2017
An Alive Mountain. One of the more compelling landscapes I’ve encountered.
I must return to make more images.
2015
The Li River originates out of the Mao’er Mountains in northern Guangxi Zhuang, an Autonomous Region (county) in south central China, bordering Vietnam. The Li River flows south past the cities of Guilin, Yangshou before merging at Pingle, with the Lipu and Gongcheng Rivers, that continue southeast as the Gui River that empties into the Xi Jiang River, a western tributary of the Pearl River, in Wuzhou, where it flows south and just west of Guangzhou (Canton), into the South China Sea.
Guilin is famous for its surrounding Karst topography; shaped by the erosion of limestone (also known as chalk or calcium carbonate) some 250 million years ago, it is a soft rock that dissolves in water; as rainwater seeps into the rock, it slowly erodes. Karst landscape can be worn away from the top or dissolved from a weak point inside the rock, creating caves, underground streams, and sinkholes on the surface. Where erosion has worn away the land above ground, steep rocky cliffs are visible.
Guilin is part of a larger karst landscape — South China Karst — which spreads across the Chinese provinces of Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan.
Such spectacular formations, but no blue sky… Even in this relatively rural area, the smog is very thick, thereby eliminating almost all direct sunlight, and therefore contrast!
2013
Kauai is the fourth largest of the main islands in the Hawaiian archipelago; it is also the oldest and most northern. Just over one hundred miles across the Kauai Channel northwest of O’ahu, its 562 square miles has a population of 67,000.
From the spectacular Na Pali shoreline, along Kauai’s north end, looking in all directions is classic Kauai. Rarely without wind, the white surf rims the incredible blue ocean as its shoreline bends east and west.
Known as the “Garden Isle”, the Na Pali coast receives more rain than nearly any other place in the world. The contrast of its vivid greens interspersed with rust red earth and shadows from the usual voluminous cloud cover makes for one of the most stunning landscapes I’ve ever seen.
How can I resist overlaying all this with a vivid sense of the passage of time?
2013
About midpoint along Kauai’s west coast is the town of Waimea; situated at the mouth of the Waimea River, the flow of this river helped form Waimea Canyon, one of the world’s most scenic canyons, which at 3,000′ deep is often referred to as the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific”.
Waimea Canyon is also the result of a partial collapse of the island, which formed a depression, that filled with lava flows. Since the collapse 4 MM years ago, while Kauai was still erupting almost continuously. Over time, the exposed basalt has weathered from its original black to bright red, which is one of the hallmarks of Wimea Canyon, and much of Kauai’s land as well.
2007
Drakes Bay
Thirty miles north of San Francisco, southwest facing Drakes Bay is situated on the lee side of the southern coastal current of Point Reyes Peninsula. Long considered Drake’s most likely landing spot on North America’s west cost during his 1579 world circumnavigation,
Drakes Bay is backed by dramatic white sandstone cliffs that were created 10-13 million years ago. Erosion has revealed the striations of this story in the cliff faces.
The constant pounding of the Pacific combined with the magnificent 8-mile curved Bay’s tempestuous weather emphasizes the incessant passage of time.
2007
The Space Between
For the last thirty years, I have consciously evolved my camera strokes to best infuse the passage of time that turned the landscape into single ‘unstill life’ images. The Grand Canyon represents 1.7 billion years of limitless space, a giant vessel through which you can see the countless layers of time.
Looking down more than a mile from the rim to the Colorado River, the stunning array of sedimentary layers, colors, tones and shades represent advancing and retreating ocean coastline deposits of sandstone and shale. This iconic place, where the land so clearly recounts its own story, has become a pilgrimage for me as spiritual as any I have found.
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