The photographs in the book resulted from a week-long workshop in the Mojave Natural Reserve using the Desert Studies Center in Zzyzx, California as a home base. The workshop was sponsored by PhotoAlliance, a San Francisco-based non-profit dedicated to supporting the understanding, appreciation and creation of contemporary photography. The workshop was lead by the well known photographer and educator Robert Dawson.

This book presents the work of seven participants in the workshop, Mitchel Yee, Bill Scharf, James Gilmore, Craig Cheatham, Julia Brandreth, Douglas Stinson and Nadine Defranoux. The subject these photographs range from the idiosyncratic and often decaying architecture of the once religious retreat that is now the Desert Studies Center, through the surreal environment of Zzyzx, to the natural geologic and flora wonders of the Mojave Desert.