YOU'VE GOT TO GO BACK TO GET THE GOOD ONES

Editor’s Note: Sixty years ago this month, Chuck Abbott, a world-renowned photographer and longtime Arizona Highways contributor, wrote a story for us titled You’ve Got to Go Back to Get the Good Ones. In it, he shared his thoughts on the art of photography and what it took to rise to the top of his profession. He also discussed camera equipment, which, six decades later, is especially interesting. Perhaps most interesting, however, are his anecdotes about his wife, Esther Henderson. Like her husband, Ms. Henderson was a world-renowned photographer and longtime Arizona Highways contributor. As you’ll see, this is a good read.

Years ago there was a book titled The Man Who Came Back, and while I never read the book or knew anything about the man or what he came back from or to, years later when I went into the photographic business, that title rang in my ears many times as I found myself personifying not only the man who came back but the one who came back again and again!

When asked by complimenting amateur photographers: “Oh, Mr. Abbott, how do you get such good pictures? I was there and mine didn’t turn out at all well,” my answer is invariably the same: “You’ll have to go back and try another day, another light, another season.” Meanwhile, I am mentally recalling that “good” picture; was it really good, couldn’t it have been better, and shouldn’t I go back again and do it over?

For that’s the trouble with this picture business — there is so little satisfaction in it! You are always beset with the haunting thought that every picture could be improved, if not by you, then by someone, sometime; so you end up traveling in a circle, periodically returning to do a better, or at least a different, interpretation of the subject. Perfection, of course, is the goal.

When it comes to haunting a photographer, no place excels our wonderful state of Arizona! Its varied colorings and elevations, seasons and weather caprices always serve to confuse us. When it snows, we don’t know whether to dash up to Grand Canyon, Indian country, or stay home and catch it fresh in local mountains; when it frosts, you don’t know where to seek autumn coloring first.

Friends throughout the state phone us of local conditions but when these calls present ideas in opposite directions then doubt and conflict occur. We may gamble on one area, run into bad weather, lose our situation there and be too late to catch an alternative situation in the opposite direction. Even in this fair land where “the sun always shines” it may rain for a week; when fall trees are at their peak, a one-day gale may tumble the leaves to the ground. Wildflowers may peter out before we learn of their whereabouts and a late frost may kill all possibility of orchard blossoms until the following year. Under these circumstances, you can see how many times during our eighteen years’ residence in Arizona we have had to go back to get ’em.

When seeing the sad photographic results of a friend’s one-time trip through the state, I wondered how a man could have gone where he did and gotten so little from places that offer so much. The answer is time and conditions. If the conditions aren’t right, you have to go back, and if you haven’t the time to do so, your results may well be inferior to what is possible.
 

My wife once said to me that photography consisted of fifty percent Providence, fifty percent good equipment, fifty percent leg work and two percent brains. I replied that you could only have one hundred percent in a whole. “That’s what I mean,” she said. “It takes more than the most to get a good picture.”

Seriously though, I think it takes more than two percent brains, taste, judgment or whatever you may call the requisite behind the finger that clicks the shutter. One man’s finger is as good as another’s; it’s the judgment behind the finger that changes a snapshot into a picture.

Providence, equipment, leg work and viewpoint; to me these are the four indispensables in picture-making. You may get fair results with lesser combinations but you can’t click completely without all four. The only exception to this is my wife, who takes a dim view of leg work when burdened with photographic equipment. She alone can find a good picture vantage point while standing in the strip-shade of a Saguaro; can back up to a picture-taking position until she hits a rock to sit on!

In guiding the family chariot to picture destinations, I again hand it to my wife. I use the word “guiding” advisedly because I do all the driving and she does the running commentary. In guiding she works hand-in-glove with Providence, taking the stand that it doesn’t matter where we go because the Lord will send something our way if we are just on hand when He dispenses it! As long as it’s a toss-up anyway, I would just as soon let the Lord (and my wife) handle the matter.

