This weekend I conducted a photography tour to the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the Carrizo Plain National Monument, and the remote Cuyama and Lockwood Valleys. We enjoyed photographing two kinds of fields: enormous oil fields near the town of Taft - where we spent two nights - and spectacular fields of wildflowers. We also saw and even photographred some elusive wildlife.

This photograph was made this morning in the hills that rise south of Taft. The mountains in the background are part of the Transverse Range of California.