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Stephen Alvarez

@salvarezphoto

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Explorer (@natgeosociety / @the_explorers_club) and photographer. I've spent my life documenting the world. Founder of @ancientartarchive.

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4 days ago

by @salvarezphoto

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17 days ago

Soda straw formations at the bottom of a notorious 310 foot pit in Alabama. This image was made years ago before the landowner closed access. The area of the United States where Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia come together (TAG) is known for its thousands of caves and deep pits. #cave #explore by @salvarezphoto

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a month ago

Have you ever heard of the Venice of the Pacific?
Nan Madol in Micronesia is one of the most mysterious abandoned cities on earth. No one has fully explained how the massive basalt columns were transported and leveled into place. Should I do more videos like this that show parts of the world I've explored as a National Geographic photographer? taken in Micronesia by @salvarezphoto

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A very well preserved polychrome Pecos River style panel in Val Verde County, TX. This style persists for 4,000 years across a multitude of sites in the lower Pecos region. The murals are all painted with the same set of rules. First all the black paint, then red, yellow and finally white. Modern spiritual leaders tell us this is the language of the gods and it mimics the creation of each day. First the sky is black before dawn, then it turns red, yellow for when the sun clears the horizon and finally white for the light of mid day. Each mural paints creation into existence. That is why we chose this panel for the table of contents page of our book Rock Art: an American Story

The artwork, land and history of the lower Pecos is threatened. Follow the link in @ancientartarchive bio to learn more

Thanks to @shumlaarchaeologicalcenter for arranging our trip to this incredible place. taken in Val Verde County by @salvarezphoto

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The milky way over the Rio Grande in Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, Texas. Black Gap is the darkest place in Texas, It's an incredibly rugged land of immense solitude. When I shot this photo last August I was likely the only person for 10 miles in any direction. It does not need a wall, the space and emptiness guard it well.
Shot on assignment for @nature_org taken in Black Gap Wildlife Management Area by @salvarezphoto

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2 months ago

There is good news about a pause in border wall construction in Big Bend, but in the lower Pecos, construction continues and the threat continues.

The Lower Pecos contains hundreds of painted shelters, monumentally huge pictograph panels older than the pyramids. As Dr. Carolyn Boyd writes about the White Shaman Mural in our book Rock Art: an American Story,

"Nothing about... the mural is random, Like words arranged on a page, every figure is intentionally placed, and each layer of paint represents a layer of human action, decision, and meaning."

Follow the links in our bio for more information about the book and about threats to rock art in the Pecos and beyond. There are things you can do, ways to make your voice heard.

Images 1&2) 2,000 year old images from the Devil's River drainage in Val Verde County, TX.

Image 3) The rugged canyonlands of Seminole Canyon State Park. The proposed vehicle barrier would cross the canyon here.

Image 4&5) The White Shaman Mural.

Image 6) The Rio Grande and border with Mexico at Seminole Canyon. The border wall will cut this land off from the United States.

Image 7) Fate Bell Shelter in Seminole Canyon State Park.

Image 8) A large, red, anthropomorphic figure in Panther Cave, part of Seminole Canyon State Park. The border wall will cut this section of the park off, essentially ceding it to Mexico. by @salvarezphoto

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2 months ago

Last summer I spent a week in West Texas photographing the Davis Mountains and The Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve for @nature_org

The reserve extends from the Davis Mountains across the Big Bend of the Rio Grande and well into Mexico. Its one of the darkest places on the continent

The Davis Mountains, seen here, are a "sky island." At over 8,000 feet they are home to August monsoon rains that make them resemble Colorado more than most of Texas. by @salvarezphoto

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2 months ago

Sneak peak at what @ancientartarchive is building for Lake Amistad National Recreation Area. The video is by the talented @jamesdcawley of Centerstar Creative.
Before Lake Amistad, before the pyramids in Egypt, people came to this canyon to paint their sacred stories. For more details about this place and threats to it visit @shumlaarchaeologicalcenter taken in Seminole Canyon State Park - Texas Parks and Wildlife by @salvarezphoto

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2 months ago

Once upon a time a man obsessed with following every cave to its end found something amazing in Tennessee.
In 1998 legendary cave explorer Marion O. Smith was mapping a small cave near Fall Creek Falls State Park. He crawled up a stream passage that most people would ignore and discovered that it led to this amazing place.
He and his exploration partners were the first people to ever visit this room and the miles of passage beyond.
#neverstopexploring taken in Tennessee by @salvarezphoto

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3 months ago

This panel in the Bears Ears National Monument has watched over the land for a thousand years. This week, the boundaries around it changed. The art did not.

Bears Ears National Monument (along with Grand Staircase/Escalante NM) was just reduced by more than 90% of its protected acreage in one of the most significant rollbacks of Indigenous cultural landscape protection in our nation's history. Cedar Mesa, Comb Ridge, Beef Basin, and so many of the places featured in our book Rock Art: An American Story sit inside the land that's now been stripped of federal protection.

In spite of this blow, Bears Ears stands as a shining example of indigenous stewardship. The Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and Zuni Tribe, the five sovereign nations of the Bears Ears Commission, have stewarded this land with knowledge no map could hold.

In her essay for the book, former Secretary Deb Haaland writes about standing on Cedar Mesa, surrounded by the work of the ancestors:

"This art is a gift handed down through millennia because the ancestors did everything with future generations in mind."

Future generations, that's who we need to think of now. by @salvarezphoto

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3 months ago