Floral carpet in the desert

This year we had the perfect timing at the mostly barren desert between Capitol Reef National Park and Hanksville/Utah. A great bloom happens there only every 5 to 10 years. A higher than average precipitation is needed during the winter and early spring months. And usually the wildflower season does not last long in south-central Utah. As soon as temperatures rise and the sun starts hitting hard on the tiny little flowers, they tend to disappear as fast as they poked out of the dry soils. While there was a superbloom in Southern California and although there was a harsh winter and quite a lot of snow on the Colorado Plateau, all we got was a rather "subtile bloom" in this part of the Southwest. But nevertheless we enjoyed it a lot and loved shooting the flower-decorated cracked mud at the base of Factory Butte. But it was not easy to find the potpourri we had in mind. We were looking for the perfect array of purples and yellows. And as it seems the Purple Mat Flowers (Nama demissum) tend to fade and wither away as soon as the yellow Palmer's Bee Plant (Cleomella palmeriana, Rocky Mountain Stinkweed) start to bloom. But our search was not in vain. At one of the remote dry washes well hidden between the hillocks we were lucky enough to find both of them looking gorgeous. Such a great contrast to the monotone gray mud on the desert floor! The only issue we had to deal with was the constant blowing wind (typically for this time of the year...), that's why we had to push the ISO to higher settings. But we liked the new images even better than the ones from the Scorpion Weed Superbloom at Death Valley back in March 2016.

Image data: April 20th, 2019; 1/160 s at f/16, ISO 500; Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM at 45 mm, Canon EOS 5D Mark IV