The Work
December again. Third time at White Pocket.
I was set up in the lower basin before sunrise, positioned where the formation’s full face was visible — the wide view, not the close study. I had spent the previous two December trips working the surface details, the geological abstractions, the intimate compositions. This time I wanted the image that holds the whole place: the formations in their full context, the sky above them, the first light arriving from the east.
The light came through at the angle December gives — low, warm, raking across the ridges before it reaches the valley floor between them. The red in the sandstone responds first, before the gold comes up in the cream layers. For the first twenty minutes of direct sun, the formation is a different palette than it becomes at mid-morning.
First Light Over Stone is the establishing shot of the White Pocket body of work — the image that explains why six other images from this location were worth making.
The Location
White Pocket sits in the western half of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, on the Arizona–Utah border. The surface is cross-bedded Navajo sandstone — wind-laid Jurassic dunes from roughly 190 million years ago, lithified, exposed, and weathered into the layered swirls visible today. Each line in this image is a record of a specific wind direction on a single ancient afternoon. The fluid quality is not metaphor; the rock holds the form the wind gave it.
Access requires a 4×4 vehicle equipped for deep sand driving and experience navigating off-trail desert terrain. The road is impassable after rain. The formation is uncrowded by design. This image was made in December 2023 — the photographer’s third December visit to this location.
The Edition
Studio Edition. Edition of 25, hand-signed and numbered. Each acquisition is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity with hologram provenance seal. Edition X of 25 available.
The Capture
System: Fujifilm GFX medium format
Lens: 45–100mm (focal length at capture — TBC)
Technique: [Single frame or stitch — TBC; native 4:3 ratio suggests single frame]
Date / Time: December 2023, early sunrise
GPS Region: White Pocket, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona
The Print
The sunrise palette at White Pocket — deep red iron-oxide against gold, against cream volcanic ash, against the first blue of the morning sky — spans the full warm register of the spectrum. At 30×60″, the panoramic format holds the full width of the formation in a single sweep. The individual ridgelines are legible at close viewing distance; the aerial perspective across the basin is present at room distance.
For the native 4:3 composition, the image is also available at [30×40″, 36×48″, 45×60″] — the vertical dimension adds sky and formation height that the panoramic crop removes. For rooms with tall walls or portrait-orientation placement, the 4:3 print is the recommended choice.
Printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm. The warm palette holds its mineral accuracy — the red is iron, the cream is volcanic ash, the gold is December sunrise. For framing, a natural oak or warm wood frame extends the palette; a matte black frame creates contrast that makes the warm tones read more saturated.
