Drive 2007 - Day 08 - Drives - Beneath the Waves

Drive 2007 - Day 08

article and photographs by Ben Lincoln

It was raining in the desert this morning. The rain actually made it possible to smell the desert plants much more intensely, and I remember mesquite, creosote bush, and sagebrush permeating everything.

While I was taking my first photographs of the day, I saw what looked like Air Force F-15s flying overhead, with actual eagles closer to the earth. Sadly, I didn't have the sort of extreme telephoto lens it would have taken to get a picture of them.

Roadside Flowers

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Tinted NIR

Tinted UVA

Some flowers along the side of a state highway in southern Arizona. There was too much wind to capture a set that would register correctly for a multispectral version.

Date Shot: 2007-09-07
Camera Body: Nikon D70 (Modified)
Lens: Nikon Series E 28mm
Filters: Standard Set
Date Processed: 2009-03-28
Version: 2.0

Early on this day I took my favourite photo from this trip. Surprisingly (because they tend to be so problematic), it's a panorama.

Ajo Mountains 1

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Tinted NIR

Tinted UVA

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NIR-R-B

NIR-R-UVA

NIR-G-B

NIR-G-UVA

NIR-B-UVA

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R-B-UVA

G-B-UVA

NIR Luma / RGB Colour

NIR Luma / Tinted UVA Colour

This is my absolute favourite shot from this trip. I love how in the NIR-based false colour versions (particularly NIR-R-B and NIR-R-UVA), the slopes of the mountain look like the best of sunsets. This is the result of the desert plant life in late summer/early fall (which reflects brightly in the near infrared, but less green light than other plants, and essentially not at all in the red, blue, or UVA parts of the spectrum) combined with atmospheric scattering of the shorter wavelengths due to the distance of the mountains. It's also interesting to note that there are several patches of the mountain on the right that look green to us, but don't actually have any plant life at all.

Date Shot: 2007-09-07
Camera Body: Nikon D70 (Modified)
Lens: Nikon Series E 100mm
Filters: Standard Set
Date Processed: 2009-04-01
Version: 2.0

In the southern parts of Arizona, many businesses have signs advertising "Mexico Insurance". At first I thought maybe this was in case you wanted to insulate yourself financially in the event that Mexico was lost, stolen, or damaged. It actually turns out to be car insurance. The Mexican government requires that foreign drivers obtain insurance issued by a Mexican company. Driving without Mexican-issued insurance is a felony(!) in Mexico, regardless of whether you have insurance issued by a corporation in your home country. Car accidents are also allegedly classified as felonies in Mexico, in case you weren't intimidated enough about driving down there.

Something that I always try to do when planning my longer drives is to avoid backtracking. The mindset I get into on that type of trip is to continuously see new things, and of course going back the way I came takes me out of that. Here in southern Arizona, I had to break that guideline twice. The first was for Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. This area is the only one in the United States where its namesake grows in abundance, although it is much more common in Mexico. If you want to visit this National Monument and stay within the US borders^[1], you have no choice but to backtrack, because there is only one road that leads to it, and the NPS-controlled land lies right on the border between Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.

Arizona (like so much of the former frontier areas of the US) is full of towns with quirky and interesting names. The nearest town to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument that you'll find on a map is Why. The gas station that I stopped at there had a giant toad hopping around inside its mini-mart.

The National Monument itself was great, although I think it would have been even prettier in the early spring. I've been very happy with my car during most of my driving, but here I wished I'd had something designed for rougher roads. There is a 21-mile drive that runs right up next to the Ajo Mountains^[2] that looked very interesting, but it's gravel, and while I'm sure my car could have made it through, it would have been an incredibly bumpy hour-plus ride.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument 2

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Tinted NIR

Tinted UVA

NIR-R-G

G-B-UVA

NIR-RGB-UVA

From the well-tended garden at the back of the visitor center. Contrast how the cactus on the right looks very healthy to human eyes, but seems to be a bit drier than it would like in the G-B-UVA version.

