_JMG3583_4_5_tonemapped-Edit “Solace”

While visiting the Alabama Hills as part of a group photography excursion, we decided not only to visit the Manzanar Memorial, but to explore the surrounding landscape photographically. We’d been experiencing stormy weather for a day, with the clouds forming a low hanging ceiling. Rain was intermittent, there was a slight chill in the air, and the feeling was all at once ominous. It was the perfect mix of elements for me, as a photographer, to be a part of. The colors in the vegetation became more vibrant around me as the sky constantly morphed into strange and visually stimulating formations right in front of my eyes. The scene transformed from familiar to otherworldly within a matter of minutes. On our way back to the Alabama Hills I came across this particular moment as my inner explorer prompted me to leave the gravel road where we had stopped the car. I wandered through patches of brush and across a little creek into this open area. It seemed to extend into forever, merging, I must assume, with the mountains, whose tops were only barely visible through the clouds. This moment was eerily tranquil and calm, and I felt the same strange stillness one would experience in the eye of a storm. It felt . . . comforting . . . despite the dramatic weather that would sneak up on us later. I left this moment with a sense of solitude and smallness which I continue to feel every time I look at this image. Solace in Solitude.

-Jennifer