CraigBILL

Few people realize that the Saguaro cactus is also a night creature. During the summer, on specific nights, they bloom white flowers! And they bloom not for bees and butterflies, but for bats and a few other types of birds! The bats are what cross pollinate these crazy cactus trees at night. Its a symbiotic dance that nature carefully and specifically crafted.

I must admit, I had seen a picture of these magnificent Saguaros captured at night in a poster somewhere. I thought what an ingenious and intriguing capture of a place that is thought of as hot, bright and dry.

I set to work looking for good photo area. I wanted to make a panoramic nighttime shot of these cacti along with the moon and that was not as easy as I thought it would be. The moon was not a shapely full or crescent, and was very bright that night, so I decided to capture this scene with a small aperture so that the moon would split into rays. Although it took many test exposures to finally get it all right, I was very happy to see that the composition turned out very much like how I had hoped and imagined.