MARICOPA POINT

In the 1950s, longtime Arizona High-ways contributor Esther Henderson started writing and photographing Way Out West With Esther Henderson, a weekly feature for the Tucson Citizen. One of our favorite installments fea-tured this photograph, which is titled Maricopa Point, from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

"Jay Gaza was just about the best photographic model we ever had," she wrote. "He was a wrangler on the mule trip down into the Canyon and, unlike a lot of other wranglers, he didn't try to typify the West - he just did.

"We never had to tell him how to stand, sit or lean; he always looked right. Only when you've worked with models do you understand how important a talent that is. At the Canyon, there was never light or time enough to do a lot of explaining. The fact that Jay 'melted' into natural position was the greatest advantage.

"Jay had his favorite mount, and while it took a little maneuvering to get this long-tailed fellow's cooperation, he, too, was a fine model - in Jay's hands. What we wanted wasn't so easy.

"Even a man's horse-sense tells him it's a long drop off the rim; a horse's horse-sense forbids him the rim. You wouldn't believe the number of appointments made and broken because of weather; time and again Jay galloped forth during his free time only to find too few or too many clouds over the location.

TRAVEL, LEARN & BE INSPIRED.

Learn photography from the pros in amazing workshop destinations throughout Arizona and beyond.

Photograph the best of Arizona Canyon de Chelly, Grand Canyon, Ironwood, Jerome, Lake Powell, Monument Valley, Sedona, Slot Canyons, White Pocket and beyond Alaska, California, Canada, Italy, New Mexico, Switzerland, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming