This gallery has been set up in order to present an area of the southwest
which
has, until recently, been untrodden and unknown to all but a small handful
of
people. It is an area of great beauty and uniqueness, and had been spared
from
development by its location in a previously small and relatively
undeveloped
area. Only a few curious people had ever ventured into the area, and not
many
had ever walked more than several hundred feet out, as the lay of the land
is
extremely convoluted, and is difficult to walk.
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In 1972, I was introduced to the incredible natural wonders which exist in
this
area through a chance meeting with someone who'd lived near this area,
who had also been introduced
to its
beauty through chance.
I was immediately impressed and overwhelmed with the unique beauty
of the area, as well as with the awesome silence and solitude
which
lay just a few hundred yards out.
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For twenty-three years, at every opportunity, I walked the four miles off-road,
back into this area with a feeling of awe and solemnity, quickly learning how
to survive in the shadeless and barren desert, taking nothing but photographs, and leaving
absolutely nothing but the occasional footprint in some of the unavoidably
sandy sections. In twenty-three years of exploring this area, I only met up
with one person back there, an older gentleman, who seemed as surprised as
myself as we encountered one another.
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Those days are now gone, as a road has been laid, destroying the solitude,
the silence, and much of the landforms within its breadth. Huge quantities of
existing rock were displaced and refilled in order to level the pathway for
this new road, and whole sections of the area have been ruined forever.
The road no longer
follows the contours of the land, and cuts through areas which were
incredibly
unique and colorful, leaving piles of extra debris and remnants strewn
about
in its wake.
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Instead of solitude and silence, one now watches motor homes and noisy
tour
buses making their way down the road, with video cameras peering out the
windows as they speed by.
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The beauty is still there, though the trash and graffiti are accumulating. It
takes a lot more effort to get away from the rest of the world these days.
Most of the visitors stay near their vehicles, and very few venture out onto
the rocks; fewer hike very far into the folds, but the magic is gone.
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Here then, is a selection of some of the hundreds of photographs
I have taken over the years, with
medium and large format equipment, carried out there
in temperatures ranging from moderate to over 125 degrees.
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