Focusing on Arizona

FOCUSING Arizona BY JOSEF MUENCH PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

If we could locate the original architect's sketches from which the state of Arizona was laid out, I'm sure you'd find a notation somewhere, "Designed especially for color photography."

At least, that's how it looks to one photographer who has spent the last fifteen years picturing the western states. Now, each one of them has its unique natural wonders to be captured in striking photographs, and I wouldn't think of comparing what they have to offer. But I always feel that in Arizona, the scenery comes right out to meet the photographer, as though it considered one of its primary purposes to pose for brilliant, unforgettable pictures.

There's so much variety: Incredible rock formations, draped on colored horizons, like skyscrapers of an untenanted metropolis. Giant Saguaros, like trademarks of the fascinating Sonoran Desert, punctuate wide sweeps of arid lands. Perhaps your interests tend toward an Indian scene, biblical in its simplicity with long-skirted women at the loom; men, their black hair done in a long knot; and children of the sun watching their flocks. Or again there are forests of towering pines, broad farm lands, cattle on open ranges, and sheep moving in a cloud of dust along byroads.

Arizona has its cities as well; ancient ones, long since deserted, now in mellow ruins, or the still-lived-in pueblos on lofty mesas. Ghost towns of the lusty and rough pioneer days are to be seen, and modern cities, sophisticated but informal.

You can take your camera to sandy beaches and catch the glint of white sails or the wake of obstreperous speed boats, shoot cowboys in rodeos or skimming skiers on winter slopes. Everywhere, life is a vivid pageant against a gay background.

Added to this stimulating round of subjects are several factors built right into Arizona's scenery. They go back to those artist's sketches we were looking for, and explain the sometimes almost embarrassingly colored pictures which your friends from Missouri simply won't believe are real.

They are as simple as ABC. "A" stands for altitude as well as Arizona, an average of 4100 feet throughout the state. It varies from 100 feet in Yuma Valley on the south to a lofty 12,611 feet in the San Francisco Peaks to the north.

"B" is for breathless beauty and bigness, spread out over those varying altitudes, bold forms laid out in chiseled designs on unstinted space.

"C" is the clincher-clarity of air to accentuate both altitude and beauty-a clear window through which every object stands out.

Mixed thoroughly together, like an alphabet soup, they spell, in any combination, something very special for pictures.

But even in Arizona, pictures don't take themselves. You do need to know where to go and when, for the most effective scenes. I'm not suggesting that it's absolutely necessary to be a walking atlas, but it helps, when confronted with an area of 113,956 square miles. You could hurry on splendid highways over the entire length in a single day, but don't count on your camera permitting it. At the nar-rowest width, along the Utah border at the top, only a plane could cross in a day. Up there, roads prefer a northernsouthern trend, in deference to some of the most splendidly rugged terrain on the globe.

THE COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY OF JOSEF MUENCH

"SUNSET-COLORADO RIVER NEAR YUMA, ARIZONA"

All of this makes it hard to know where to begin. As a photographer, I'd far rather have someone ask me the old question, "Which ten books would you choose for a sojourn on a desert island?" than to decide which pictures in Arizona I'd settle for with only a brief vacation in which to get them.

At first blush, the task seems impossible because the entire state is photogenic and-after all-you'll come back. On thinking it over, certain areas challenge the camera as musts and the order in which they should be placed is purely a matter of personal preference or perhaps of expediency.

My list will differ from someone else's but any tally of Arizona's most picturesque spots will automatically include the Grand Canyon. We might start there. If you're like most photographers, one visit is not enough. I expect to spend the rest of my life trying to capture the incredible phenomena which nature has carved into the exciting living room of the Colorado River in northern Arizona.

Artists, whatever their medium, have long acknowledged it as one of the most difficult of subjects. For the photographer, it presents a whole series of technical exercises, meant to test him for any weakness in composition or technique. Yet few places can yield richer returns, for here, literally at your feet, are all the prime requisites for a great picture. Rich colors, changing by the moment, blended in a masterly combination, pure light and uncompromising shadows, tremendous distances to play with and exciting foregrounds.

How do you get it onto film? Everyone finds, some sooner than others, that the whole of Grand Canyon can't be squeezed within the four borders of one picture. However, each one, though it show only a small area, can portray the spirit, depth and grandeur of the entire abyss. My own recipe for panoramas, which might be applied to Grand Canyon, is basically simple. I strive for a three-dimensional effect, with every point in the picture sharply focused, and a composition which leads the eye from interesting foreground, through a meaningful middle distance to satisfying background.

The canyon provides a wide choice of these elements in many possible combinations. With the camera back from the rim enough to give a base, include perhaps a human figure, a gnarled tree, or a flowering bush for foreground. Buttes and cliffs, shadowed gorge, stretch of trail come into the middle distance while beyond is the opposite rim or the inner reaches of the canyon where the Colorado River glints. If your horizon is the straight line of a rim, keep it well above the center of the film by filling your picture with the less regular rock formations below.

In calculating for exposure, point the light meter down into the canyon. Compromise between brilliant and dark areas and use a small aperture with appropriately long exposure. Remember, shadows take a midday siesta. If you want their valuable assistance, make your exposures when they are at work enlivening the rock walls with complicated patterns of color.

While more than scratching the surface, pictures from the rims don't tell the complete story so you will need to follow trails, muleback or afoot. In addition to the rewarding cross-canyon trek, several lead to an Indian village in the depths, west of the better known area, to a different world, full of pictures. As if the village of friendly Havasupais living in an almost tropical paradise were not enough, their canyon boasts a series of exquisite waterfalls dropping over travertine terraces.

It's not hard to find pictures of a very different kind west of the Grand Canyon at Lake Mead and Hoover (Boulder) Dam. The ample shoreline, edging into inlets which were dry washes and canyons only a few years ago, now spreads for hundreds of miles around the lake. While many subjects suggest themselves on the beaches, probably most stimulating is a motor launch ride between bizarrely colored rock walls and over the intensely blue stretches of water. Late and early light are almost essential for detailmaking shadows, and exposures are a continual compromise between the great extremes of brilliantly lighted sky and the rock masses. Surprisingly enough, there is very little reflection from the water, because of its extreme depth.

The dam's great bulk, braced in the cleft of Black Canyon, poses new problems of camera angle as well as of lighting. Only by scrambling up or down on the rocks is it possible to arrange dancing powerlines satisfactorily or to have the face of the dam rise freely and powerfully above, between the dark walls.

Upriver from Grand Canyon, in Glen Canyon, the Colorado River has another surprise. Through one of the youngest sections of the stream's rugged chasms, the river is mild and comparatively well behaved, between red sandstone cliffs which soar to as much as twenty-five hundred feet above the brown water. Carved into arches and caves, temples and unbroken stretches of undulating "frozen sanddunes," they shut the photographer into a corridor painted with the "tapestry walls," of weathering and desert varnish. It leads to that gem of natural objects, Rainbow Natural Bridge, which can be reached either by excursion boat, upstream from Lees Ferry, or overland on muleback from Rainbow Lodge on the Navajo Indian Reservation.

Our list shouldn't be allowed to get much longer without mentioning the Indians. Everyone wants to photograph these colorful people and you can't be in the state for more than a few days without being made aware of their presence. They add a note of almost "foreign" charm to its cities and open country. But not all of the numerous tribes enjoy having a camera pointed at them. Probably as a result of past experiences, the Hopis prohibit it at their wonderfully executed and costumed Pueblo Dances. There is still, however, much left that you can photograph, if you mind your manners. The Indian, whatever his tribe, is an American and resents being considered a museum piece or a quaint character. Would you walk into a neighbor's yard and "shoot" him, or enter his home or church without permission?

To me, the Navajos, who outnumber all the other Indian groups, belong to the scenery, enriching it and giving it new meaning. They are an amazingly happy people, suggesting how little of world possessions are really necessary for a contented life. How do you get pictures of them? Essentially-just as you do of anyone else you think will make a good subject for a portrait or a figure of interest in a beautiful scene.

In practice, there may be some difficulty of language since the large majority of them don't speak or understand English. Those along the highway may, but will not always admit to it. On the reservation, the Indian traders know the Navajo tongue and have the natives' confidence and will often act as an interpreter.

