The Exaltation of WildernessAnza-Borrego Desert State Park The Exaltation of Wilderness
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, 2014

This image from near Canyon Sin Nombre (such a great name for having no name) is my first sale in 2020.  It's also the third time this image has sold. One was even 84" wide to a buyer in Portland, OR (I would love to see it mounted on their wall). 

Oddly, it's not a favorite of mine.  This was taken before I was doing a "Yearly Top xx" so I don't have it filed as such but I know that it never ignited that spark the way some images do.  One significant reason this image is even available on FAA is because Alex Kunz said he liked it, a lot. Now, I know that as "artists" we are supposed to follow our own path and ignore the critics yadda, yadda, yadda.  However, now and then a respected voice comes forth and provides an encouraging nudge in the right direction.  Alex, unsuspectingly, did that. 

The image was taken right after a hike with Alex in that canyon with no name.  I saw the setting light filtering through the cholla and decided to walk all the way across the road (now you know why the photographer crosses the road) and have a look.  Alex was doing something, no doubt important or artistic, by the car and I set up my tripod and composed a few images. A big tarantula crawled nearby but I can't find those pictures (no tarantula keyword?).  

I think we were still on G+ back then and I routinely posted it where I got a few typical responses but it was Alex's applause that encouraged me to try to take the image a bit further, to care about it more, and to see how it would do on Fine Art America.  After all, Alex was there (albeit across the road doing important or artistic stuff) and I have much respect for his work and his aesthetics in landscape photography.  If Alex liked it then perhaps others would also. So, I did as little editing as I could to still retain the vision of what I felt on-site and sent it on its way to Fine Art America where it's done much better than I would have predicted.