home     galleries     new     equipment     links     about    contact

Parry's beargrass (Nolina parryi)        Images © Mark A. Chappell

Parry's beargrass -- along with many other plants -- were blooming vigorously in the Hidden Valley area of Joshua Tree National Park after the record winter rains of 2004-2005 and 2006.   This yucca-like species has small cream-colored blossoms that can attain an almost paper-like quality, very different from the heavy, waxy flowers typical of the somewhat similar yuccas (such as these).   To get these images I used very different focal lengths. The upper pictures were taken with an extreme wideangle zoom (in the right image, I placed the sun placed the nearer stalk to keep flare out of the image).   The picture of the blossoms at bottom right was taken with a long telephoto lens, and the backlit stalks were shot with a short telephoto zoom.

  • Canon 30D or 1D Mk. II, Sigma 12-24 zoom lens at 12 mm, Canon 70-200 f4L zoom, or 500 mm IS lens + 2X converter and fill-in flash (2005, 2006)