The Navajos have a rare sense of humor and don't mind laughing at themselves, but they can size you up in a flash, evaluate your intentions, and quite understandably object to disdain. If you feel you are on a "slumming party," perhaps you'd better confine your photographic efforts to rock formations, because no person can be more uncooperative than an unwilling Indian.

Even without the help of an interpreter, I've never encountered difficulties in getting photographs of the Navajo. I like to approach with the few words I know of his language, "Ya'a-t'-eh," (Hello or Good) and a smile, plus some tangible proof of my friendliness-some candy, a cigarette, or canned goods. Their diets are not rich and almost any youngster will give you a beautiful wide-eyed grin in exchange for a piece of candy. I keep my camera out of sight until friendly relations are fairly well established. This may take a little while, but the Indian has plenty of time.

You may pay them for the privilege of taking pictures but most traders will beg you not to demoralize the Navajo by overdoing it. Money doesn't mean quite the same thing to him that it does to us. Except where they have imbibed some portion of our competitive spirit, payment for a picture is purely a ceremonial necessity. It takes the curse off the fact he is permitting you to take something (in this case a likeness) from his person. Without some token of return, he is putting himself into your power. This theory of insurance against what we call the "evil eye," or "black magic," may not be comprehensible to you, but it has great importance to the Navajo.

Through an interpreter, or by the Indian himself, you may also be requested to send a print of the picture you've taken. Once you've made that promise-may the "Holy Ones" of the Navajo world haunt you, if you fail to keep it: Time and time again I've been told of photographers, amateur and professional, who neglected that elementary courtesy. The next person who requests a picture will not only hear about it, but have difficulty getting any.

If the Indian speaks English at all, he'll be prepared to write down his name and address. If he can't, the print, sent to the nearest trading post will be identified by the trader and delivered in due time. When you go that way again-you're a friend and nothing is too much trouble to please you-dressing in their richest clothes, decking themselves out in beautiful turquoise and silver jewelry. They will round up their sheep, sit endlessly at a loom, pose grinding corn, tending cute fat-cheeked babies in cradleboard, or sit in the hot sun as a foreground for desert backdrops.

It's sheer fun to photograph the Navajos. They are born models and pose in natural, expressive positions, always making a game of it. Once, while I was spending extra time to get the arrangement I wanted of an Indian camp scene with lambs reclining on the sand in the foreground, a young Indian suddenly dove into his wood and mud hut, popped out again with a camera. He had snapped a picture of me, taking his picture, hurriedly replaced the camera, and was sitting solemnly among his hilarious family by the time I was ready to make an exposure. I seemed to have done the proper thing to keep their laughter bubbling, when I approached him, scratching my palm and demanding, "Pesos! Pesos!"

Perhaps the most nearly perfect setting for the Navajos is Monument Valley. The red sandstone monuments are spaced across its desert and the Indian on his pony has room enough for the free swinging lope they both love. Scenes taken around campfires, beside the hogan, take on a vividness that even years later can bring back the odor of burning piñon and the sound of lambs calling for their mothers. Sand dunes lift in salmon colored patterns for pictures that speak of desolate lands and the courage of its inhabitants. The red of Navajo rugs on the loom blends with the cliffs. Skies are a pageant of moving forms above the widespread drama of the land. You will find that the shadings take on even richer tones in early morning and late afternoon light when the rays come slanting from a low angle into this camera heaven, a photographer's dream.

HOPI VILLAGE

Over the heads of the Navajos in their camps, among rugged canyons, are ruins of an earlier race who lived here hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Probably, they were the ancestors of the present Pueblo peoples, but the Navajos will never willingly visit their deserted cities. Their most haunting fear is of the spirits of the dead, and the cliff dwellings, perfect as gems in lonely rocky settings, are, they believe, still haunted by the Anazasi or "Ancient Ones."

Many of these prehistoric jewels are reached on paved or graded roads: Wupatki, a few miles from Flagstaff; Montezuma's Castle, below Oak Creek Canyon; Tonto, on the Apache Trail. Others, like the several ruins in Canyon de Chelly, must be pursued over desert tracks.

