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Image of the Week: Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego Desert, California

It's about this time of the year that I start thinking warmer thoughts and about sunnier climes, and when that happens, my mind drifts to the desert.

About twice a year I jump a plane to escape frigid New England and visit the high desert canyons of Southern Utah or the warmer, arid expanses of Southern California. One of my favorite places is the Anza-Borrego, a stretch of dry barrens skirting the Mexican border between San Diego and El Centro, California.

One of the remarkable things about the desert are the effects of such low rainfall. Not only does it make the desert explode with color after an early spring shower, but human-made objects undergo a certain kind of desert "mummification", and the landscape is left with these anachronistic structures. Abandoned adobe cabins, wooden-wheeled camp trailers from the 1920s, Wild West era stagecoach stations -- it'll make you feel like you've just stepped out of a time machine.

Lacking water's competition, the sun, wind, and sand take their toll rounding the edges, drying the wood, and baking the metals and plastics. All that's left are the bleached skeletons of humankind's tools and shelters, standing as monuments in the unapologetic desert light.

Have questions or comments? Send me an email.

Technical Data

I photographed Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego Desert, California with a Nikon D300 and a 17-35mm ƒ/2.8 Nikkor lens. The exposure was 1/60 second at ƒ/11.

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Other Images of the Week

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Ocotillo Shadow on Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego Desert, California, silver gelatin print South Fork Cascade Creek and 'The Wall', Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Utah Juniper, Canyonlands National Park, Utah, Palladium Print Nicole Grainger riding Oxford, Middlebury, Vermont (Palladium Print) December Snow I, Middlebury, Vermont Bedroom, Homer Noble Farm, Ripton, Vermont Deer Skull, Citronelle, Alabama, Palladium Print
Boulders in swiftly moving stream, Weybridge, Vermont Sunset and Moonrise at Table Mountain, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Moonrise and Abandoned Trailers, Anza-Borrego Desert, California UVM Mallory, Morgan Horse Farm, Weybridge, Vermont, Palladium Print Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego Desert, California Melissa and Parker, Columbia, South Carolina Old Stone Row in Winter, Middlebury, Vermont
Worth Mountain Ski Lift in a Snowstorm, Middlebury College Snow Bowl, Green Mountains, Vermont Farmer and Pilot Ed Peet, Cornwall, Vermont Birches, Middlebury, Vermont Mountain Palm Springs, Anza-Borrego Desert, California Bullseye, Citronelle, Alabama Lunging UVM Orlando, Morgan Horse Farm, Weybridge, Vermont Barns IV, Middlebury, Vermont
Fallen Tree in the Creek, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Blacksmith Lee Beckwith, Weybridge, Vermont Snow Angel, Middlebury, Vermont Slack Line, Middlebury, Vermont Coffee Splash Barns III, Middlebury, Vermont Beulah in the Carrizo Badlands, Anza-Borrego Desert, California
Chapel of the Transfiguration, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Cross-Country Runner Alexandra Krieg, Middlebury, Vermont Horse Bath, Morgan Horse Farm, Weybridge, Vermont Whitney, Citronelle, Alabama The North Window from Turret Arch, Arches National Park, Utah Jeff, Middlebury College, Vermont Hostas II, Middlebury, Vermont
Hikers in Coyote Gulch I, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah Ocotillo Shadow, Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego State Park, California Moonlit Palms, Anza-Borrego State Park, California Park Avenue, Arches National Park, Utah Ashton and Whitney, Citronelle, Alabama Steven Halladay Road III
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Joe The Pour Skylar

Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego Desert, California. Click on image to view larger, or here to view licensing and purchase options.

Special Print Offer

Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego Desert, California is available as an 11"x15" archival pigment print, either simply matted to fit an 18"x22" frame, or matted and framed using Nielsen-Bainbridge matte black aluminum frames. Each print is signed by the photographer and is accompanied by a display, care, and conservation document detailing the process behind the photograph.
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