Photographs best describe some image projected by the Grand Canyon. Words best describe others — thoughts and emotions sired by the soul, or descriptions grounded in statistics, landscapes, species, and strata.
This book embodies it all:
- Reflections, from essayist Charles Bowden proclaiming, "We see not simply some sweep of deep time but also our own lives when we ... look into a kind of stone mirror;"
- Portfolio, a comprehensive collection of Jack Dykinga photographs showing the Canyon's enormous range of moods dictated by light, weather, and terrain;
- Natural History, a description of the Canyon's Beginning, Classic, and Wilderness sections as viewed by Wayne Ranner, a geologist with a writer's discipline.