LONELY ARE THE BRAVE

photography and text by

MATTHEW PORTER

“A westerner likes open country. That means he’s got to hate fences.” JACK BURNS

The stratum contained in the blunted buttes and prickly columns of the Colorado Plateau are records of landscapes lost to time. Swamps, lava dams, and sand dunes now read as fossilized ridgelines — given new shapes by the tedious appetite of flowing water.

Iron oxide blazes red in the sun, while the cooler tones of manganese produce complimentary cyan shapes. When backlit, they lose their surface, and the history they contain is withheld from the lens. On the radio Bob Dylan sings, “One more cup of coffee before I go. To the valley below.”