has become a February gathering place for artists and vendors from all over Africa: for a couple of weeks, a tent city pops up and about a hundred vendors set up shop. 

 Associated with the six-decade-old tradition of the international Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase, this is one of the largest gatherings of its kind in North America.

A small outdoor kitchen serves up Lamb stew, rice and plantains so you can get a taste of West Africa before or after browsing. 

There's something for almost everyone--from strands of beads for jewelry-makers to monumentally-sized sculptures, and of course, tie-dye clothing. Furniture from Mali, textiles from Burkina Faso, totems from Sudan, sculpture from Côte d'Ivoire, Zulu baskets, reproductions of Bénin bronzes and masks from across the continent--all in one place.

The rest of the year, 

it's a nondescript desert lot behind a Waffle House 

adjacent to the Interstate highway--

but every February, it's a polyglot bazaar.

This year it's running through February 17th.

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Closer to home, on my side of town...
...about a five-minute-drive from where I live, there's a little stretch of semi-rural road that feels like elsewhere--the water table is higher and the mesquite bosques are dense, and a pecan orchard complements the pines and eucalyptus...sheep, cows, horses--it's bucolic and tucked away, and on my way home from the grocery store Saturday, I thought I'd take the scenic detour.

Check out those horns! 

(used PicFrame app for this triptych)

By mid-morning Saturday, the winter storm clouds were lifting--

this is what the oasis at Agua Caliente Park looked like:

Sunday afternoon, I took my iPhone with me on my run in Sabino Canyon--good time for sunflares:

This time of year, the skies over the canyon are so often dramatic:

There's a particular spot at the mouth of the canyon where I like to run by some cottonwoods;
back in mid-December, when the autumn leaves were still hanging on, the evening sky really lit up the scene:


--a fun spot to go back to, to see how the scene would look at about the same time of day a couple of weeks later:

 --and now, finally, all the leaves are off--winter trees-and-sky always a nice subject for monochrone, and here, a bit of the 'grunge' filter:

And last one for tonight--from a little hike my wife and I did last night to a spot overlooking the Canyon:

Sunday at the Farmer's Market

Sunday morning at the Farmer's Market--a relaxing way to get your locally-grown fresh produce...and fun with unobtrusive iPhone photography...perfect for 'snapseeding'...

Even here in the desert, Tucson has several open-air markets throughout the week, and the one on Sunday morning at St. Philip's Plaza is perhaps the best--by this time of year, the monsoon is adding to the bounty...

 --an overview of part of the market--stitched three iPhone photos with AutoStitch before 'snapseeding'...fun to see the movement of several of the people in the lower right...

 --gotta love 'stupid hot' salsa; truth in advertising

 --a new vegetable for us: 'purslane,' aka 'verdolagas' in Spanish--very high in omega fatty acids--hmm, a plant with 'fish oil' that grows like a weed here in AZ after the monsoon rains have begun...

 --'prickly pops' on dry ice--'prickly' as in the purple 'prickly pear' fruit of the cactus...

--more edible cactus: cholla buds--high in calcium; who knew?

--some of the steps in St. Philip's Plaza

...and some caffeinated paper cranes;
fun detail noticed at the counter of a local coffee shop...


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And...AFAR magazine recently published a little interview/profile with me.
In it, I briefly talk about iPhones, travel photography, and snapseed.