The Sierra Nevada mountains in California create a climate of rain shadow leaving anything eastward a permanent desert. Yet the harshness of conditions does not render these deserts barren. There is richness in the scarcity of things: inanimate, living and struggling; and there are fewer entrancing spectacles of light when the rainy winters of the Pacific shores reach the granite foothills and then as heavy clouds flag over arid landscapes. At times the mountains themselves are nearly as dry as the lands they shadow over, which presents issues for parts of California that rely upon it for water. The pictures of the ever going drama of the rain shadow remind us all how events seemingly worlds apart affect millions of people who sometimes forget the source for their survival.