Chasing Rachel McKinnie

Bryce Canyon, the morning before meeting Rachel McKinnie. Already trying to shoot her delicate color schemes in rare light, so I am up at 5 a.m. to catch the first rays and the solitude and silence which she firmly insists upon.

Bryce Canyon

In Arches National Park.

The paved road irks both Rachel and me, as do the tourists dashing by. But we are tourists too. We shoot despite this burden.

Arches National Park, daytime.

Two hours by the raging stream in the middle of the night gives hundreds of textures and tones.

The campsite at Ken's Lake, outside Moab.

Into the dunes, Colorado. Trying for isolation, I find I am seeing as I always do, but hoping to achieve a standard of place and being that I do not always aspire to.

Trying to see like McKinnie, in this case looking for dolphins in the bed of a stream.

On the road to Mount Evans, Colorado, days later.

Rachel McKinnie in her element: beneath the sky, on the rocks, facing away from humans and their noisy profit-chasing.

Rachel (left) with daughters KaIa and Mazzy, a role model at work.