Some landscapes don’t call out loudly—but instead ask you to listen. They don’t announce themselves. They wait. They reward patience, presence, and a willingness to slow down. Lower Crab Creek Coulee is one of those places for me.
Tucked into the channeled terrain of central Washington, the coulee is a landform shaped not by steady erosion but by sudden, cataclysmic change—carved thousands of years ago by the surging waters of the Ice Age floods. What was once violent became hushed. What was once chaos became quiet. Today, the coulee holds different energy—subtle, resilient, and endlessly patient.
Its ridgelines don’t demand attention, but they hold stories in shadow. Its grasses bend without fanfare, tracing wind. Its silence is not empty, but full of time. Being in this landscape felt like entering a conversation that had already started long before I arrived—one spoken in light, stone, and space.
My new project, Lower Crab Creek: A Meditation in Monochrome, was born from that stillness—a stillness that settles not only in the land but in the act of seeing. This series represents a quiet morning spent moving slowly through the coulee’s terrain, where light drifted across basalt slopes and dry grasses whispered in the wind. The camera became less a tool of capture and more a companion in presence—an extension of patience and listening.
It’s a black-and-white photography project that explores more than composition; it explores relationships. A relationship with layered ridges worn smooth by time, with reflective water holding the sky like memory, with skeletal grasses resilient in the seasonal shift, and with subtle traces of human passage—tracks, wires, a reservoir that barely interrupts the silence. These photographs aren’t about grand spectacle. They’re about the quieter rhythm
One Morning, Twelve Frames
The entire project was photographed on a single autumn morning. With the light low and the coulee hushed, I moved slowly through the landscape—letting the forms guide my attention. Each photograph was made in response to that moment: the chill in the air, the stillness of water, the silence held between hills.
Working in black and white felt natural. It stripped away the distraction of seasonal color and drew my focus inward—toward shape, tone, and texture. These images are my attempt to reflect that quiet experience of presence, patience, and perceptive stillness.
From Landscape to Language
The final series is now live in my online gallery. It’s titled Lower Crab Creek: A Meditation in Monochrome—because that’s precisely what it became for me: a study in visual restraint and natural rhythm.
📸 Explore the full collection here →
Each print is available in archival quality and carries a part of this place’s presence. Whether you’re a collector, a fellow artist, or simply someone drawn to quiet images, I hope this project offers you a moment of pause—and a deeper connection to the land.
Further Explorations:
The Artistic Vision Behind “Rialto Beach: Echoes of Light and Tide”
Photography Project: Echoes in the Grain – The Whitcomb-Cole Hewn Log House
