Shiprock, Navajo Nation 2009

Shiprock is the basaltic core of an ancient volcano and a sacred Navajo Indian site. Their folklore says that man descended to earth on it. The tiny little black specks near the bottom right corner of the image are cattle. "I was there with a friend at the beginning of August during their monsoon season. We had driven 4 hours from Santa Fe, arriving just as the afternoon storm was rolling in. I was shooting with my (now) 86-year old 8x10 camera (the old-fashioned type with the bellows where you throw a towel over your head to focus). For one of my last shots I was working near the base of Shiprock, using my dark slide to shield the lens from the rain that had begun to fall along with lightening and thunder. We saw lightening strike the top of Shiprock and my friend was getting pretty nervous while I continued to work. I didn't even stop to think that other than Shiprock, I was the tallest thing around and I was holding a metal tripod! We jumped in the car and took off along the road you can see in the picture (it's the light area near the base). As we were driving away -- the car fishtailing on the wet clay -- lightening struck the ground a few hundred yards away about halfway between our car and the base of Shiprock. We saw a puff of smoke rising from the ground!" --Fokos