I was hiking with my dad in a rare desert rain in Central Oregon near the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The rain softened the landscape and made the colors blend in blues, gray-greens and red rock and the mist blurred the mountains as they reached the horizon.  

The rain revealed a tender side to the wild and untamed land. I tried to capture that fleeting moment of calm—a reminder that even in the harshest of environments, there is room for softness, for renewal, and for the gentle embrace of the elements.