African Sense of Sachuest

I've been counting down the days until a trip to warmer climates.  That's right, I'm getting out of this polar vortex and heading to the Tropic of Cancer!  Destination:  Baja California.  An almost two week jaunt around the tip of the Baja Sur peninsula will surely erase the winter blues long enough for me to return in time for spring.  But until my counting days reach zero, I'm stuck in this New England ice box.

But that doesn't deter me from going shooting.  Ok, maybe every now and again when the wind chill is 5° I opt to stay indoors.  But winter weather just means putting on a few more layers in order to get that outdoor shot.

I took a drive recently over to Sachuest Point in Newport to catch an evening sunset.  While the clouds were moving out and there was little hope of a spectacular pink cloudy dusk I wandered around looking for things to shoot.  The wind was fierce and the shoreline was exposed, providing me with no relief from the winter chill.  But as I was wandering around this hibernating tundra-like park I had a sudden sense of African grasslands.  I found this scene in particular where a scraggly bush and rock coupled with golden light gave me reminiscence of the Lion King.  Maybe I'm crazy, but I just felt like I was wandering through a dry arid desert somewhere other than Rhode Island.  If it weren't for the freezing temperature and quadruple layered clothing, I might have just been convinced.  But now I know why the driest deserts on earth are actually arctic rather than equatorial regions.  Here you have it, the wintery desert and an African sense of Sachuest.