One of the things I wanted to get on my Arizona trip was a picture of a long, straight road disappearing into infinity. As it turns out I got several, but this one was the best. It was dead straight; it was a rural road in red rock country; and it started at the top of a low hill, which is the only way to get a proper shot like this.

This is a panoramic photo. I took five shots and merged them together when I got home. As it turned out, I only needed three of them, but I definitely needed those three. A single shot, even with a wide angle lens, simply couldn’t have captured the wide open look of the desert West that I got here.

A black-and-white version is at the bottom, and this is a rare case where I might like it better than the color version. It loses the color of the red rock on the left, but it gains something of an Old West look to it. I could go either way on this.

UPDATE: I’ve replaced the color version with one that has a less overprocessed sky.

January 26, 2020 — Kaibab Indian Reservation, Arizona

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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