Yucca Pigtails
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
2018

Desert Varnish
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
2018

There are many places in the desert southwest where you can see and photograph the stains on rock faces called desert varnish. This one isn’t particularly unique at all except that it looked especially luminous in the morning light. It also happened to be of considerable size, perhaps 100 feet or more in height.

Spring!
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
2018

After a long, cold, snowy white winter in Bozeman, that’s not even totally over yet, it was quite a sight to see the new Cottonwood leaves of early spring in Canyon de Chelly.

Spent Beauty #24
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
2018

Solar Subdivision
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
2018

The restrooms at the White House Ruins.

White House Ruins #2
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
2018

White House Ruins #1
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
2018

Underfoot #7
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
2018

Underfoot #6
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
2018

A number of the recent POTDs have all been photographs of what I see on the ground when I’m walking, literally what is under foot. Those all had different names but they are all part of a series I’m putting together appropriately called Under Foot. Today’s POTD is another in the series and since I couldn’t think of an imaginative name for it (one that I like anyway–several landscape based names came to mind), I just numbered it using the series title. It is number six in the series, although the first to carry a number.

Most of the Under Foot series is from my daily walks around Bozeman, but this one is obviously not. We’ve been on the road for a week and I took this photo on our hike in Canyon de Chelly on the trail going down into the canyon to the popular White House ruins (which Ansel Adams photographed many years ago).

Woodbrook Afternoon
Bozeman, Montana
2012