July in Palm Springs

Yow!  I just spent a hot July week in Palm Desert (near Palm Springs).   Palm Desert in July is pink building sameness in searing 118 degree heat- mostly empty of people and cars as the snowbirds don't return for several months.  A good number of apt cliches describe the heat: "so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk", "hotter than a Saturday night six gun", and so on.

Please click on the photos and open them up to get a feel for setting.  There's a lot of detail and depth you miss when they're embedded in the blog text.

I was impressed by how the towns that fill the Coachella Valley sprawl together linked by broad six lane boulevards with 50 mph speed limits. The few people in town race the one mile from from one traffic light to the next.  Oddly, there are so few people around in July that for a few moments between traffic pulses the streets seem completely deserted.  I knocked around for a few days trying to figure out how I could capture a photograph representing the empty streets and stark heat.

On my last night in town the inspiration for these photographs gelled- palm trees, empty giant boulevard, and the hot setting sun over the desert hills.  I made these images on Fred Waring Blvd at sunset by racing out into the street between tiny 20-car traffic pulses. In any other city I would get creamed by cars while lolly-gagging on a big street.  I love the lone car in the photograph above.

The photo below, also made on  Fred Waring Blvd., works for me because it is visually balanced and represents my take the surreal plastic world of Palm Desert. I get a little sick to my stomach looking at it.

Here's a couple of 7AM photographs made on El Paseo, the Rodeo Drive of Palm Desert. No one around...