From the ground, the badlands appear vast and quiet.
From above, the land reveals a different surface folded and creased by wind, water, and time.
These aerial photographs trace the subtle patterns of erosion written across the desert.
These photographs were made while exploring the badlands of southern Utah by drone. From ground level the landscape can appear simple and uniform, but from the air the terrain reveals an intricate network of ridges, channels, and folds carved slowly by erosion.
Over centuries, wind and water reshape the clay surface into delicate textures and creases that resemble fabric, paper, or weathered skin. What appears chaotic at first begins to resolve into patterns — quiet structures written into the surface of the land.
Seen from above, the badlands become less a landscape and more a study of texture and form, where the earth itself seems folded and reshaped over time.