As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.
Leaving Las Vegas (good name for a film!)
Leaving Las Vegas by helicopter is a surreal experience. One moment you’re surrounded by pyramids, castles, and roller coasters; the next, you’re lifting above it all, watching the Strip shrink into a toy‑sized version of itself. Our pilot banked us south, giving us one last sweeping view of the Luxor pyramid and the Sphinx before the city dissolved into the desert.
Lake Mead — Blue Against the Barren
As we left the city limits, the landscape shifted dramatically. The desert opened up into vast, sun‑bleached emptiness, broken only by the deep, improbable blue of Lake Mead.
From above, the shoreline looked almost abstract — jagged edges, sculpted ridges, and colours that felt painted rather than natural. It was the first hint of how dramatically water reshapes this part of the world.
Hoover Dam — A Monument of Scale
A few minutes later, the Hoover Dam appeared beneath us, an immense curve of concrete wedged between canyon walls. Seeing it from the air gives you a sense of scale that’s impossible from the viewing platforms.
The dam feels both impossibly huge and strangely delicate, a thin line holding back an entire inland sea. The surrounding rock formations — layered, fractured, sun‑baked — only emphasised the audacity of building something like this in the middle of nowhere.
Crossing Into the Canyon
Beyond the dam, the landscape grew wilder. The desert folded into itself, forming ridges, plateaus, and deep cuts in the earth. The colours shifted from sandy beige to burnt orange to deep rust. Every few seconds, the terrain changed again — as if the ground couldn’t decide what shape it wanted to be.
And then, suddenly, the world dropped away.
The Grand Canyon doesn’t reveal itself gradually. One moment you’re flying over rugged desert; the next, the earth opens into a vast, ancient chasm that feels almost too large to comprehend. From the air, the canyon’s layers look like pages in a geological book — each one a different era, a different story, a different shade of red or gold.
Landing in Silence
Our helicopter descended into a remote section of the canyon, just across the border in Arizona. The landing site was simple — a few benches, a bit of shade, and an endless view. Standing there, surrounded by cliffs that had been carved over millions of years, the noise of Las Vegas felt like a distant memory.
There was a stillness to the place that caught me off guard. No neon, no music, no crowds — just wind, rock, and the slow passage of time. It was one of those rare travel moments where the world feels impossibly old and you feel impossibly small.
Looking Ahead
As the flight continued, the landscape kept shifting beneath us — from the river that carved the canyon to the vast reservoir that sustains the desert, and finally back toward the city we’d lifted off from. In the next post, I’ll share a series of images that trace that journey: the Colorado River winding through ancient rock, the sweeping scale of Lake Mead, the Las Vegas skyline rising from the desert floor, and the quiet moment when we touched down again.
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