I’ve been around cactuses since 1968,” says photographer Michael Woodall, whose family moved to the Valley from Michigan when he was a preteen. “But I still look at them like they’re new. I’m kind of like a child, I guess. I live in a world of wonder.” 

Woodall captured that state of awe in this wintertime shot of purple prickly pear at the J.W. Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort & Spa. Its spiny pads glow in shades from seafoam to violet to magenta. “I chose a shallow depth of focus so that the cactus would be highlighted. Then everything goes soft in the background,” Woodall recalls. The photograph was part of a COVID-era quest to shoot overlooked subjects. “I realized just how amazing everything around us is,” he observes. “I don’t have time to photograph it all.”