I was 10 years old when I first saw desert plants inside the large greenhouses at the Oxford Botanical Gardens. I always wanted to see these plants in their native environment. The sharp, spiny stemmed Ocotillo, one of the most distinctive plants of the desert, still thrills me when I come across a hillside of these wickedly spiky plants in full bloom. It only takes a few days after spring or summer rains for shiny green leaves to sprout along the gray thorny branches that rise from a central base and reach up to 15 feet high, and fan outward to a diameter of 10 feet.
In early March I was hiking across the river when I came across a hillside of Ocotillo plants. The rains had not yet come so the stems were bare. I photographed them against the brilliant blue sky, and used this image to play with until I had created the Ocotillo Skull.