Moms aren’t supposed to go on trips like this. Or at least that’s what we’re told.

Who is watching the baby? How long will you be gone? Won’t you miss him?

His father, 5 days, and of course I will.

Nobody ever asks my husband any of those questions when he travels. But in spite of being pummeled with society-inflicted mom-guilt (if it wasn’t over this, it’d be over something else, am I right?), I headed out west for a photography trip anyway. And guess what? My kid is totally fine.

It’s important to me to hone my craft and creativity. It’s important to me to spend time with my dad, who is also a photographer, and went on this trip with me. It’s important to me to be Jamie, and not just Mom sometimes. And it’s important to me to put myself first once in a while, and do things simply because I want to. Maybe that makes me a bad mom, but I figure anything that makes me a happy mom is probably just fine.

Here is the first destination of our journey, the aptly named Valley of Fire. If, like me, you’ve never heard of it before—it’s a state park about an hour outside of Las Vegas, and it is absolutely stunning. I hope you enjoy these images as much as I enjoyed making them, though I suspect you likely won’t (sorry!)

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