Where to
Stand

Chatsworth-formation sandstone stood on end in fins and ramps above a short trail off Redmesa Road; the old Iverson Movie Ranch.

A dome of rounded sandstone boulders between Topanga Canyon Blvd and the railroad; the Valley's climbing crag. Mass, not strata.

A tall, narrow sandstone cave mouth on the southwest side of Castle Peak, its roof open to the sky in skylights.

Near-vertical Towsley Formation conglomerate through the Pico Anticline, a slot on the canyon floor about 1.4 mi from the lower lot (unverified).

Stacked Chatsworth sandstone outcrops and Devil's Slide, the 1861 stagecoach grade over the pass.

Chatsworth-formation boulders at the foot of a wide fire road north of the 118; the Rocky Peak Trail runs five miles north.

Sandstone fins and caves on flat trails, and the dam of an old movie ranch.

A wide fire road up the Canyonback ridge: an oak with a swing on the crest, pylons marching down, the Getty as a pale slab on the next ridge.

Ten pairs of tilted white concrete arches over a 3,500-foot deck; the sun rises inside the arch frame for a few weeks around early October and early March.

Richard Meier's travertine: stair cuts, the rotunda cylinder, the cactus garden promontory over the 405.

Four buildings on four blocks: stainless steel that blows to white at noon, a honeycomb veil, a concrete nave, a perforated steel box.

Sea stacks and an arch at the foot of a bluff staircase; walk east and shoot back west to put the setting sun behind them.

A headland over Westward Beach; a fog deck seen from above, or the stacks in pastel before the sun.

Art Deco domes on a hillside; on a deep marine-layer morning they float on a white sea.

Conglomerate and sandstone beds tilted to near vertical by the fault, standing out of flat scrub. One slab edge as a diagonal is the whole picture.

Cajon-formation sandstone hogbacks tilted along the San Andreas, north of Highway 138; the same geology as Vasquez, one range east.

Beds tilted near vertical and bent into a V, a 300-foot bowl under a paved rim overlook on the north side of the San Gabriels.

A volcanic-breccia balanced boulder, a split slab and the Echo Cliffs face on the Mishe Mokwa loop; the highest point in the Santa Monicas.

A granite butte with boulder skirts on a flat playa horizon; Joshua trees as the only vertical.

Wave-cut terraces and bedded shale bluffs; the ledges read as ruled lines at low tide.

A granite boulder dome with a paved spiral road winding up it and a cross on top.

White sandstone domes, slabs and rounded fins above the Sespe; the pale rock is the high-key print already.

Fluted cliffs and columns in red and white badlands beside the highway; the Red Cliffs on the east side, Hagen Canyon's basalt-capped walls on the west.

Folded and tilted lakebed strata in a syncline, a one-way dirt loop through the fold.

Tilted colored Miocene beds and badland fins beside the highway.

Five hundred tufa towers standing out of a dry lakebed; a five-mile dirt road in.

A wind-pocketed sandstone overhang and a boulder field above the coast.

Honeycomb tafoni in sandstone on a ridge west of the 101 above the Gaviota Pass: cells, windows and a keyhole.

Eroded sandstone badlands and bluff ribs at Broken Hill, above the sea.

Kahn's courtyard: a channel of water to the Pacific between two ranks of concrete and teak.

Bedded sandstone sea cliffs with arches and benches.

Monzogranite domes and boulder piles among the trees; Arch Rock, Keys View, the Hall of Horrors.

Six hundred feet of sand with one crest line; the booming dunes.

A symmetric granite dome with ranks of Joshua trees and joint blocks; the 2020 burn scar.

Layered canyon walls, side slots and a rail trestle where the Mojave River runs above ground.

A cinder cone on a pahoehoe lava field; the rim as one line.

A fluted, potholed basalt gorge polished by an ice-age river.

A shoreline of salt and tilapia bone, a town that is inhabited and should be shot as one.