From last week's beginnings, to today's latest...

Friday afternoon: fun with phone-camera after work...

For background, first, an excerpt from the New York Times:

Bringing Big Smiles to iPhone Shutterbugs by Rik Fairlie

       A basic tenet of photography is that the best camera is the one you have on hand when you need it. For many people these days, that means an iPhone.
       It’s easy to understand why: not only is the iPhone a universal communications tool, its one-button camera is also stunningly simple to use.
       “It really opens your eyes creatively when you have to take a photo with something with such limited functionality,” said Chase Jarvis, a commercial photographer based in Seattle who has been smitten by the iPhone’s camera. “The beauty is in its simplicity. There are no lights or other equipment.”

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Today after work, I needed to drive up to the far NW side of Tucson to pick up my packet and t-shirt for Sunday's half-marathon...The running-store where I picked those things up is not far from the actual course for the race, and I hadn't been up in that area in a while, so I thought I'd drive along the running route.

It's not actually in Tucson; it's in Oro Valley--intriguing name for a town only incorporated in the mid-1970's. There is no 'downtown.' It's suburbia: strip-malls of chain-stores and traffic...but it's suburbia-with-scenery. The 'backside' of the Santa Catalina Mountains is gorgeous--canyons and uplifted outcroppings soaring above the saguaros.

Spring desert evening light flatters cell-phone-camera-photos--the only camera I had with me:

The wilderness-y hills hide suburbia, lurking just beyond the saguaro-studded horizon...

This panorama stitched together on the iPhone, using Cloudburst Research's AutoStitch app.

These photos were taken in an area along the route called

 'Honeybee Canyon,' a natural preserve surrounded by

the Rancho Vistoso 'master planned community.'

Looking forward to Sunday morning...