Trouble at the Berry Observatory
I took this photo years ago because I liked the way the sunlight was filtering through the plants, almost turning an ordinary patch of branches into something abstract. The red berries gave it the spark of color it needed, and from there the imagination took over.
A tiny observatory appeared among the branches, complete with warm lights and a ladder. Then came the traveler climbing toward it, adding just enough mystery to make you wonder where he came from—and what he plans to do when he gets there.
The Long Ride Home
This photo was taken during a trip to Monument Valley around 2018 or 2019. We had been traveling through Utah, surrounded by landscapes that seemed to stretch forever, and on the way back we stopped here.
I caught this scene early in the morning as the sun was coming up. The light was pushing through the clouds and sending these long rays across the sky. That was what caught me first. I wasn’t really trying to make the monument itself the entire picture. I wanted to capture the openness around it—the feeling of distance, escape, and all that empty space.
When you stand there, the scale is hard to explain. These formations rise out of the desert with almost nothing around them. This one especially felt isolated, even though another formation wasn’t terribly far away. In the photograph, though, it seems to stand completely on its own.
There is something spiritual about Monument Valley. Maybe part of that comes from the silence and the size of the landscape. Part of it, for me, also came from recognizing places I had seen years earlier in old John Wayne movies. So many films were made in this country that the scenery almost feels familiar before you ever arrive.
I added the lone rider much later, but he helped me express what I remembered about being there. He gives the landscape a human scale and makes the emptiness feel even larger.
The rocks have been standing there for ages. People have crossed beneath them, made movies around them, photographed them, and moved on.
