Where Distance Takes Shape

A road passes a rock tower. Roots follow a canyon rim; a sea stack fades into fog. Across the West, immense distances become visible through the smaller things standing before them.

Striated sandstone curves around a blue opening of sky. — A Familiar Eye天眼
Antelope Canyon, 2019
Antelope Canyon’s classic “eye” — a little kitschy, though the rock’s textures are still remarkable. Luckily the blue sky carried a few ragged clouds.
羚羊谷经典的“眼睛”，有点俗气，岩壁的纹理依旧特别。好在蓝天上还有几朵乱云。

An exposed-root pine stands on the rim above red canyon formations. — Testing the Warmth探温
Bryce Canyon, 2019
Passing through Bryce Canyon in a hurry, I took the usual kitschy shots. This tree had something new: a "tree-leg" reaching out to the right, as if testing the sun's warmth.
匆匆路过 Bryce Canyon，拍了些俗气的照片。这棵树倒有点新意，右边伸出一条“树腿”，仿佛在探测阳光的温度。

A bare tree in a canyon. — Under a Hard Sun烈日
Canyonlands, 2019
Canyonlands: big sun, hard light. Then the deadwood nearby caught my eye, its wood suddenly gleaming like metal — the Shrike’s Tree of Pain from Hyperion. Red gullies, barren peaks; the whole scene bleak, with an edge of menace.
Canyonlands，大太阳，硬光。近处枯木忽然泛起金属的光泽，像《海伯利安》里伯劳的那棵树。红色的沟壑、荒芜的山峰，有些肃杀。

Before the Wind风前

A dark ridge curves through pale sand dunes beneath scattered clouds, in black and white. — I
Great Sand Dunes, 2019

Monochrome dune ridges overlap beneath a few soft clouds. — II
Great Sand Dunes, 2019

Footprints diminish along a steep dune toward two distant walkers. — III
Great Sand Dunes, 2019

In this Great Sand Dunes group, the first two photographs exist for the third: the footprints. The dunes run like bands of taut muscle, light folding them so severely it almost hurts to look at — a landscape beyond human time, travelers walking through it. And then that line of footprints: a conquest, made before the wind erases our traces.

Great Sand Dunes 的这一组，前两张全是为了第三张的脚印。天荒地老，旅人一路前行。远处沙丘像肌肉的条纹，强烈得几乎折磨眼睛。那一串脚印是征服，趁风还没有抹掉我们的痕迹。

A black-and-white panorama shows serrated mountain ridges above dark forest. — A Wish for Snow盼雪
Sequoia, 2019
By Moro Rock in Sequoia, the Sierra Nevada spread out before me. I felt no height here — only roughness, folds, ridges going on and on. Perhaps a snowfall would make me fall in love with these mountains again.
Sequoia 的 Moro Rock 边，Sierra Nevada 的群山在眼前展开。这里让我感觉不到高度，只有粗粝、褶皱，一眼看不到头。或许一场雪，能让我重新爱上它们。

A road and a distant vehicle pass a solitary rock tower in monochrome. — Still on Earth还在地球
Utah, 2019
On the road in Utah, near Monument Valley — this didn't feel like desert to me. The rock took such rough, improbable shapes: a fortress, a rocket lifting off, even a Gaussian curve. Black asphalt; a car ahead told me I was still on Earth.
Utah 的旅途中，来到 Monument Valley 附近，我并不觉得这里像沙漠。岩石竟有如此粗犷的形状：像碉堡，像火箭发射，像高斯函数。柏油路漆黑，前方的车告诉我，我还在地球。

Alive in the Fog雾生

A green foreground rock echoes a distant tree-topped island across wet sand. — I
Olympic, 2018

Barnacled rocks reflect in a shallow pool beneath a tree-topped sea stack in fog. — II
Olympic, 2018

A right turn at the river mouth nearly cost us Second Beach. I'd expected the Pacific Northwest coast to stay as somber as it looked; up close, every pool and rock was teeming with life. In the fog the sea stacks stood jagged, each crowned with an unruly head of trees.

Between these two photographs, an eagle snatched a weary seabird off the sand and carried it away. The bird, I suspect, did not survive.

在河口右转，差点让我们错过 Second Beach。原以为 PNW 的海岸总是这样阴郁，走近却发现活力四射。一滩水、一块岩，处处是生命。雾中山石嶙峋，却偏偏都长着一头"树发"。

两张照片的间隙，老鹰从沙滩抓走了一只疲惫的海鸟。凶多吉少。

Vivid green strands cover uneven stone in a quiet grey shore. — At Another Scale大小
Olympic, 2018
Same beach, thicker fog. A friend mistook this photo for an island. I could see it too: ridges, valleys, a whole landscape at another scale. Perhaps large and small are simply duals of each other.
同一片海滩，雾更浓了。有朋友把这张照片误认成海岛。也许，大与小原本就是彼此的对偶。

Only in a Dream梦中

A tall waterfall pouring into a narrow rocky canyon. — I
Yellowstone, 2017

Blue water winds between steep pale canyon walls. — II
Yellowstone, 2017

I stubbornly wanted Yellowstone Canyon in these colors. Perhaps because I had not yet been to Alaska, nor the Canadian Rockies. The canyon's own colors did little for me, so I left a little color to the river and pushed it to the extreme — made a dream of it, one that exists only in a dream.

我固执地喜欢把黄石峡谷调成这样的颜色。也许因为那时还没有去过 Alaska，也没有去过 Canadian Rockies。我并不欣赏峡谷原本的颜色，于是只留一点颜色给河，把它推到极致，做了一个梦，也只存在于梦。