The Southwest is a profound surprise for an Easterner. Connecting to such a vast landscape can disorient someone accustomed to looking out from a car or home and seeing forests and trees. Finding the essence of a place—especially one as photographed as Arches—can be a challenge. The sandstone arches risk becoming trite, almost Disneyesque spectacles. Only through effort, exploring the quieter corners of the Park, and returning again and again can offer a careful observer a fresh perspective.
When Ansel Adams visited the Southwest in 1937 he wrote:
“It is all very beautiful and magical here…The skies and land are so enormous, and the details so precise and exquisite that wherever you are you are where everything is sidewise under you and over you, and the clocks stopped long ago.”
Many visits and new imaginings later, I have found images from places apart from the crowds that continue to inspire me to return. Nature remains generous in its spirit. Sometimes just a bit of effort is needed to embrace the sublime and surprising parts of the natural world, those quiet places initially hidden from view.
Where Life Endures in Stone
Arches National Park
click on photos to enlarge
Guardians of the Basin
Life Takes Hold
Where the Desert Burns
Color Rises From Stone
The Watchers in Storm Light
Where Life Follows Water
Where Stone Remembers Sand
The Glow Beneath the Arch
Where Red Stone Shelters Winter
Where Green Rises Beneath Stone
Where Stone Holds the Light
The Desert Wakes
Where the Desert Glows