Connected by History
In landscape photography, it’s easy to get caught up in the surface—the way light spills across ridgelines, how clouds wrap themselves around a summit, or the way a river glitters in the late afternoon sun. But what makes these places truly extraordinary isn’t just what’s visible. It’s the story written in stone beneath our feet—a story that has been unfolding for millions of years.
Landscapes Born of Fire and Force
The Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, and the Tetons may feel like separate worlds, but geologically, they are chapters of the same book. The Rockies were born nearly 80 million years ago, when unimaginable tectonic forces buckled and lifted the land into a jagged spine running the length of the continent. The Yellowstone Plateau came later, built from one of Earth’s most powerful supervolcanoes, a place where fire and heat still bubble just below the surface. And then there are the Tetons—young by comparison—thrust upward along a fault line, their dramatic skyline still sharpening with every geologic heartbeat.
The Beauty of Deep Time
When you stand on a trail in Glacier or Yellowstone or Grand Teton, it’s easy to think of the mountains as timeless. But the truth is, they’re still changing. Glaciers carve valleys, rivers cut through stone, earthquakes shift the ground. What feels eternal is actually fleeting when measured against the scale of geologic time. That’s part of the beauty: these landscapes are snapshots in an ongoing transformation.
Photography Meets Geology
As a photographer, I’ve realized that geology shapes more than just the land—it shapes the images I make. The craggy peaks of the Rockies pull the eye upward, demanding wide, dramatic compositions. Yellowstone, with its steaming vents and painted hot springs, invites closer attention to texture and detail. The Tetons, sudden and sharp against the horizon, practically beg for the kind of clean, minimalist framing that emphasizes their raw power. The rocks tell us how to see them—if we’re willing to listen.
A Personal Moment on the Plateau
Not long ago, while walking across a meadow in Yellowstone, I felt the ground rumble faintly beneath me—a reminder that I was standing on one of the most alive pieces of land on the planet. Minutes later, I watched steam rise through the grass, curling into the morning light. It wasn’t the iconic shot I had planned, but it told a story just as powerful: that this landscape is still breathing, still shaping itself in ways both subtle and explosive.
Letting the Land Speak
The Rockies, the Yellowstone Plateau, and the Tetons are more than just destinations. They’re living stories of collision, eruption, and uplift. When we stand among them, camera in hand, we’re not just photographing scenery—we’re documenting a moment in the long arc of Earth’s history.
And maybe that’s the real magic of these places: they remind us that the ground beneath us is never still, that the story is never finished. All we have to do is step into the landscape, open our eyes, and let the earth tell us what it wants us to see.
