The Place That Changed My Photography Forever
- Jessica Santos
- Jul 15
- 11 min read
How the Bisti Badlands taught me to translate stories into photographs.
There are certain places that every landscape photographer dreams of visiting. Places like Imperial Point in the Grand Canyon or Mesa Arch in Utah, these have become iconic because the photograph almost feels predetermined. You arrive with an image already in your mind, then wait for the right light or season to make it your own.
Bisti Badlands isn't one of those places.
Yes, there are a handful of famous formations. The Alien Throne or the King of Wings and a few of the other hoodoos have all become recognizable photographs. But once you leave those landmarks behind, you're simply wandering through miles of strange rock formations with no obvious composition or foreground. There isn't a famous overlook telling you "this is where you stand". More often than not, you're left asking yourself "How do I turn this into a photograph?"
That uncertainty is exactly what makes Bisti such a great art teacher.
The first time I visited, I did what we all do. I wandered from formation to formation looking for interesting subjects. Sure I came home with decent photographs, but nothing I would call "portfolio worthy".
It wasn't until my second trip that something clicked. I wish I could tell you that there was this one hoodoo or that one sunset where everything suddenly made sense. The truth is, it happened over time. Somewhere between climbing over the sandstone ridges and weaving through the narrow corridors, I stopped searching for photographs and started searching for something else... stories.
One rock reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, another looked like a giant dinosaur roaming the landscape. At night, those same formations transformed into an alien world beneath the Milky Way. For the first time, I wasn't asking, "How do I compose this?" I was asking, "How do I make someone else feel what I'm feeling right now?" Looking back, that's what changed, I became the character in this new world and I wanted to translate that in my photos. I didn't know it then, but Bisti wasn't teaching me composition, it was teaching me something much more valuable.
It was teaching me that composition is the language we use to tell a story.
Perspective Changes Scale
As landscape photographers, we're taught to think about camera height almost entirely in technical terms. Lower your tripod to exaggerate the foreground. Raise it to simplify the composition. Adjust it until the elements fit together in a pleasing way. Those aren't bad pieces of advice, but they're all focused on what the camera sees.
Bisti taught me to think about camera height in a completely different way.
Instead of asking whether my tripod should be higher or lower, I started asking who the viewer was supposed to become. Was I trying to make them feel small? Curious? Powerful? Vulnerable? The answer to that question almost always determined where the camera belonged long before I worried about balancing the composition.
One of the first places I recognized this was beneath a mushroom-shaped hoodoo tucked away in the badlands, it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. More specifically, the moment after Alice drinks the potion and suddenly finds herself wandering through a world where everything has become impossibly large. I didn't want the mushroom to simply look interesting. I wanted it to feel overwhelming. Lowering my tripod wasn't about following a compositional rule. It was about putting the viewer in Alice's shoes. The lower I placed the camera, the more the mushroom towered over the landscape, and the more believable that story became.
Years later, I found myself making the exact same decision in a completely different landscape, high in the mountains of Washington, I wasn't thinking about Bisti at all... I was thinking about Horton Hears a Who!
Standing among the pasqueflowers, I imagined each flower containing an entire world hidden from our own. Instead of standing above them and photographing the mountain beyond, I lowered my camera until the flowers dominated the foreground. Suddenly the mountain wasn't the subject anymore. It became the distant horizon beyond their tiny world.
Looking back, I realized both photographs were built on the exact same compositional decision. Changing the height of the camera changed the relationship between the viewer and the subject. In one image, the viewer becomes Alice wandering beneath a giant mushroom. In the other, they shrink into a tiny world hidden beneath towering mountains.
Since then, I almost never ask whether my tripod is too high or too low. Instead, I ask a different question: Who is the viewer supposed to be? Once I know the answer, the camera usually finds its own height.
Discovery Creates Curiosity
One of the first compositional lessons we're taught is to remove distractions. If a branch blocks the view, move around it. If a rock obscures your subject, find a cleaner angle. We naturally assume the strongest composition is the one that reveals everything as clearly as possible.
Bisti taught me that the opposite is true.
I came across a hoodoo that immediately reminded me of the first time the dinosaurs are revealed in Jurassic Park. What stuck with me wasn't simply the shape of the formation, it was the way Spielberg introduced it. The audience doesn't see the entire dinosaur immediately. They discover it. I wanted that same feeling in my photograph, so instead of stepping into the open, I composed the image from behind another formation. The foreground wasn't there to add interest. It was there to delay the reveal, allowing the viewer to discover the scene the same way I had.
