I pull over to stretch my legs and fill up on gas before the last leg of the journey out to the dispersed camping area where I’ve chosen to stay on this trip. It will be my first time camping without a “real” campsite, you know, without water, but also even without an outhouse, porta-potty or pit toilet. I am sure I’ll be fine. The last camping trip – first one Jeep camping with an inflatable mattress in the back of the Jeep – up at Holey Meadow Campground in Sequoia was great, and a bit of a test for Jeep camping. Holey Meadow has a pit toilet, but no running water.

I am not nervous, but I feel excitement building, as I know this is my last stop.

I love how the setting sun is striking the mountain ridge on the eastern horizon, giving a pop of color against the dominating canvas of the sky. No clouds. The evening is quiet. Just the hum of cars on the interstate.

A common element emerges as I turn to the east, south and west where the light is the strongest. Every frame holds a raven: corvus corax.

Sometimes tricky to spot, the raven sits on the edge of the gas station building, on top of the diesel fuel pump, on the dry husk hanging off the trunk of a palm tree, or skimming over the landscape looking for trash and dinner.

These photos are shot with the Kodak Portra 400 film recipe (which I am featuring this week) as a base, but once in Capture One, I click through the film simulations and find that Provia changes the mood to my liking. I adjust the color and suddenly I’m hit with a look that I like. Across all the images, a green tinted sunset, palm trees and the raven produce art that reminds me of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger series. It’s been years since I read those books, but suddenly, Corvus Corax seems at home and expected in these apocalyptic images.