My own preference is probably the trio that makes up Navajo National Monument. For me, nothing ever built by man has more indefinable charm and romance than these tiny rooms, nestling as though they had grown from the great arched caves, framed in junipers and pines and suspended like dream castles above dry stream beds in canyons. "Betatakin," "Keetseel," "Inscription House," each a faultless stage-set with the actors long since gone.

Not all of Arizona's many national monuments feature ruins, but protect highly interesting and very picturesque areas of other kinds. At Petrified Forest, with the greatest display of petrified wood in the world, ancient forests were long ago turned into semi-precious stones and then tumbled out in rainbow colors. They present vivid pictures against the ribbed coloring of the clay blanket that lies in the Painted Desert.

In these dazzling forests, there is no shade: Your light meter, accustomed perhaps in its home landscapes to being satisfied with a reading of 250 or thereabouts, leaps madly to 450 and above. Don't think it has been affected by heat. The brilliant light of the desert is really like that and you will need to rely more than ever on a meter.

The San Francisco Peaks should be mentioned, too, as dramatic points on the skyline and natural gathering places for clouds. In the foreground along the highways arefields of flowers in spring and late summer bouquets of wild sunflower and the lavender beeflower. Winter turns the mountain heights into glittering cones from the distance and ski slopes at the Snow Bowl lure you to get closeups.

Leaving the mountains you will do well to follow some of its waters into Oak Creek Canyon. The highway from Flagstaff, alternate U.S. 89, makes a spectacular descent of some thousand feet to pursue the creek into a great gash with walls of orange and ochre, bedded down in vividly green woods. Fantastic rock formations rise above a trout stream and fruit trees in nestled orchards add the contrast of delicate spring blossoms.

I would not consider a collection of Arizoniana complete without scenes from the White Mountains among its rolling parklike hills and meadows, dotted with lakes and streams. Roads lead over gentle rises to settings beside such tranquil spots as Big Lake, where the pines make a natural gateway to vacation and cattle can be seen moving leisurely on the greenswards. Every feature of the landscape seems to invite you to linger for a picture of the open country, or for distant cowboys to appear on a hilltop where they point up the flow of undulating land. If you come in spring you'll find thousands of wild blue iris in meadows and summer has its spread of brighter flowers while in autumn the aspens are gay along winding roads.

For the really big spring show I always think first of the southern Arizona desert. Massed effects, never in the same place two years running, are always to be sought for, and they are a revelation to people who insist upon thinking of deserts as barren or desolate. But the real gems of the arid lands, the Cactus plants, are apt to be spread over wide territories. Each clump of Beaver Tail, or the mounded hedgehogs, is a "speed trap." If you succumb to the temptation of straight stretches of highway, you can miss them entirely. Slow down when a blur of color strikes your eye and get out of the car. A few steps may take you to one of them and then others will come into sight. Rocks hide the big barrels, wreathed in blossoms, and across a dry wash there will be more and still more. They are the perfect

models for portraits to enrich your assortment of Arizona pictures.

A great deal might be said about photographing flowers, for it's really a whole branch of the art in itself. Composition becomes paramount when the entire picture is of a single plant with pattern depending upon the play of shadows on cactus spines and the arrangement of buds and flowers making a contrast. A steady camera, preferably on a tripod, sharp focus, and small aperture, are some of the secrets of success. I feel that the natural setting, using a low angle sometimes, to use the sky as a background, or a high angle when looking down into the delicate cups of the flowers, is far more effective than "posed" shots in a greenhouse. These desert dwellers know the secret of arranging themselves in natural rock gardens and you can use the colored stones which surround them as foils for their green pads and rainbow tinted petals, assured that they will make beautiful pictures.

Backlighting, particularly on the deceptively fuzzy "Teddy Bear" chollas, creates interest even without any flowers, and the truly bewildering variety of texture and shape among the cactus and succulents will keep you hunting new subjects every time you take a little byroad or get away from the main highways.

