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I'm a history buff, so I've dragged my wife along to visit any number of ghost towns here in the Southwest. The best, by far, is only a forty-five minute drive from Yuma... but mostly over unfinished roads. So Castle Dome has all three of the ideal characteristics for a tourist spot: intrinsic interest, photogenic, ... and very few tourists! It's a great place for "impressionist...

And if you like to pick berries... be VERY careful...

Sunrise  at Monument Valley Wupatki From the NPS site: People gathered here during the 1100s, gradually building this 100-room pueblo with a community room and ballcourt. By 1182, perhaps 85 to 100 people lived at Wupatki Pueblo, the largest building for at least fifty miles. Within a day's walk, a population of several thousand surrounded Wupatki. Wupatki appears empty and...

These were all taken late in the day. The light was horrible: dim and fog-murky. So they've become experiments in making lemonade from lemons. A TON of post-treatment!

I like "complicated" skies: turbulent clouds, spears of sunlight, and all that. Sometimes, though, there's just grey skies, and one must do what one can... All of these photos have been reworked. I use paint.net, a free app that's got all the tools I understand. GIMP has more tools, but it's a hassle... and Photoshop is expensive! I've paid attention to the sky, sometimes more than to...

THE scenery for "Big Sky western" movies. One overlook is named for John Ford. Our great little Buick Encore (with the help of a topbox almost as big as the car) carried four adults in quiet comfort for two weeks. I've encrusted the front plate (which is not mandatory in Arizona-. Anyone who tells us all what it is wins... more photos tomorrow!

de Chelly is a photographer's delight. Here are a few more. Strata plus erosion... Looking D-O-W-N !! Some ancient pueblans homesteaded high in the cliffs, and climbed up to work their fields. This is quite low in the wall. Someone has put in stairs... but who and when??? A village on Tatouine?

Canyon de Chelly (pronounced de shay ) is a National Monument, whose administration is shared between the US Park Service and the Navaho Nation. It's a site that deserves to be visited both for its scenic beauty and for its archaeological interest. It's a deep, straight-walled canyon, with a flat alluvial plain at the bottom, which the ancient pueblans (Anasazi) cultivated. A glimpse of...

Hélène and I travel a lot. So I know that petrified wood can be found all around the world. But I have never seen... never heard of... an entire petrified forest, except the one in Arizona. It's the sheer volume of petrified wood that overwhelms the visitor. It's not a petrified tree or two or three. It's a whole petrified forest! Trees collapsed in every direction... and were buried in...

Colors! Here's the same scene, zoomed for the collapsed ridge: Sometimes I like to play with shapes and colors: ... and the original:

Either landscapes are really hard to photograph... or I'm a lousy photographer... or both... In any case, I don't do very well, and as a result am kinda apprehensive every time I try. The " Apache Trail " is... gorgeous. Lots of gorges. Ha ha... We also climbed up (and up and up and up... ) to the ancient pueblo at Tonto National Monument. It's very cool... but not very photogenic. Don't...