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MaartenVenter.com
I can't criticize what I don't understand. If you want to call this art, you've got the benefit of all my doubts.
Charles Rosin
All photos taken by Maarten Venter and may not be used without permission
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| The Painted Desert: PART XXThese landscapes are so beautiful and it is heartwarming to see that the Authorities are going out of their way to protect it. Forttunately we don't have to compose pictures trying to dodge 4x4 tracks. We have to preserve our country for future generations and it is always sad to see litterbugs leaving their empty cold drink container right there where they enjoyed it and walk away - for someone else to pick it up and dispose of it. Come on people, do the right thing! Luckily they hang around Wal-mart parking areas (the dirtiest place in town) and we don't see them at pristine places like this.
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Celebrating the Light Fantastic
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| The Painted Desert: PART XIXJust try to imagine you are trying to make headway on your horse drawn cart and this ladscape looms up ahead of you. The slopes in the Badlands are steep and extremely slippery. In the dry you would not find water for miles and in the wet (after a shower in the area) you would get bogged down and not go anywhere. But this did not deter the pioneers who had no option but to either move on, or perish.
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| The Painted Desert: PART XVIII The geological history of Western America is to complex to discuss here but in essence was a shallow sea in which silt, remains of living creatures and minerals deposited for many eons. Tectonic movement raised the Colorado Plains virtually unscathed. Instead of a sea it now became forests teaming with wildlife. A major event destroyed the forests and animals and in a flood. The silt deprived of Oxygen covered the fallen trees and animals which petrified over thousands of square miles. Volcano plugs litter the landscape and they must have been instrumental in shaping the landscape as it is today. Erosion followed and continues even now to shape the land.
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4/. Evidence of recent volcanic activity...
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Celebrating the Light Fantastic
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| The Painted Desert: PART XVIIThe Little Painted Desert is one of the places I would like to return to. These pictures may be boring to some but the different colors representing the the various minerals that were deposited over the eons and the shapes represented by erosion in more recent times make me want to settle in the area. I understand full well the urge that Georgia O'Keefe had to live in the area (not close by mind you). I am absolutely in love with the place(Nevada, Utah and Arizona). I am already thinking of going back there in the Fall for two weeks.
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Celebrating the Light Fantastic
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| The Painted Desert: PART XVIPainted Desert, Badlands, call it what you will. No words can describe the emotion experienced when the light changes due to clouds being swept by and a thunderstorm develops in the distance. I wish I had time to take a long hike and shoot this landscape from many more vantage points but it was not to be if we were to speed off to the next place in the great unknown.
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6/. The strange light colored horizon is the rim of the Meteor Crater...
7/. which is about a mile in diameter
8/. Remnant of the meteorite that caused the crater
9/. Promising skies
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Celebrating the Light Fantastic | | |
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