An Unplanned Retreat to Joshua Tree

I got a last-minute offer to attend the Femme Nue retreat near Joshua Tree California due to a last minute withdrawal of one of the photographers. Despite having decided to pull back from traveling as much this year, I decided to go for it. I had slowed the cash flow a bit and was again comfortable with expenses. I also used this as a reason to bite-the-bullet and purchase the new Nikon Z8 that I had been planning for later this year.

I drove down to southern California. I had taken over the bookings for the photographer that pulled out, and I had 3 hours of shooting the first afternoon, so instead of driving down the morning that the event started, I drove down the day before to Victorville and stayed in an Airbnb. A good decision. The next morning I drove to Yucca Valley where the event house was located. Despite being late September, Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree were quite busy. The weather was pleasantly warm, but not too hot. The event house was a beautiful (newish) two story Spanish style house that had a large back deck area the opened out to a private rocky desert valley area. The house and the surroundings provided many interesting places to shoot at.

There were 3 models at the event, two of which I’d worked with many times, Sienna Hayes and Anoush Anou, as well as one new model that I knew of but had never worked with before, Eva Luna. I had worked with both Sienna and Anoush earlier in the year, and I actually had scheduled a session with Anoush the following week. This trip gave me an opportunity to take some more interesting images as well as getting some needed real-world experience using my new camera. During one of the gaps in my shooting schedule, I took the opportunity to drive through Joshua Tree National Park (and see it without the sky being smoky grey). It was a nice relaxed group, and I’m glad I made the trip. We had some nice shooting and some nice relaxed times for dining. For me the round-trip was roughly 1000 miles (more than I was expecting), and the cost for gas was about $215. The drive home took about 8 hours, so it was still probably better driving than flying. It was a nice trip and I’m glad I went.

[More pictures on my Photo Blog]