Just Deserts

Sands, Canyons & Badlands

with photography quotes


Canyon Sanctuaries


Diablo Canyon

Tent Rocks

San Lorenzo Canyon

Antelope X Canyon

Canyon DeChelly

Wire Pass Trail

Water Holes Canyon

Secret Canyon

Canyon De Chelly, Arizona

“The whole world is, to me, very much "alive" - all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can't look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life - the things going on - within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood.” ― Ansel Adams


“Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and wonder surrounding him.” ― Ansel Adams


Antelope X Canyon, Arizona

Secret Canyon, Arizona

Canyon De Chelly, Arizona

San Lorenzo Canyon, New Mexico

Wire Pass Trail, Arizona

Antelope X Canyon, Arizona

“While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.” – Dorothea Lange

“It is all very beautiful and magical here---a quality which cannot be described. You have to live it and breathe it, let the sun bake it into you. The skies and land are so enormous, and the detail so precise and exquisite that wherever you are you are isolated in a glowing world between the macro and the micro, where everything is sidewise under you and over you, and the clocks stopped long ago.” ― Ansel Adams


Secret Canyon, Arizona

Diablo Canyon, New Mexico

Canyon De Chelly, Arizona

“I’ve never not been sure that I was a photographer any more than you would not be sure you were yourself. I was a photographer, or wanting to be a photographer, or beginning – but some phase of photographer I’ve always been.” – Dorothea Lange


“My own approach is based upon three considerations. First – hands off ! Whenever I photograph I do not molest or tamper with or arrange. Second – a sense of place. I try to picture as part of its surroundings, as having roots. Third – a sense of time. Whatever I photograph, I try to show as having its position in the past or in the present.” – Dorothea Lange

Secret Canyon, Arizona

Antelope X Canyon, Arizona

Secret Canyon, Arizona

Secret Canyon, Arizona

Tent Rocks, New Mexico

Diablo Canyon, New Mexico

Canyon De Chelly, Arizona

Secret Canyon, Arizona

“There are no forms in nature. Nature is a vast, chaotic collection of shapes. You as an artist create configurations out of chaos. You make a formal statement where there was none to begin with. All art is a combination of an external event and an internal event… I make a photograph to give you the equivalent of what I felt. Equivalent is still the best word.” ― Ansel Adams


San Lorenzo Canyon, New Mexico

San Lorenzo Canyon, New Mexico

Diablo Canyon, New Mexico

Antelope X Canyon, Arizona

Secret Canyon, Arizona

Tent Rocks, New Mexico

Wirepass Trail, Utah

Antelope X Canyon, Arizona

Wirepass Trail, Utah

Tent Rocks, New Mexico

Waterholes Canyon, Utah

Waterholes Canyon, Arizona

Waterholes Canyon, Arizona

Antelope X Canyon, Arizona

Antelope X Canyon, Arizona


Hoodoo Country


Lybrook Badlands

Bisti Badlands

Ojito Wilderness

Fossil Forest

Lybrook Badlands, New Mexico

“For me it is most often an immediate reaction; the more I look for something, the less chance there is for finding anything of value.” ― Ansel Adams


“You learn to see by practice. It’s just like playing tennis, you get better the more you play. The more you look around at things, the more you see. The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can’t be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.” – Eliot Porter



Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Lybrook Badlands, New Mexico

Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Fossil Forest, New Mexico

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” – Dorothea Lange

“It is not enough to photograph the obviously picturesque.” – Dorothea Lange

“To know ahead of time what you’re looking for means you’re then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.” – Dorothea Lange

Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Lybrook Badlands, New Mexico

“Art is a by-product of an act of total attention.” – Dorothea Lange

Ojito Wilderness, New Mexico

Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Lybrook Badlands, New Mexico

“I don’t think it’s necessary to put your feelings about photography in words. I’ve read things that photographers have written for exhibitions and so forth about their subjective feelings about photography and mostly I think it’s disturbing. I think they’re fooling themselves very often. They’re just talking, they’re not saying anything.” – Eliot Porter

Fossil Forest, New Mexico

Ojito Wilderness, New Mexico

Lybrook Badlands, New Mexico

Lybrook

Lybrook

Lybrook Badlands, New Mexico

"I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me."  - Theodore Roosevelt

