48th State Photography

07/04/2025

Happy 4th of July! Arizona shows off its spectacular Red, White, and Blue in the beautifully vast landscape of the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park.

03/13/2025

I was pleased to enjoy a rare rainy day around the Superstitions Mountains witha dusting of snow at the top. I love Arizona storms.

03/09/2025

I recently took a few days to take a solo road trip along possibly the longest surviving portion of Route 66, from Ash Fork, AZ to Needles, CA at the California border.

Route 66, nicknamed The Mother Road, is the storied highway remembered and romanticized in songs, books, TV shows, movies, and the very fabric of American life in the 20th Century. Between 1923 and 1984, it led millions of vacationers, those seeking a fresh start in the booming Southwest and West Coast, and uncountable interstate freight trucks hauling anything and everything, from Chicago to Santa Monica and all the cities and towns in-between. It was dotted with many small towns that prospered and enjoyed the economic boom of all that automobile traffic. In and around the small towns, many gas stations, hotels and motels, curio shops, restaurants, and tourist traps popped up to provide everything needed to get a traveler and their car across the wide expanse of the American Southwest. Ultimately, the two-lane blacktop that rolled across the plains, mountains, and deserts of the Midwest and Southwest was paved over, or bypassed with the final completion of the bigger, faster Interstate 40 in 1984. Many of those small towns, roadside stops, and curious attractions that were bypassed have faded into history, unable to stop time and progress from erasing their relevance and existence. Some still exist, hanging on in a broken but nostalgic state, waiting for the travellers who still want to get their kicks on Route 66.

03/05/2025

I recently camped near Ash Fork in northern Arizona, which is considered a dark sky area at night, a remote location that has minimal-to-no light pollution lighting up the sky from heavily populated surrounding areas. I decided to try some astrophotography, which I do not shoot very often, and only know some basics of what it takes to get some good shots. I was pretty pleased with the shots I was getting, but during one shot I messed with my zoom lens while the shutter was open and got an interesting result. After further experimentation, I created some interesting shots that I really enjoy the look of!

09/11/2024

A view of Cathedral Rock in Sedona, AZ. Oak Creek flows near the base of this majestic rock formation and when it is wide and flowing a bit slower, the red dirt coats the river rock on the bottom of the creek. Love the beauty of the 48th State!

48th State Photography is excited to announce a large selection of images that are now available for purchase at https://michael-kenan.pixels.com/.
You can buy art prints, framed or unframed, and have them printed in the size that is perfect for your space, and shipped to your home. Also available are T-shirts, mugs, shower curtains, and many more great products to surround yourself with the 48th State - all with a 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee!

09/10/2024

The aspens of Northern Arizona are always an enjoyable sight, whether they are green or gold. These are near Snow Bowl Ski Resort on the San Francisco Peaks just north of Flagstaff. I enjoyed walking around them on a summer afternoon when the 70-degree temperature was 32 degrees cooler than my home in Phoenix, which was a welcome respite.

48th State Photography is happy to announce a large selection of images that are now available for purchase at https://michael-kenan.pixels.com/.

You can buy art prints, framed or unframed, and have them printed in the size that is perfect for your space, and shipped to your home. Also available are T-shirts, mugs, shower curtains and many more great product to surround yourself with the 48th State - all with a 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee!

08/03/2024

I was fortunate enough to spend a little time up along the Dolores River in Colorado recently and was completely taken in by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. The weather was amazing, especially coming from Phoenix in the summer, and every turn of the river and road delivered new amazing views and breathtaking sights. I am already planning to take another trip up that way next summer and do some more exploring.

05/31/2024

48th State Photography celebrates the beauty and diversity of the landscapes of Arizona and the Southwest. I am glad to announce a large selection of images that are now available for purchase at https://michael-kenan.pixels.com/.

You can buy art prints, framed or unframed, and have them printed in the size that is perfect for your space, and shipped to your home. Also available are T-shirts, mugs, shower curtains and many more great product to surround yourself with the 48th State - all with a 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee!

This is the website of Michael Kenan. Shop for canvas prints, framed prints, posters, greeting cards, and more. I am an Arizona native, and I have been fortunate to live in the Phoenix area for most of my life. I grew up in the Sonoran Desert with its amazing and otherworldly cacti and often-muted.....

05/01/2024

A single magenta bloom on a Hedgehog Cholla with the Superstition mountains looming in the background. The yellow flowers are an invasive w**d - Globe Chamomile, aka Stinkrat - which can provide some amazing yellow carpeted meadows in the desert, but it has seemingly started to take over the deserts in Arizona and the Southwest, choking out native plants and grasses, and as it dries out, it creates a very plentiful tinder to rapidly spread wildfires along the desert floor. It is advised to remove it whenever possible to help slow the spread.

05/01/2024

Clouds above the Superstition Mountains near Apache Junction, AZ.