The desert is the place for big views as well, and is made to order for sunset pictures. While every region may produce colorful skies, here you have space enough and unobstructed stretches to show the full play of color. "Bagging" a really thrilling sunset is not half as easy as it sounds, or looks. You have to watch the clouds as they form and if there is promise of enough clouds to tint a good share of the film, find a proper spot to take it. Reversing the arrangement of the straight skyline, that we mentioned at the Grand Canyon as being best above the center of the picture, in sunsets it should be below the center to show as much as possible of cloud design and sweeping color. That may mean hunting until a Giant Saguaro or Ocotillo, or some other desert denizen stabs upward, making a dark silhouette to accent, and expressing the feeling of distance and height. Exposure must be a careful balance of the dark foreground and gradation of brilliance in the sky.

You can even catch the moon, if you are on the alert. Most pictures of Luna, though, are made with a double exposure. If you don't belong to the literal minded school of photography, which clings to purely record shots, this fun with the moon does produce lovely scenes, to be had no other way. The problem is to get a long enough exposure to show some detail in the landscape without having the moon blur as it continues on its merry way. I have photographed it when there was enough light to permit of one fast shot. At other times, and especially when it rises late, I make an exposure of the scene without the moon, and a second one later when the orb is up in the sky. This may be at the identical spot or somewhere else, with the moon appearing in the proper place.

Down in southeastern Arizona, rising from desert valleys, is Chiricahua, the Wonderland of Rocks. A shy spot, with a galaxy of laughable rock figures, it's not nearly enough appreciated for the high picture potential of tree framed formations, ribbed canyons, and recognizable stony "characters."

With all this richness of place and subject matter from which to choose, photographing becomes a matter of season and weather. The southwest has two rainy seasons, which in Arizona come in July to September and December to March. It doesn't rain all the time in those months, but you can expect the heaviest precipitation in the late summer and lighter rains in winter and early spring. Before the rains get under way, the skies start winding up for a really big effort, producing in July and August the spectacular "picture clouds." They blow up from the south and are equatorial, quite different from the temperate zone variety, towering perhaps a thousand feet in height of glittering white shapes which will dress up almost any picture. Sometimes you can witness a complete storm approaching in the distance, while your immediate vicinity is still bathed in sunlight. Grab your camera and get it, before it gets you!

The rainy seasons also foreshadow how the spring pageant of blossoms when the desert is at its most flamboyant and a later flowering in the summer over the highlands. Thus, with the calendar and map in hand, anyone can pinpoint the subjects and areas likely to give him whatever his heart is most set on.

My own favorite schedule finds me on the desert lands in April to May, through June among mountains and plateaus, saving July for different types of scenery with an accent on clouds. In October, I head for autumn colors. This is about the most pleasant season of the year for a photographer. Perhaps because vacationers have left the highways, they seem wider. The air has a snap to it, the sunlight sparkles, and a feeling of exhilaration gets into the blood. Whether I can reach them all or not, I know that in the mountains, almost everywhere above seven thousand feet, the aspen trees are paving the byways with newly minted gold leaves and brightening the dark green of the pines and firs with reflected light. Mule deer are gathering in great herds on the Kaibab to discuss hunting season strategy. Scrub oak is turning red on rocky slopes, and lower down, on every wash where the cottonwoods have made green swathes of color all summer, splashes of yellow will meet the eye.

As a footnote to weather, the camera owner must think about its effect upon his equipment. Manufacturers always urge that film material be exposed before the expiration date on the carton, and then developed as soon as possible. While these sensible precautions may have little meaning when temperatures are 75 degrees or below and relative humidity negligible, they become urgent in high summer temperatures combined with moisture. The several layers of color film react differently and serious changes in color values may occur between exposure and development.

To minimize these risks I keep a limited supply of film on hand, expose it promptly and mail the material for development as soon as possible thereafter. A good practice is to keep all equipment out of direct sunlight whenever you can, both in the car and when being carried. Look for a shady parking place and, in any event, provide some ventilation with partly opened windows.

A camera case, regardless of the value of your camera, is a safeguard against light, moisture, and dust. And, of course, the cleaner the lens, camera and accessories are kept, the less chance there will be of spots to mar your pictures. Keep a little camel's hair brush handy for that purpose. Finally, when you get, as I have, to thinking of all scenery in terms of how it might appear on film, satisfyingly composed and suitably framed, you might speak of living in a state of photography and I'll have to admit, my favorite state for photographing notographing is Arizona.