Rock Formations

The sandstone of Arches was laid down as desert dunes and seabeds over a hundred million years ago, then lifted, cracked, and worn by water and frost into the rounded forms that fill the park. The smooth, layered domes here — almost beehive-shaped — are the bedded rock eroding along its own horizontal grain, the softer layers wearing back faster than the hard.

Photographed June 2003. Two flat slabs sit in the foreground like fallen pieces of the domes behind them. In black and white the banding becomes the whole subject — line after line of laid stone against an empty desert sky.