Rafting the Colorado River through northern Arizona’s Grand Canyon distances one from society, technology, and the unremitting cacophony of the outside world. Awaking in the still dawn, I barely noticed the sound of the river flowing through Class 2 rapids. My campsite—my sleeping bag on a cot—was hidden among the outwash boulders of National Canyon Creek.

This river shore, bordered by a 4,000-foot plateau, soon flooded with merciless sunlight, its shimmering sands rapidly heating the air. Hiking up the canyon offered refuge. The sun hadn’t risen high enough to wash the floor of the narrow ravine. However, the interplay of reflected light from the canyon's lit rim echoed deep within its walls, imbuing the cathedral-like space with the faint hues of the surrounding mauve limestone and, above it, layers of sandstone.

The warm light reflected in a shallow pool appeared to me as a reclining figure. It recalled ancient anthropomorphic pictographs with their broad shoulders and haunting skulls painted by hunter-gatherers of the Desert Archaic culture throughout the southwestern canyonlands.

Later, when I printed this photograph, it reminded me of Édouard Manet's painting ‘The Dead Toreador’ (shown in the comments section). In Manet’s portrayal, the corpse appears to hover above the floor on which it presumably rests, resembling the yellow reflection floating on the pool's surface. In both the photograph and the painting, the right arm lies gently on their chest. Blood drips from the bullfighter’s head, while the pool’s figure of light appears to bleed the cloud-flecked sky.