Stephen Strom has photographed in the south western desert lands of the United States for more than 20 years and this book brings together, for the first time, a selection of his most powerful and memorable images. Strom brings to this landscape the sensibilities of an astronomer who has lived in the desert for almost two decades. His photographs capture a land shaped both by the millennial forces of prehistory and also by yesterday’s cloudburst. His images have the power to compress vast desert spaces in an illusion of intimacy and comprehension, presenting undulations of colour and form which appear reimagined in a light that at once penetrates and sculpts. Stephen Strom has spent his professional career as an astronomer. He began photographing in 1978 and his work, largely interpretations of landscapes, has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and is held in several permanent collections. His photography complements poems and essays in three books published by the University of Arizona Press: Secrets from the Center of the World, a collaboration with Muscogee poet Joy Harjo; Sonoita Plain: Views of a Southwestern Grassland, a collaboration with ecologists Jane and Carl Bock; and Tseyi (Deep in the Rock): Reflections on Canyon de Chelly co-authored with Navajo poet Laura Tohe. Most recently, his work appeared in Otero Mesa: Saving America's Wildest Grassland (University of New Mexico Press).