One thing that always stops me dead in my tracks when I’m out looking for a photo, or for a potential photo spot when conditions line up, is a scene with interesting juxtapositions. On my way out to the Mojave Desert one day on a windy, remote two lane highway. I ran across this gem, with a massive Joshua Tree sitting in the middle of a desert expanse with a towering windmill in the distance, blades as long as the wings of a 747. Joshua trees only grow a couple inches per year, and this one was a solid 30-35 feet tall, one of the biggest of it’s species I’ve seen anywhere in the Mojave, including in Joshua Tree National Park. Check out the trunk on this beast - it’s like an oak tree! Most old JT’s don’t have this kind of thickness. This specimen is easily a few hundred years old, here in this field probably predating any kinds of known human presence.
And the area is a wind field, the winds ripping over Tehachapi Pass and out into the desert on a regular basis, leading to this windmill being placed here as one of several thousand in the area, the future of clean and sustainable energy. Under the stars here the sounds of the windmills turning and cranking are mystifying, somewhat eerie, haunting, smoothed over though by the soft and soothing light of the Milky Way filtering down, light emitted from the galactic core eons ago and finally touching down here on Earth.