2013: A couple dozen scenes--seen through my iPhone...

Trying to be brief, then, as I look back at scenes from this past year...

...impossible to narrow it down to just a 'top ten' or even a 'one-per-month'...so, how about a couple dozen of my favorite iphoneographic images from 2013? Local landscapes and some scenes from afar, playing with some b&w and painterly effects as well...

January--

on a hike with my wife in the foothills 

of the Santa Catalina Mountains, happening upon a deer:

February--
after living here for six years, 
finally, a snow-covered-saguaro scene:

also in February--a brief visit in Palm Springs,
with this larger-than-life Marilyn Monroe:

March--
a warm afternoon at the Mission San Xavier del Bac

...which led to this 'surrealization' of the 
Mission's not-quite-twin towers:

April--
an architectural walk through
Tucson's Barrio Viejo,
its Sonoran-row-house-soul:

May--
one of my favorite shots of the year,
which ended up part of a juried exhibition
in Vermont:

June--
running on trails amidst the lush
subtropical vegetation along the Savannah River
in Georgia:

...and seeing nature overtake brick
along the 19th-c. Augusta Canal:

July--
back to France, after 11 years away,
with this view from our hotel 
one night in Montmartre:

(playing more and more with painterly effects this year)

...and this lunch-break scene in the 
Jardin des Tuileries;
ups and downs of cellphone calls:

...and dans la chambre de Montaigne,
in the château of the great Renaissance
writer, Michel de Montaigne:

...the Château de Chenonceau;
'magical' is such an overused cliché...
...and yet, my wife and I keep coming back to that hackneyed word:


...an evening on the Dordogne river,
Sainte-Foy-la-Grande:

...then on to Barcelona,
where faces of the 21st-c. compete
with Roman faces from the 1st-c.:

...and Madrid;
this street-art's attitude
sums up 
"Madrid me mata" 
for me:

August--
back to the school-year work-week schedule,
on an after-work run,
a classic Tucson monsoon-season sunset:

September--
while on trail-runs,
stopping to notice the
late summer desert rain
on datura blooms:

October--
a visit to the glorious red-rock country around Sedona:

November--
a Grand Canyon sunset:


...and sunrise over a sea of fog,
a perhaps once-in-a-decade event:

...which also included this otherworldly spectacle,
the atmospheric phenomenon known as 
a 'glory,' or a "Brokcen Spectre": 

December--
late autumn color hanging on
over reflections in Sabino Canyon:

(above photo featured in iPhoneOgenic's "top 31 of December" showcase)

...and the final 'ripening' of the desert cottonwoods: