Look for the process as well as the finished shape.
An illustrated collection
Landscapes shaped by time
Rock, water and the long view.
Photo credit
chensiyuan · CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized for display.
A different way into the world
Follow the idea.
Find your places.
A dramatic landscape becomes more interesting when you ask what made it. The answer may involve flowing water, ice, dissolution, wind or the movement of the Earth itself. Similar-looking forms do not always share the same origin, and a single viewpoint rarely tells the whole story.
Begin with the large shape, then examine a surface close to the path. Look for layers, joints, rounded edges or material being carried away. Return to the wider view and see whether those smaller observations help explain it. These places reward both a geological explanation and time spent simply looking.
Use trees, people or distant buildings to judge scale.
Visit a second viewpoint before deciding you understand the landscape.
32 · United States
National Parks of Utah & Colorado
Red-rock country, deep time and the ancestral places of the American Southwest.
101 · United States
Yosemite National Park
Granite walls, falling water and a valley on a monumental scale.
187 · United Kingdom
Giant’s Causeway
Basalt columns whose close-up geometry is as striking as the coast.
202 · Iceland
Vatnajökull National Park
An immense Icelandic landscape of ice, volcanoes and changing water.
