Igneous* Is Bliss

*Igneous is one of the three main rock types—sedimentary and metamorphic are the others.

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In 2007, during my second visit to photograph the rocky landscapes in Arizona and Utah, I met a man from Canada who'd traveled there for the same purpose. I was standing in the rough road near Kodachrome Basin State Park when Stan pulled up beside me in his van. Prior to that, as I'd zigged and zagged around sharp rocks in my rental car, we'd played slow-motion hop-scotch, passing each other several times. A time or two I saw an arm thrust out the driver's side window, camera in hand.

Our conversation hadn't gone a minute when I learned why Stan hadn't been out of the van—he was hampered by MS. A custom rail ran along both sides and the rear, to allow limited movement outside, but he couldn't venture far (and certainly not in the uneven terrain we were in). What he could do was park at odd angles and shoot rocks. And talk about them, too. He said he drove south nearly every year (promising to continue, as he said it, until I'm done), both for photography and a love of learning about geology. I wasn't surprised that he'd been a teacher (lucky kids) but was astounded by the size of his on-board library—dozens of books on geology and photography, all within arm's reach.

I was still taking in the scope of this when he selected one of the books and began expertly explaining what we were surrounded by (if he saw a layman's glaze cover my eyes he was kind not to mention it). Since my closest brush with geology had come years before when I listened to Tangerine Dream's Thru Metamorphic Rocks, this was all too much under a hot sun. One thing he said did stick, however—that was his assertion that we'd enjoy photography more when we knew everything about our subjects—even all those rocks.

I didn't argue that point, and a few minutes later Stan moved up the road to locate a campsite, and I went back to the car. In the buzzing heat of mid-afternoon I let his words circle my mind a time or two, and felt obliged to disagree, however slightly. For him, the important aspects of the landscape boiled down to function, while my attentions were solely on form.

I'll probably never remember their scientific names, and just be satisfied to call them beautiful.