I’ve always enjoyed photographing cloudscapes.
Put a narrow strip of earth at the bottom of the frame and let the sky take center stage.
This particular one is from the Redlands Overlook in Monument Valley — which by the way is an underrated viewpoint, in my opinion.
On this spring morning, the clouds appeared to billow out of the sandstone monuments. The sky’s blue hues in contrast with the appropriately named redlands.
And not to say that the buttes don’t play an important part of the scene. But it’s the clouds that make this scene a dynamo.
As an aside, I wonder about the Diné names for the buttes in Monument Valley. We only hear and see the anglo versions, and I don’t care for some of them.
For instance, the butte on the right is officially named Brigham’s Tomb, named for Mormon leader and Utah’s first governor Brigham Young. Except Young is buried in a cemetery in Salt Lake City, so how the hell is this his tomb?
Furthermore, the Brigham’s Tomb name wasn’t made official until 1988. Yet from 1964 to 1987, it was officially named Saddleback. And I sure can see the dip of saddle up top there. Sounds better to me than naming it for an old dead white guy who had 56 wives.
I’m sure the Diné have an even better name for it, though. If you know, drop me a line, please.
Before I fall asleep at my keyboard as I wrote this way too late at night for my old age, I’ll sign off by saying eat the rich.
-Jake
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Beautiful!