Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, New Mexico.

In this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, Ben Huberman asks us to explore the interplay of texture and depth. He notes, “The topic is wide open, as long as you focus on the interplay of depth, density and texture…” Of course, as always, we can be flexible in our choices. You can read the entire challenge post here. 

Of course, there are many geologic features in the country that were created via some form of layering. Scanning my galleries of images, I found several landscapes that exhibit some sort of layering. Probably the strongest set of images I’ve captured in my travels were taken at Tent Rocks in New Mexico. To emphasize the effects of layering, depth and density, I converted a handful of images to black and white and enhanced their contrast to make the layering more visible.

Tent Rocks is located about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of the state capitol, Santa Fe. The unusual landscape in the Jemez Mountains consists of layered gravel, sand, volcanic ash eroded into conical shapes, some of which even have rocks balanced on the top, as you can see in one of the gallery images. Erosion over the centuries works in a mysterious (at least to me) fashion to create the conical shapes that appear to be better protected from further erosion. In most browsers, click on an image in the gallery below to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner