Desolation

I tried to capture the heat and dryness of Vegas in this photo. What I was going for was that stereotypical image of the desert; the sun blazing down, desolation all around except for maybe a single cactus.

I didn’t quite get that image here. But what I like about this photo is the depth. To me, having some of the landscape in the foreground with a rolling hill going back to the mountains takes you into the photo. I also like that it is sky heavy. There’s something about the desert, how wide open it is, that really makes the sky open up. It’s almost dizzying being someplace so open when your used to the closer confines of the city.

I decided to use black and white because the sun washed out the colors, but I think I would have liked it in color more.

Hard as Rock

I never thought a bunch of rocks could have aesthetic value.

Las Vegas’ Red Rock Canyon is an amazing place, but impossibly hard to photograph.

No picture I took gave any type of idea of the beauty of this location. The fact that it was so sunny out didn’t help either. So much sun really washed the colors out of my photos. I decided to try and take something a little more abstract and try to capture the idea of Red Rock Canyon.

I focused on the texture of the rocks and cropped the photo so all that’s left is the designs in the rock face. I developed this in black and white as well as color and couldn’t make up my mind on which one I liked better. After getting some feedback, I thought the color brought out the textures and patterns more. I also zoomed in to try and flatten an image to make it more painting like.