Date Shot: 2007-09-07
Camera Body: Nikon D70 (Modified)
Lens: Nikon Series E 28mm
Filters: Standard Set
Date Processed: 2009-04-04
Version: 2.0

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument 3

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Tinted NIR

Tinted UVA

NIR-R-G

G-B-UVA

NIR-RGB-UVA

From the well-tended gardens at the front of the visitor center.

Date Shot: 2007-09-07
Camera Body: Nikon D70 (Modified)
Lens: Nikon Series E 28mm
Filters: Standard Set
Date Processed: 2009-04-04
Version: 2.0

The second detour I made was to the north of Phoenix. I wanted to stop at Montezuma Castle, which is almost exactly halfway in-between Interstate 10 (which I was taking east), and I40 (which I was going to take on the westward half of the trip). I decided to get the side trip finished in one go so that I'd have an almost straight shot through on I40 on my way home.

Just before stopping for the night, I took some photos of the sunset.

Southern Arizona Sunset 1

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Tinted NIR

Tinted UVA

G-B-UVA

NIR Luma / Tinted UVA Colour

A rare occurrence (for me, at least) of a sunset that I was able to register more-or-less correctly as a multispectral image. Note how the sun's rays shine right through in longer wavelengths, but are completely diffused in the ultraviolet.

Date Shot: 2007-09-07
Camera Body: Nikon D70 (Modified)
Lens: Nikon Series E 28mm
Filters: Standard Set
Date Processed: 2009-04-04
Version: 2.0

Southern Arizona Sunset 2

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Just a regular shot of the same sunset.

Date Shot: 2007-09-07
Camera Body: Nikon D70 (Modified)
Lens: Nikon Series E 28mm
Filters: Standard Set
Date Processed: 2009-04-04
Version: 2.0

Southern Arizona Sunset 3

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Tinted NIR

Tinted UVA

NIR-R-G

NIR-R-B

NIR-R-UVA

NIR-G-UVA

NIR-B-UVA

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G-B-UVA

NIR-RGB-UVA

The same sunset, a bit later. There are obvious registration issues the closer you get to the top of the image, but the bottom quarter lines up nicely for a glimpse of how sunset colours change with an expanded spectrum. The tinted NIR version is also a great example of how much sharper clouds show up in the near infrared than in visible light.

Date Shot: 2007-09-07
Camera Body: Nikon D70 (Modified)
Lens: Nikon Series E 28mm
Filters: Standard Set
Date Processed: 2009-04-04
Version: 2.0

Southern Arizona Sunset 4

R-G-B

Tinted NIR

NIR-R-G

NIR-R-B

One last shot of the sunset. It was too dark at this point to get a UVA version, but the NIR shot lines up with the visible-light version very well here, and again, the clouds are so much more detailed in the near infrared.

Date Shot: 2007-09-07
Camera Body: Nikon D70 (Modified)
Lens: Nikon Series E 28mm
Filters: Standard Set
Date Processed: 2009-04-04
Version: 2.0

Date: 7 September 2007
Starting Mileage: 64649
Ending Mileage: 65173
Distance Travelled (Day): 524 miles
Distance Travelled (Trip): 2819 miles
Gallons of Fuel Purchased (Day): 14.9
Gallons of Fuel Purchased (Trip): 92.8

GPS Map of Day 8

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Footnotes

Although I'd really like to visit Mexico someday, I don't speak Spanish, so I've resolved to only go there with at least one other person who does. However, traveling with someone who spends about 15 minutes on every photo they take isn't a whole lot of fun, so I don't know if that will ever actually happen.

If you are an ignorant northerner like me, remember that "J" in Spanish is always pronounced the way "H" is in English, never "Y" like it is in German and other modern languages descended from Norse. It doesn't matter if it's a leading "J" as in "jalapeno" ("hal-a-PAYN-yo") or in the middle like "Ajo" ("AW-ho").
Interestingly, a leading "H" in Spanish is silent; that is, Americans almost exclusively pronounce "habanero" the way a Mexican or Spaniard would pronounce "jabanero", when it should actually be (phonetically) "abanero".