MSO > SLC: Spring

My hopes were high on this flight, because of a previously fortunate experience on this same route, with unusually good light and weather that yielded an entire body of new work. But because of dense haze, these images were taken for "reference only" with no expectations. Once home though, I started to lean on them with Lightroom, pushing sliders to their limits (and way beyond where I have ever set them before.) One by one the images were processed until they had an integrity that revealed what they were about while incorporating the hazy atmosphere. I have printed them, with care, up to 3' wide, with very good results.

I am fascinated by the natural process of erosion--and never more so than when observed from several thousand feet in the air. From this vantage point you can see not only what is left by the process, but with some imagination for the time this might take, what has been washed away. Long ridges flank wide valleys, which from the geological evidence, were once all the same height.
From this perspective you can also see the use that we humans have made of the land, from Missoula to Salt Lake City a progression from logging, to irrigated agriculture, the grazing of cattle who are limited by strands of steel pulled into straight lines, to various forms of extraction and energy transmission that end in the bulldozing of salty soil left behind as the level of the Great Salt Lake recedes.