About Arizona Uncommon
Arizona is known around the world for its desert landscapes, towering saguaros, endless sunshine, and dramatic mountain scenery. Yet some of the state's most remarkable moments occur when the familiar becomes unexpected.
Arizona Uncommon is a photographic project dedicated to documenting the rare, unusual, and often overlooked natural phenomena that shape Arizona's landscapes. From desert snowstorms and monsoon lightning to seasonal transformations and extraordinary environmental events, the goal is to create a visual record of Arizona's uncommon stories.
Part documentary archive and part fine art collection, Arizona Uncommon preserves moments that many residents and visitors may never have the opportunity to witness firsthand.
The First Collection
When the Desert Turned White
Brown's Ranch Trailhead
McDowell Sonoran Preserve
Scottsdale, Arizona
On the morning of February 22, 2019, I woke before sunrise and drove toward Brown's Ranch Trailhead in Scottsdale's McDowell Sonoran Preserve.
I had been watching the forecast the night before and thought there might be a chance for a dusting of snow.
About 10 minutes out, I knew this was going to be special: there was snow on the ground. A lot. Enough that I was making tire tracks on an otherwise abandoned Dynamite Blvd. The typical Troon North desert color palette and black asphalt of the road were ... erased. Everything was white. And to my surprise, the gates to the trailhead were ... wide open. I drove through. First tracks.
I'm no stranger to snowy landscapes. I spend a fair amount of time snowboarding, and I know the invigorating feeling of a crisp winter morning after a fresh snowfall. But this felt entirely different.
The saguaros were ghosted in white, towering like sentinels in the fog. Trails that I knew by heart had vanished beneath the snow. The parking lot had become a vast, untouched white field. Familiar landmarks remained in their usual places, yet the landscape felt transformed into something dreamlike.
Low clouds and fog drifted through the preserve, softening the horizon and muting the desert's usual textures. There was that kind of muffled silence that only snow can produce. Brown's Ranch felt suspended between two worlds: neither fully desert, nor fully winter.
For a couple hours, I photographed the area as the storm transformed one of Arizona's most iconic landscapes, the Sonoran Desert, into something few people ever have the opportunity to witness.
I built a snowman with my daughter, who I'd woken up early, assuring her it would be worth it, that this was a once in a lifetime thing. Doing our best to stay on the trails that had been buried, we threw snowballs, took pictures and truly lived in the moment.The images in this collection document that brief and remarkable morning when Brown's Ranch and the McDowell Sonoran Preserve were covered in snow. More than a collection of landscape photographs, they serve as a visual record of an uncommon moment in the environmental history of Scottsdale and the iconic Sonoran Desert.
Some landscapes are memorable because they are beautiful. Others are memorable because they are rare.
This was both.
About the Photographer
My name is Jake Hanes, and I am an Arizona-based photographer with a passion for documenting unusual natural events, changing landscapes, and the unique environmental character of the Southwest.
Through Arizona Uncommon, I hope to build a growing archive of photographs that preserve rare and remarkable moments across Arizona, moments that may never occur again in quite the same way.
Licensing & Inquiries
Images from Arizona Uncommon are available for editorial licensing, tourism and destination marketing, conservation and educational use, corporate and hospitality installations, and fine art print sales.
Contact for Licensing