In 1906, Devil’s Tower in northeastern Wyoming became the first national monument in the U.S., preserving a little more than 1,300 acres around the 867-foot-tall column of igneous rock. Amid the rolling hills of the plains, it can be seen from miles around, and it’s been a sacred site and gathering place for myriad Indigenous American tribes, who refer to it by names like Bear Lodge or Bear’s House.
One oral narrative describes how bears attacked a group of seven girls, and the ground swelled up to push the children toward the sky. There, they became the constellation Pleiades, or the “Seven Sisters,” which can be seen over the monument. In other stories, the distinctive striations around the landform are said to have been created by bears clawing at the earth to try to reach the girls.
For nomadic photographer Zac Henderson, the unique geological formation proved an irresistible subject. He travels the continent making dreamy images of landscapes and natural phenomena, often merging reality with a sense of the uncanny. When it comes to geology, there’s hardly a more iconic example than Devil’s Tower, which formed tens of millions of years ago as a column of hardened magma was gradually revealed through erosion.
Henderson captures the moodiness of clouds casting shadows in black-and-white images that are redolent of Ansel Adams’ deep tonal shifts. Even though the monument sees hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, there is a sense of isolation and unadulterated wonder, as if we are encountering it for the first time. Henderson also captures the changing light and otherworldly textures and ochres of the rock face, which can be seen from a network of paths around its one-mile base circumference.
See more timelapses on Henderson’s Vimeo, and explore more on Behance.
