Surfaces

Like just about everything else in Death Valley, scenic beauty is about the bare essentials. Ma Nature uses basic ingredients and a deceptively straightforward recipe to conjure the most incredible landscapes.

Ingredients: Earth, water, sun, salt

- Pick a piece of earth

- Add water

- Bake in direct sunlight on high for a prolonged period

- Add salt as needed

- Garnish with black rocks, if desired

The results, as seen below, can be spectacular!

"This place is overexposed"

In Paris recently, I complained to the Lady, about how it was impossible to take any picture that had not been taken a thousand times before.

The Lady agreed and said: "It is true. This place is overexposed."

...and just like that, an idea was born!

Far Rockaway...

I chanced upon this sonnet by Wordworth and thought the words were very befitting to the time  I spent at the Far Rockaway.

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea;
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder everlastingly. 

 (By William Wordsworth) 
 

Trip to the Butte

The ravages of time are on elegant display at the Coyote Butte - at the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah. A product of wind erosion, the buttes are a flamboyant exhibition of the most fragile sandstone rock formations which are constantly perishing as they yield to the unrelenting forces of nature.

Volcanicity

The ancient Hawaiians thought of the volcano as the manifestation of a goddess. Pele - the fire/volcano goddess - was a volatile, temperamental, yet irresistible woman, known for dramatic shifts in mood. She could be a raging, unpredictable, destructive force, but was also revered as a creator - of new land, and new life.


Over the past year, I have tried to seek Pele out, and she has rewarded my efforts by offering glimpses of her many moods and faces (the pictures below are a compilation from these encounters). As I have gotten to know Pele better, I have realized why the Hawaiians thought of her in the way that they did. I have also learned something that the Hawaiians do not seem to have stressed - that words and images do no justice to her beauty.

Cinder cone and lava field, Hale'akala

Cinder cones, Mauna Kea

Lava lake, Pu'u'o'o vent, Kilauea

Lava tube (aerial view), Kilauea

Into the Void, Hale'akala

Geothermal pool and travertine terraces, Yellowstone

Geyser runoff and thermal springs, Yellowstone

Volcanic olivine green sand, Mahana Beach

Cloudscapes

Hale'akala and Mauna Kea are two of the most sacred peaks in Hawai'i. Located at elevations higher than 10,000 feet, the summits of these peaks are almost always above the cloud cover. Here, the sun rises from, and sets into the cloud cover - something I had never witnessed before, except from airplane windows. The result is a constantly changing 'cloudscape'.

The interplay of these constantly changing cloud patterns and the light of the rising or setting sun is impossible to capture in any meaningful way. The pictures below are but a representation of experiences too powerful to even describe, much less photograph.

To be there and witness these moments, is to gain some insight into how certain places might have come to be regarded as sacred to begin with!

The Grass Project

I have been meaning to put these photographs up on the blog for a while but did not have the right words that would resonate my thoughts to describe them. I heard this beautiful song from the motion picture soundtrack of 'Away We Go' and thought was evocative of what I might would have wanted to say.

See the clouds are creeping towards the sun
and I'm slipping away
I'm seen by anyone
the light it turning grey
the day is done
The water is so cold
and heavy on my mind
I dreamed of walking with you
but I fell behind
looking for a road
I could not find
 

And now the ice is starring
and spring is near
there is no one calling
but the sound is clear
no, I'm not yet gone 

I'm still not here