Arizona Badlands. Fuji X100. 23mm. ISO 800. 1/900 sec at f/13. Copyright Joanne Mason 2012.
South of the Painted Desert in northeastern Arizona lies the Petrified Forest and the Arizona Badlands. (This first image appears in Landscapes of the American South.) These scenes look a little bit to me like I would imagine the surface of another planet or perhaps the moon. But it is indeed terrestrial, located in Arizona. (Click image for larger.)
Arizona Badlands 2. Nikon D200. 12-24mm Nikkor f/4, at 16mm. ISO 800. 1/8000 sec at f/4. Copyright Joanne Mason 2012.
I was struck, visiting these lands, with the extreme quietness. The wind is a constant; once you get used to the wind, there are no other sounds, only a deep and lifeless silence which in turn renders an intense solitude. Upon a moment’s reflection, it becomes a solitude of oneness with the earth. (A color version of the third image has been posted here before.)
Arizona Badlands 4. Nikon D200. 12-24mm Nikkor f/4, at 14mm. ISO 800. 1/8000 sec at f/4. Copyright Joanne Mason 2012.
According to Wikipedia, “A badlands (also badland) is a type of dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded by wind and water.” The name is apt. Early Lakota Indians called such lands ”Makhóšiča“, literally bad land, while French trappers called it “les mauvaises terres à traverser” – “the bad lands to cross”. The Spanish called it tierra baldía(“waste land”). These images and the idea of badlands also bring to mind T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland.”
