Light and Shadows

I've always enjoyed how light plays on desert and mountain landscapes. When I used to travel through the Davis Mountains and Big Bend country in far West Texas several years ago, I was always fascinated by sunlight and shadows on the mountains. The same view in such landscapes can look very different depending on the time of day, time of year, and the way sun hits - or does not hit -- the land.

I came out of the Golden Nugget Casino a couple of nights ago and was struck by the view of the mountains on the east side of the Colorado River. Laughlin lies in a valley along the river, and rough desert mountains rise both east and west from the mountains. It was about 5:00 PM when I came outside, and the sun had already started descending below the mountains to the west. As a result, the sun was striking only the tops of the mountains on the east side of the river.

By the time I got my camera and found a place to take a picture, the scene had lost some of its golden color, but the picture below still is quite pretty. Just a few minutes after I snapped this picture, the sun had set enough so that the mountains in the picture were completely in the shadows.

Mountains on the Arizona side of the Colorado River

Many people unfamiliar with the desert do not find anything attractive about it. But if you know where to look and what to look for, there is a great deal of beauty in the desert.