It has been several years since we had a proper monsoon season in Las Vegas, and I must admit I forgot how wonderful the desert becomes during the rains. Our monsoons are less dramatic than those experienced in Tucson, which sits to the south in the Sonoran Desert. Las Vegas is located in the Mojave Desert, which receives substantially less rain per year. The desert southwest is big sky, and the heavens occupy 2/3 of our visual frame. The sky therefore has a dominating impact on one’s perception and experience of the landscape. At mid-day the sky in Las Vegas is usually clear with subtitle shifts in shades of blue with an occasional contrail. This season, when the clouds rolled in, I was reminded of how beautiful and transformative the sky can be.
This image was captured by my wife on her phone camera. It is one image in a series she has been taking during our afternoon walks. The clouds are like a second magical landscape floating above the horizon. A friend who is a high-speed acrobatic pilot talks about the acceleration of flying through these clouds and bursting above them into a pristine, silent, pillowy wonderland. The thing I find most interesting about these photos is what they omit. The fact that my wife intuitively did not include the banal mess that rests beneath these clouds is telling. Including what was constructed on the land beneath would certainly soil the apparent beauty that glides above.