Water in the desert context is both life and a mirror to the sapphire sky. Artistically it is interesting for me to work with that wonderful interchange of the Earthly land forms and vegetation juxtaposed floating in surface tension of water. Large format film photography has provided me the tools and technique to capture simultaneously the reflections and suspension.

My love affair with the sandstone red-rock country that defines the Colorado Plateau began in the 1970s having arrived to Arizona from the urban mid-west. The radical departure in stature and character of the land mesmerized me and stole my heart.

I have found the intricate sandstone patterns are much more than only decorative and ‘graphic’. Sure, they are to a certain extend. And they are a petrified imprint of eons of geological transformation. Everything here from massive walls to tiny details is like fingerprints left by the erosive forces shaping the land. You can see that at many places in the world. And these fingerprints speak loudly to my heart.

All three images were made on Arizona’s Colorado Plateau as part on an ongoing visual study of sandstone wilderness to promote conservation and the designation of two National Monuments.

Since producing my Mojave Desert book, I’ve returned many times to sand dune fields that are an undulating ever-changing ocean of shadow and light.

The reoccurring theme in the desert is one based on survival. The tiniest amount of moisture can assure survival. If there is none, death inevitably comes. Plants root themselves on hard ground or shifting sands and yet they persist. I see a metaphor for the human species surviving somehow on the spaceship Earth.