The Desert Life

It was but a mere few shoots of rabbitbrush poking through the dry sands of Monument Valley. And while it was still a rocky desert early in September, that dawn, where I came across this brush thriving in the parched landscape, was still freezing co…

It was but a mere few shoots of rabbitbrush poking through the dry sands of Monument Valley. And while it was still a rocky desert early in September, that dawn, where I came across this brush thriving in the parched landscape, was still freezing cold.

I had paid a visit to Monument Valley a few years back, hoping to capture some of the magic of the wild West. But instead, what I came across were magnificent landscapes sculpted by the wind and the sand, with towering buttes constructed of red sandstone rising hundreds of feet from the rolling terrain below.

During this trip, a sunrise tour deep into the heart of this Navajo monument brought me face to face with some of its famous rocky denizens waiting to catch the morning light. After capturing the first rays of sunlight peeking through the sandstone buttes, I shifted over to the untouched sand-dunes, wherein I spotted these groups of rabbitbrush not just surviving, but thriving in this harsh landscape. The edge-lit sand-dunes provided the perfect foreground for this memorable scene, which I captured at ISO 1600, at F11 at 1/250s exposure.

Monument Valley Tribal Monument
AZ USA