~ Zack Sanchez-Chong Cuy, Education Specialist
On Saturday, September 22, the Imperial Valley Desert Museum hosted its Desert Photography Day with Macro Photographer Robert Marcos. As a member of staff at the IVDM, I was fortunate enough to attend this exclusive event. Beforehand, I had no experience whatsoever in photography. I was definitely nervous: I knew nothing about photography as an expressive art form, and this was my first event working for the museum. Thankfully, none of those fears came into play. 
From the beginning, I was quite comfortable. Many of us came to event with little or no experience, instead united by our love for desert photography and, really, the desert itself. This made for a very warm and welcoming experience for all of us.
Robert Marcos talked to us about his approach to macro photography, where one views what would typically be considered a common object through a zoom lens and the manipulation of that object using lighting and angles. The result is an incredibly up-close and detailed view of objects that we otherwise overlook, which teaches that even the most common of things are quite complex and that there is beauty everywhere within nature when one takes a closer look. Robert Marcos calls this his “revelation of finding beauty with the most minute things that inhabit the earth.”
Following his informative and quite entertaining lecture, we followed with a short hike across the museum property where we all applied what we had just learned. Robert Marcos' approach to desert photography was fresh and insightful, and was a great tool to add to my interpretation of our desert environment which ultimately carries over into other things. There is beauty in everything around us: we just have to look at things through a different lens. Sometimes, it requires another person's perspective to help shape our own. I had a blast at the event and look forward to continue learning and growing along with the great people who support the museum and everything we do.
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