People often say to us, “You folks must have a lot of fun just gallivanting around the scenic West taking pictures,” and to the outsider it probably appears that way. We do enjoy the work — otherwise we would surely hunt up another business in which we could at all times be cool or warm as comfort demanded; arise, retire and dine at reasonable hours; stay home in inclement weather and go hiking without being burdened by the twenty or so pounds of equipment we always carry. But then, of course, we wouldn’t be photographers!

As in most lines of work, there is more to it than meets the eye. In this day of extremely competitive photography, picture-taking is hard and expensive work. We never “gallivant”; each trip has been planned in advance to secure, according to the season, the best results for the largest possible market. Each trip must pay for itself and then some, to cover the costs on some other unsuccessful trip.

We do assignment work which may range from having the art director’s sketch of what he wants, to the “use your own judgment” order we receive from other clients. Even in the latter instance, we are given certain requirements as to scene, season, models and activities.

We also do free-lance work, which is a sort of catch-and-sell-where-you-can endeavor, in which we work entirely on speculation. Here, familiarity with the demands of picture markets leads us to concentrate on locations and ideas which we believe will sell. Of constant bafflement to probably all professional photographers is the editor’s choice in picture material. For years our favorite pictures may lie idle in the files while something else that we took because we couldn’t think of anything better has long since been sold!
 

In the beginning, the would-be photographer should start by taking the photographer’s oath. Is there one? Not that I know of but if there were, it should go something like this:

“From this day forward I hereby do swear that I shall arise when all others are sleeping. I shall dash from my warm house without flinching and I shall drive miles before sunrise. I shall be ready to shoot at sunup and if the scene is not best rendered at this time, I shall return home unperturbed. I shall tramp the mountains in chilblain weather and I shall stagger over the desert in midsummer. I shall do without water because I shall not be able to carry a canteen in addition to my other equipment.

“I shall inform my wife of my absence from dinner and I shall return home after a glorious sunset. The next day when I have developed the results of my labors, I shall maintain equanimity of soul and expression when I find the results far short of my expectations. I shall not browbeat my models; I shall not brag to my friends; yea, verily will I share the secret of my locations with my competitors.” Whoops! What am I saying?

Another concomitance of photography is the reviewing of the files, a costly but necessary diversion, wherein we hope to add more than we subtract; that is, replace old shots with new and better ones. Sometimes we are aghast to see again what we thought at the time represented our best effort. Such an experience only convinces us that today’s work, while improved, will fall short of what we can do in the future.

By now you are acquainted with me and I would like you to meet the rest of the family: Momma, my wife, whose pictures appear under her maiden name of Esther Henderson; Carl, aged twelve; and Mark, aged eight. We maintain our home and darkrooms in Tucson during the winter while the boys are in school; then picture trips en masse are confined to weekends, but Momma and I are able to make a number of short jaunts as season and weather demand.

In summer we set forth the day school is out with our seventeen-foot Aljoa housetrailer hitched to our Ford station wagon. For the next three months the trailer is our home and — I must add — it has made gypsies of us all.

You can’t argue with fact, and the fact is: the worse the weather, the better the picture possibilities, and the more picture possibilities, the less one cares to spend valuable time with tent-pegs, trench-digging, water-hauling and wood-gathering.

Furthermore, it is a great time-advantage to be camped close to the picture location and a morale-advantage to close the door on inclement weather, light stove and lamps, and finally bed down to the tinkle of rain on the roof, conscious of a certain smug joy in knowing that tomorrow you need not coax wet wood to burn, but can arise in warmth and get on with the job.

Even so, we have been immobilized for several days at a stretch in the trailer by wind, dust, rain and snow; then our immobility was physically comfortable though mentally trying. Even these advantages, however, do not eliminate the going-back problem. A case in point is the Monument Valley campfire scene [see page 51].

We first conceived the idea of having a small family group in the shadow of the rim just as the sun spent its last light on one of the red butte formations in the background. This was four years ago. Thereafter, for three summers we spent a week in Monument Valley during which time there never was a single clear evening which allowed the late sun to shine on the butte. Last summer we decided to return to the valley in the fall when skies were more certain to be clear. We did, they were, and a picture resulted.
 

