I visited Sandstone Bluffs, a national monument about an hour and a half from where I live, twice in one week. The first time was at the suggestion of Nicole, a friend and photography mentor who proposed it as the location for a photoshoot I wanted to do with her; the second trip was because I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful it was and that I must get back to try to capture some of those memories in photo form. It had rained a lot that week and there were ephemeral pools everywhere, not to mention incredibly greened-up surroundings and that amazing quality the desert gets of every color, texture, thing becoming deeper, richer, more after a good downpour.

My friend and I were lucky to plan the photoshoot for when we did, and to have the chance to take a little roadtrip to satisfy that itch to go back. What an excellent decision! She got some incredible self-portraits, her preferred medium for the day, which you can see over on her Substack. I was mesmerized by the landscape and spent my evening pointing my lens at various sweeping rock formations, tiny ants going about their business (okay, actually pretty big ants), and everything in between. There are probably only so many hot takes of sunbaked rocks that one person can get, but I tried to do justice to this stunningly gorgeous midsummer high desert scene.

First, a set of three images I didn’t edit even a little bit. I’m so enchanted by how reddish the light came out.

Some of my favorites from the rest, including a not-so-candid shot of Nicole.

And the rest of the shots from that night, in no particular order; a study in form and shape and, sometimes, color. I intentionally left many of them dark to try to preserve the sense of the setting sun and approaching evening. (Spot the unfortunate attempt at editing a RAW file—what a learning curve—and WordPress’s formatting of this gallery is driving me nuts but we’re going to make the best of it.)