Series · 9 works

Under Weather, Monument Valley

Stone dwarfed by a restless sky, in monochrome

Series note

The sky is not backdrop here — it is the subject. Working in black and white across the high desert plateau of Monument Valley, these images invert the usual hierarchy: the sandstone buttes and monoliths remain recognizable, even iconic, but they occupy a minor fraction of each frame, anchored to earth while weather builds above them. Clouds mass and tower. A dense column of rain descends over open ground. Light shifts in gradations that color would only diffuse.

The monochrome conversion is deliberate. Without the ochre and rust of the desert palette, the images read as studies in scale and tone — the slow geometry of stone set against the unstable accumulation of storm. The buttes that define this landscape become measuring sticks for something larger and less permanent than themselves.

The series draws together solitary monoliths, paired formations, and a column of desert rain, all made under conditions where sky dominated stone. The result is less a portrait of a famous landscape than a record of exposure: how small the rock is, how indifferent and vast the sky.

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Under Weather9 frames

  1. Black and white photograph of a solitary sandstone butte in Monument Valley beneath a dramatic, textured sky filled with layered clouds.
    Monolith and Sky, Monument Valley
  2. A dramatic black and white photograph of a towering rock formation rising from arid plains beneath a vast, textured sky filled with heavy, swirling clouds.
    Monolith Under Gathering Sky
  3. Black and white photograph of a massive desert butte beneath dramatic, textured storm clouds, with sparse scrub in the foreground.
    Monolith Under Weather
  4. A black and white photograph of a large sandstone butte in Monument Valley, with dramatic clouds overhead and sparse desert vegetation in the foreground.
    Monolith, Monument Valley
  5. A massive sandstone butte stands alone in a wide desert plain under dramatic, cloud-filled skies. The image is in black and white.
    Monolith, Monument Valley
  6. Black and white photograph of a large sandstone butte in a desert landscape, framed by textured foreground rocks and dramatic, cloud-filled sky.
    Monolith, Under Gathering Sky
  7. Three large rock formations rise from a flat desert plain beneath a dramatic, cloud-filled sky in black and white.
    Monumental Weather
  8. Black and white panorama of Monument Valley with three large buttes rising from arid desert, beneath dramatic, textured clouds.
    Monuments Under Weather
  9. Black and white photograph of a dramatic sky over a flat desert landscape, with a heavy rain shaft falling from dark clouds near a distant mesa.
    Rainfall, High Desert