Years later, while photographing the badlands near Factory Butte, I found myself using the exact same approach. A lone formation reminded me of the Sphinx standing before the pyramids. Rather than photographing it from an open viewpoint, I chose a position where the foreground ridge concealed part of the landscape. It feels less like you're standing in front of a monument and more like you've just climbed over a hill and are seeing it for the first time.
I think that's one of the most overlooked compositional tools in landscape photography. We spend so much time trying to reveal everything that we forget how powerful curiosity can be. Allowing the viewer to discover part of the landscape for themselves creates a much more immersive experience because it recreates the feeling of exploration. Instead of simply presenting a beautiful view, you're inviting the viewer to uncover it.
Compose in Layers
We're taught as photographers is to include a strong foreground. It's good advice because foregrounds naturally create depth, but over the years I've realized that simply adding something close to the camera isn't enough. A foreground can easily become decoration if it doesn't serve a purpose.
Bisti taught me to think about depth differently.
Instead of asking, "What's my foreground?" I started asking three questions.
What can I touch? What could I throw a rock to? What's waiting beyond that?
Those questions force me to think less about objects and more about how someone experiences a place. They create a photograph that unfolds naturally, almost the same way your eyes would explore the landscape if you were standing there in person.
One of the first photographs where I consciously applied this idea was what I call "Mount Everest." The sandstone in front of me became the first layer, close enough that I could almost feel its texture. Beyond it stood the towering hoodoo, the destination within the landscape. Finally, lightning illuminated the storm clouds in the distance, completing the world beyond the mountain. The photograph wasn't simply divided into foreground, middle ground and background. It gave the viewer somewhere to stand, somewhere to journey toward and somewhere for their imagination to continue beyond.
Years later, I found myself using exactly the same approach along the Oregon Coast. Most people are immediately drawn to the sea arch, but for me the photograph begins long before your eye ever reaches it. The wildflowers become the place where the viewer is standing. The sea arch becomes the destination, and the ocean stretching into the distance becomes the world beyond. If any one of those layers disappears, the photograph loses some of its sense of place.
I still think about those three questions almost every time I set up my tripod. Not because every landscape needs three perfect layers, but because they remind me to build an experience instead of just arranging objects within a frame. A successful composition isn't just about creating depth. It's about giving the viewer a place to enter the photograph and a reason to keep exploring it.
Relationships Matter More Than Subjects
One of the easiest traps to fall into as a landscape photographer is becoming obsessed with finding interesting subjects. We spend hours searching for the perfect tree or the most unusual rock, believing that's what makes a memorable photograph.
Bisti taught me otherwise.
The formations themselves were fascinating, but what made them compelling wasn't their individual shape. It was the way they interacted with everything around them. A hoodoo against an empty sky feels isolated. That same hoodoo beneath the Milky Way suddenly became an ancient traveler navigating across the desert. The stars weren't just filling negative space. They became part of the subject itself.
One of the clearest examples of this came from the formation known as the Alien Throne. The first time I photographed it, I imagined three ancient travelers gathering beneath the stars before continuing their journey across the desert. A few years later, after visiting Chaco Canyon and learning about the ancestral Puebloans, their extensive trade routes and their understanding of astronomy, I returned to the exact same formation and saw something entirely different. Instead of travelers, I imagined merchants arriving from distant settlements to exchange goods and stories beneath the night sky before setting off again.
What I realized was that the photograph was not really about the rocks. It was about the relationship between the formations, the stars and the space surrounding them. Remove any one of those elements and the story becomes much weaker.
I found myself applying that same lesson in the Colorado Rockies. Standing in a narrow valley, my attention was immediately drawn to a single golden cottonwood, It reminded me of the Heart Tree in Winterfell, not because the tree looked like a weirwood, but because of the role it played in the landscape. The cliffs became the walls surrounding a sacred place, while the lone tree became the center of it all.
It would have been easy to isolate the cottonwood with a longer lens, but that would have removed the very thing that gave it meaning. The photograph isn't about the tree. It's about its relationship to the landscape around it. The towering cliffs emphasize its solitude, the fresh snow creates a sense of age and stillness, and together they transform an ordinary tree into something that feels ancient and significant.
Since then, I've tried to stop thinking in terms of finding better subjects and started thinking about building stronger relationships (maybe a life lesson too?) Sometimes that relationship is between a tree and a mountain. Sometimes it's between a hoodoo and the stars. Other times it's between light and shadow, weather and landscape or two simple shapes that suddenly become much more interesting because they exist together. More often than not, those relationships are what transform an interesting scene into a memorable photograph.
Wait for the Right Conditions
We all want a little drama in our weather, colorful sunsets, lightning, fog or fresh snow because those moments naturally make landscapes more interesting. While those conditions can certainly create beautiful photographs, Bisti taught me that the best conditions aren't always the most dramatic.
