The Watchers on the Rim: Seeing When There’s Nothing to See
I didn’t expect snow at the Grand Canyon in May.
Standing on the side of a sheer cliffs, growing out of pure rock, these sentinels stand silent and strong along the grand rim. All photos by the author.
I went to the Grand Canyon in early May.
That sentence alone sounds like a setup for epic vistas and golden light slanting across endless chasms. But what I got was haze. Thick, dull haze and heavy clouds.
The kind of light that flattens everything, drains the color, and sits like a wool blanket over your plans.
I had gone there to clear my mind and maybe make a few photographs. I arrived early, before the tour buses and selfie sticks. The roads were quiet.
The air is still. But standing at the edge of that vast space, I knew I wouldn’t be making the kind of Canyon photo people expect.
That’s the thing about photography — and maybe life too. Expectations will blind you faster than fog ever could.
As I traversed the rim, the clouds thickened, darkened, and began to eliminate the small amount of visibility we had left.
And then it snowed.
Not Buffalo, NY, snow… just little flakes that melted upon impact, but still.
So I stopped looking at the Canyon.
Instead, I focused on the rim. It was close, it was visible. It was interesting.
Scattered among the rocks were these gnarled, solitary trees — piñons and junipers mostly — bent from decades of weather, standing alone against the sky. They weren’t grand. They weren’t colorful. But they were something.
They reminded me of sentinels, watching over the void.
Quiet.
Weathered.
Present.
So I decided to make images of those trees.
Close. Deliberate.
I converted them to black and white, because under that flat light, color wasn’t doing me any favors.
The contrast between bark and sky was all I had to work with — and all I needed.
That trip reminded me of something I try to live by, especially when I have a camera in hand. Keep your eyes and your mind open.
Don’t show up somewhere with a picture already in your head.
The Canyon will do what it wants.
The light will do what it will.
The world owes us nothing, photographically or otherwise.
But if we can empty our heads of what we think we’re supposed to see, we might just notice what’s actually in front of us.
And we can adapt, switch it up, see something we didn’t go looking for, and maybe find something a bit different.
And while those trees may not be iconic or “portfolio-worthy,” they become a kind of quiet witness to the experience. It becomes a marker — not just of where you were, but how you were.
Whenever I take a trip— especially one that doesn’t go as planned — I think of it as an opportunity to sharpen my vision for the next one. Not because I got the shot, but because I stayed open enough to see a shot, even when the “good” ones weren’t available.
I believe that’s how we keep growing as photographers.
Release our expectations, discard the limiting beliefs of ‘getting the perfect shot’, and be open to all of the images before us.
You may be surprised by what you see.
Hi, I’m Don Giannatti, a photographer and mentor for up-and-coming photographers. You can find me on my website, Don Giannatti, and at my Substack site, where I also publish for creative people.
Image Notes:
All photos in this article made on iPhone, processed first in RNI, then converted to a more ‘retro’ look in 8MM.
