My love story with the desert goes back a long time. It probably started somewhere in the middle of Australia in 2011, when my friend and I were on a mission to cross the country north to south in a campervan. Ayers Rock and the endless kilometers of straight Aussie roads on dry land were my first encounters with the beauty of arid landscapes.

I can never get enough those stunning red rocks against impossibly blue skies, or how dramatically the landscape shifts when clouds roll in. I've grown to appreciate how desert communities often build with steel that eventually rusts and blends perfectly with the surroundings, as if the human-made and natural worlds were meant to harmonize.