Fossil Forest, New Mexico


Sandy Lands


Great Sand Dunes

White Sands

Great Sand Dunes, Colorado

White Sands, New Mexico

Great Sand Dunes, Colorado

Great Sand Dunes, Colorado

White Sands, New Mexico

Great Sand Dunes, Colorado

“But before all else a work of art is the creation of love. Love for the subject first and for the medium second. Love is the fundamental necessity underlying the need to create, underlying the emotion that gives it form, and from which grows the unfinished product that is presented to the world. Love is the general criterion by which the rare photograph is judged. It must contain it to be not less than the best of which the photographer is capable.” – Eliot Porter

“Wilderness, or wildness is a mystique. A religion, an intense philosophy, a dream of ideal society - these are also mystique. We are not engaged in preserving so many acre-feet of water, so many board-feet of timber, so many billion tons of granite, so many profit possibilities in so many ways for those concerned with the material aspects of the world. Yet, we must accept the fact that human life (at least in the metabolic sense) depends upon the resources of the Earth. As the fisherman depends upon the rivers, lakes and seas, and the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind in general depend upon the beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence.”  From a speech to The Wilderness Society, May 9 1980.  ― Ansel Adams


White Sands, New Mexico

White Sands, New Mexico


Arid Wilds


Sandia Mountains

Red Rock Park

Middle Rio Puerco Valley

El Malpais

Ghost Ranch

ABQ Open Space

Red Rocks Park, New Mexico

Middle Rio Puerco Valley, New Mexico

“The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects.” – Dorothea Lange


“I do not photograph for ulterior purposes. I photograph for the thing itself — for the photograph — without consideration of how it may be used.” – Eliot Porter

El Malpais, New Mexico

El Malpais, New Mexico

El Malpais, New Mexico

Sandia Mountains, New Mexico

Ghost Ranch, New Mexico

Sandia Mountains, New Mexico

Red Rocks Park, New Mexico

El Malpais, New Mexico

Heck if I remember... some beautiful dirt road in New Mexico

El Malpais, New Mexico

El Malpais, New Mexico

Ghost Ranch, New Mexico

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” ― Ansel Adams

Albuquerque Open Space, New Mexico

These beautiful desert landscapes are all on the homelands of Native American tribes and communities.  Some remain under the careful stewardship and care of Native leaders, some are on public lands administered by the US Government, and some are on private lands.  Regardless of their current status, they were all once indigenously protected, respected and treasured, and were all stolen through force and coercion.  Acknowledging this history is an essential step in making real amends, and in stopping the "legal" theft of Native lands that continues even today.  Since I do not feel qualified to craft my own land acknowledgements, I have chosen the following three to best represent the regions photographed on this page.

UNM-Albuquerque Indigenous Peoples' Land and Territory Acknowledgement

Founded in 1889, the University of New Mexico sits on the traditional homelands of the Pueblo of Sandia. The original peoples of New Mexico – Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache – since time immemorial, have deep connections to the land and have made significant contributions to the broader community statewide. We honor the land itself and those who remain stewards of this land throughout the generations and also acknowledge our committed relationship to Indigenous peoples. We gratefully recognize our history.

UNM-Gallup Land Acknowledgement

Founded in 1968, The University of New Mexico-Gallup sits on the traditional homelands of the Pueblo of Zuni Nation and Navajo Nation. The original peoples of New Mexico-Pueblo, and Navajo, since time immemorial, have deep connections to the land and have made significant contributions to the broader community statewide. We honor the land itself and those who remain stewards of this land throughout the generations and also acknowledge our committed relationship to indigenous peoples.

We thankfully recognize our history, strive to build robust relationships with sovereign Native Nations and Indigenous peoples, and commit to maintain a diverse and inclusive environment with respect, understanding, and appreciation of all.

Coconino Community College Land Acknowledgement Statement

On behalf of Coconino Community College, we would like to express our gratitude and appreciation to the sacred land on which this educational institution resides. Sacred sites located within Coconino County include the San Francisco Peaks, Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona Red Rocks, the Colorado River, the Little Colorado River, the Colorado River Confluence, the Grand Canyon and many more sites. This land has been inhabited by the Sinagua and Ancestral Pueblo for thousands of years. Currently, the Zuni, Apache, Yavapai, Hualapai, Havasupai, Paiute, Diné, Hopi, and many other Arizona tribal nations recognize this land as a significant spiritual place. This sacred land is enriched with Indigenous history and culture that lives on to this day. We, as a community with our CCC family and friends, are very fortunate to live, work, and share this unique location. Thank you.