Most often asked is this photographic question: What kind of equipment should I have? There are probably as many answers as there are users of different equipment. Speaking for myself I would say the first consideration is — your use. If photography is your hobby and pleasure, keep your equipment small, light and portable. Your results will be more limited but you can obtain fine pictures or slides by taking the same pains one must take with big equipment and expensive sheet film.

For action pictures, the 4x5 press-type cameras are best. If you expect to sell your work professionally, a 4x5 or 5x7 plate size is necessary as editors usually do not accept smaller film sizes. For our type of work we feel a view camera is essential because it allows many swing adjustments not possible with other cameras.

Is an exposure meter necessary? I would say — absolutely! No matter how much it costs it will be the cheapest item you ever buy in the long run. Many good photographers do not use them but I feel the risk of bad exposure is too costly to take the chance; why draw water from a well when you can enjoy the convenience of a spigot?

There are many meters which give excellent results — I prefer the Weston, perhaps because I started with it. Any meter is like an old friend; when you understand its idiosyncrasies and adapt yourself to them, you can work it perfectly though it may be like your old over-coat — only YOU can wear it! The real purpose of a meter is to give you an evaluation of the light to go on — something that you cannot trust your eyes to do.

If you live in a green valley, you can’t be familiar with sea or snow brilliance; if you are used to the hazy days of eastern sunshine you can hardly gauge the brilliance of western landscapes. Meters may register too high or too low under certain conditions (snow, sea, pre-dawn and twilight); only experience with your meter will tell you what to do; keep a record of your trial exposures so that you can add or deduct according to your meter.

The numerous booklets and color film instruction sheets are right in the sense that they are trying to give the average person the most foolproof times of day and light positions in which to shoot color. If you follow the instructions, your pictures will probably be adequate but not inspired; dynamic effects are usually not obtained between the recommended hours of ten to four nor will your subjects be dramatic bathed always in full light. If you seek the unusual and interesting, break the rules at the cost of some film; never take the obvious. Use your imagination and ingenuity; many an ordinary picture is rescued from the commonplace by using a fresh viewpoint or interpretation of the subject.

Sometimes this question is put to us — “Why can’t I get the same picture you do at the same place?” The answer: because we have four lenses of varying focal lengths, we have perhaps just the right focal length lens to best interpret the subject, whereas the average amateur photographer usually has only the lens that comes with his camera. This is usually a good, all-purpose lens but one lens alone simply will not give you the adaptability of viewpoint that the subject requires.

If, after purchasing your “musts” — that is, camera, meter and tripod, you have extra money for more equipment I would say to invest it in another lens of either short or long focal length depending on which would be most useful to you. “Long” lenses bring distant (or small) objects up close in a narrow field; “short” lenses cover a wide field but reduce the size of the image. We use lenses of four, eight, twelve and nineteen inch focal lengths which enable us to widen or narrow the field; enlarge or reduce the image size, thus giving, from a single location, what I call a number of “viewpoints.”

Sometimes you will find, as do we, that nothing you have in your bag of tricks will translate the scene as you would wish or expect; that’s when you have to go back to get it in a more pictorial light or season.

Finally, there is one more reason to go back again, which the following little incident will help to illustrate.

My wife, who forsook the snowy winters of the Midwest years ago in favor of the desert, now goes what I call “snow-crazy” the minute the weather report broadcasts snow in the mountains. Then we must bounce out of bed in the depth of a winter night, don our flannels, and hot-foot it up to the Catalina Mountains, thirty miles from Tucson, so as to be on the mountain top for the first rays of the rising sun. Of course, she knows, and I know, that we aren’t going to start shooting until eight o’clock but she is perishing for fear the snow — all five feet of it — will somehow disappear before we get there!

On our last trip we had arrived on top (7:30 a.m. and six below) just as the sun rose above a sea of billowing mists; a great, pink, fluffy featherbed of clouds lying over the valleys, encased by the blue shadows and sparkling diamonds of foreground snow. We got out the tripod, film bag and lens bag only to find the camera bag empty. Yes — you guessed it! The real reason you have to go back to get ’em is because — now these are my wife’s words, not mine — “Your dang-fool wife forgot and left the camera at home!”