Aztec Sandstone Abstracts

gnagel · Nov 4, 2025

During my last road trip, I camped at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada for a night. During the day the light was super harsh...and I didn't get a single photograph. I retreated to my campsite to prepare dinner. I noticed that some of the sandstone walls surrounding the campground were in shade--so I walked a couple of hundred yards to capture these abstracts.

The blue colors on the rocks seemed almost unbelievable. I later learned that the blue color results from desert varnish--a natural film made of clay minerals, manganese oxide, and iron oxide that gradually forms on rock surfaces in arid environments over thousands of years.

I know abstracts aren't everyone's cup of tea, but here are 8 pictures that I captured there:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

I know that the EXIF information hasn't been showing consistently in my posts. Most of these were captured with the Nikon Z7ii and the Nikon 100-400 lens.

Thanks for looking...
Glenn