They're the ones that reinforce the story you're trying to tell.
There's a small grouping of rounded sandstone formations that immediately remind me of lily pads floating on the surface of a quiet pond. It wasn't just their shape. It was the way they were scattered across the landscape. I could almost imagine standing at the edge of a lake as the last light of the day danced across the water.
That image only worked because of the light.
The low evening sun skimmed across the tops of the sandstone, creating bright highlights that felt like reflections on water. Had I photographed the same scene under a neon pink sunset or muted tones of blue hour, the illusion would have disappeared. The rocks would have simply looked like rocks again. Waiting for the right light wasn't about making the photograph prettier. It was about making the story believable.
This same concept carried itself through years later when I was photographing the Grand Canyon. This view reminded me of Smaug (from The Hobbit) sleeping atop his mountain of gold. The Milky Way alone wasn't enough to complete the story. I wanted thin clouds drifting overhead because they looked like smoke rising from the dragon's nostrils. The weather wasn't the subject. It became another piece of the composition, helping reinforce the world I wanted the viewer to imagine.
Since then I've stopped asking whether the conditions are dramatic enough and started asking whether they support the feeling I'm trying to create. Sometimes that means waiting for fog to simplify a forest. Other times it's fresh snow, soft side light or a passing thunderstorm. Every condition changes the way we experience a landscape, and once you begin thinking about light and weather as storytelling tools rather than lucky accidents, you become much more intentional about when you take the photo.
Bisti Didn't Teach Me to Photograph Bisti
When people ask why I keep returning to Bisti, they usually assume it's because it's one of my favorite places to photograph.
The truth is a little different. There are landscapes I visit more often. There are places with bigger mountains, more dramatic light and more variety to capture. If you asked me to choose one place to photograph for the rest of my life, Bisti probably wouldn't be my answer.
But if you asked me which place changed the way I photograph forever, the answer would be Bisti.
It was the first landscape that took away all of the obvious answers. It forced me to stop relying on familiar compositions and start thinking about why I was making a photograph in the first place. The hoodoos, sandstone ridges and strange rocks became more than interesting subjects. They became a classroom where I learned to think differently about perspective, depth, relationships, light and the role each of those elements plays in communicating an idea.
The most surprising part is that those lessons never stayed in New Mexico.
I use them in the redwoods of Northern California. I use them along the Oregon Coast, in the dunes of Death Valley and beneath the peaks of the Eastern Sierra. Every time I set up my tripod, I'm still asking the same questions Bisti taught me years ago. What experience am I trying to create? Where should the viewer stand? What deserves to be revealed, and what should remain hidden? How can the light strengthen the feeling I want the image to communicate?
That's why I continue bringing photographers back to Bisti. Not because I want to show them where the Alien Throne is or hand them a list of GPS coordinates. Those are easy to find. What excites me is watching someone arrive expecting to photograph strange rocks, then leave seeing every landscape differently.
Because once you learn to think that way, the lessons don't stay in Bisti either. They follow you everywhere.
Take This Into the Field
The next time you head out with your camera, I want you to leave one thing behind. Leave the idea of finding a composition. Instead, try approaching the landscape with curiosity.
Don't ask yourself where to put your tripod. Don't think about focal length or whether you've found an interesting foreground yet. Just spend a few minutes walking through the landscape without taking a photograph.
Then ask yourself these questions:
What feeling does this place give me?
What does it remind me of?
Where should the viewer stand?
Where are the layers?
Would this photograph be stronger if I revealed everything or concealed something?
What light or weather would make this feeling even stronger?
Only after you've answered those questions should you take your camera out of your bag. You may come home with fewer photographs, but I have a feeling you'll come home with better ones.
Your Field Assignment:
If you'd like to challenge yourself, try this exercise the next time you're in the field.
Choose a single scene and make three different photographs without changing your subject:
In the first image, experiment with camera height. Make yourself feel enormous, then make yourself feel tiny.
In the second, change how much of the scene you reveal. Use a foreground element to partially conceal your subject and let the viewer discover it.
Finally, build the image in layers. Give the viewer something they can almost reach out and touch, something they could walk toward, and something that pulls their eye into the distance.
When you get home, don't ask yourself which image is the prettiest. Ask yourself which one makes you feel like you're standing there. That's usually the photograph worth keeping.
If you'd like to practice this way of seeing...
Every year we bring a small group of photographers into the Bisti Badlands, not to photograph the famous hoodoos, but to explore and learn to see the landscape differently. We spend less time chasing locations and more time talking about perspective, storytelling, light and the small compositional decisions that transform an interesting scene into a unforgettable photograph.
If that sounds like the way you'd like to learn, I'd love to have you join us on a future workshop.
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