About the Image

Home to a unique and geologically diverse landscape of brilliant whites and deep reds, the Mojave’s Valley of Fire is simultaneously alien and surreal. Having traveled the United States from Key West to the tundra of the Alaskan Arctic Circle, I have yet to see another terrain as unique as that of the Valley of Fire. It holds a special place in my memory and imagination.

Contrasts and juxtapositions of tone and subject pervade my work. For this image, however, I aimed for the elegant simplicity of a desert scene. I photographed the landscape in the late afternoon and chose to create the image in black and white to move the viewer beyond color and focus attention on the interplay between light and shadow within the desert’s rugged features of dust, rock and barren trees.