Amanda Julia Steinback heads into the American West without a fixed destination, open to whatever the landscape decides to do. Based in Kansas City, she spends long stretches alone on the road, camera in hand, waiting for the sky to do something worth remembering.

Steinback’s work finds the West in its wilder moods: storm light breaking over high desert, aspens burning gold against a darkening range, ghost trees rising from Yellowstone thermal mist. It's landscape photography with an emotional temperature — neither nostalgic nor reverent, just honest about how big and indifferent and occasionally overwhelming this country can be.

Shop Amanda Julia Steinback's fine art landscape prints at Distant Dawn.