I was out on the deck last Friday, enjoying a quarantini* while huddled next to the propane MrHeater. My wife and I were talking about, despite the cold made more intense by a slight breeze, the beauty of Arizona’s Verde Valley. I’ve shared many photographs of Sedona’s red rock cliffs, but not many from just right around me. Somehow, the fact that we are restricted in unprecedented ways leads us to believe we are surrounded by mundane things: overly familiar people, boring views and television shows. Even new movie releases, from me at least, elicit, “Meh.” Earlier in the Spring of the great pandemic (sic) such ennui even affected my photography. “Why bother?” I thought, unless a spectacular thunderstorm boiled up perchance. Long story (blah, blah, blah) short, I began trying to make photographs whenever something caught my eye. This blog is to share with you some of the images I’ve made over the last few months. Let me know what you think.In October we had a wonderful and infrequent event. You've heard the expression, “Once in a blue moon,” and we had one! A blue moon is when two full moons occur within the same month, which I share below. I was also able to capture the first October full moon along with Mars in close proximity in the evening sky, below. As you can see, it is not a “blue” moon.

Straight south of us are the Black Hills that form part of the western boundary of the Verde Valley. They are an extension of Mingus Mountain, an 8,000+ foot table mountain to the west. In this photograph, Phoenix would be seventy miles due south to get you oriented correctly. We’d had an unusually late monsoon that came upon us suddenly one morning; lot’s of flash bang and glorious clouds. A hole in the sky and light on the hills, priceless!

That same day, but turning to the east, Sedona would be on the far left of frame, storm clouds and light picking up the yellow cottonwood trees caught my eye.

November 11, Veterans’ Day, this magnificent cloud formation and color swept the sky as the sun dropped below Mingus Mountain to the west. My cousin, Tonia Colleen Martin a poet, responded with her thoughts upon seeing the photograph.

Dear David, thank you for this gift this morning. It gave me a good cry I didn't know I needed. Spectacular capture, words fall short but for me this is what I heard.

As if we might too soon forgetthe heavens telegraphed the lost blood in cloudspreading its message in the unnatural beautyof what could only be seen as such after our longlusting after war.

Not withstanding, the existence of wars in the makingwars crowning between the broken thighs of powersgrinding at the bit held by who the world knows not,the Master of Restraint.

As for me, my memory yanked me back in fits and starts throughout a day of desperation,or had I willed it so?

My father and I side by side, filling out the online questionnaire to prove the origins of buried shrapnel in his face,severed wires in his brain, frost-bit feet -- gasping at the question: Did you get blood on you?

"Did I get blood on me? There was blood everywhere."

My hands dropped from the keyboard. My head slumped on the desk.Did he get blood on him? A medic on the frontlines of the Korean War.No gun but bayonet.We all got blood on us. We've been bleeding ever since.

--Tonia Colleen Martin 2020

I love it. Dedicated to those who have served, those who  are serving, and those who gave all.

Finally, one of my favorite images, it speaks to me in a way that is hard to define. During a New Moon when the face is in shadow, sometimes we can see it illuminated by reflection of light from Earth. For some reason, I awakened early one morning and found this next image waiting for me. The relative positioning of the Moon and Venus and the intervening band of clouds reminded me of Martin Buber’s book by the same title.

I hope you have enjoyed these images. Be sure and check out Moon and Venus Rising below. I wish all of you the best for now and the holidays and, of course, best wishes for the new year.PS Take this from a viral immunologist, the vaccines are looking very good, so be of good cheer!

*quarantini: any martini made to your perfect specifications and "suffered" through during quarantine.