ARIZONA IS MY STUDIO

Arizona IS MY STUDIO TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY MANLEY

I'm a very fortunate fellow. That's what people tell me often, and that's what I often tell myself, although we may not be looking at my professional activities as a scenic photographer in exactly the same way. "My, but you must lead an interesting life," folks will comment. "Just traveling around taking pictures of beautiful scenery and getting paid for it. "Yes, indeed," I agree, remembering the time I waited out a 3-day wind-and-rain storm in Monument Valley to take a 1/10th second exposure, and the time I traveled seven hundred miles to shoot a round-up of three thousand Herefords for a breeder's journal and the picture couldn't be used because there were three or four Brahmas in the herd, and the time . . .

No, there are just as many disappointments in scenic photography as in any other creative profession; perhaps more, since so many of the elements in this work-light and shadow, weather and temperature-are variable and beyond human control. I am not surprised that fewerthan a dozen people in the entire country make their living solely from scenic photography. But you can judge how I weigh the disappointments against the rewards when I say that I hope some day to be one of them. So far, I have had to rely on commercial photography to finance the scenic expeditions.

One of the biggest rewards of my work in the field lies in the very elements that make it unpredictable-the challenge of Arizona itself. This is a land that might be measured in terms of infinity and eternity. It can glare with primary colors intensified by the sun, and it can shade off into nuances of the spectrum for which even artists have no name. It takes nerve, I admit, even to hope to catch either the reality or the spirit of this country on a sheet of film. But who would be content to work always under the controlled conditions of an indoor studio with this challenge at his doorstep? Certainly not I. Take, for instance, that trip into Monument Valley, five hundred miles north of Tucson, my home base. My results from each trip. The scene, as far as the placement of natural features is concerned, remains the same for all comers. Cameras, lenses, and films are essentially alike and the techniques of handling them may be mastered by anyone. Obviously, the difference must lie in the interpretation.

How can one interpret a subject differently that has been photographed many times before? It is in his answer to this problem that the photographer places himself alongside the creative artists who are making something different out of the same old elements. Look what authors do with the same twenty-six-letter alphabet, and painters with the same red, yellow, and blue!

Success, I believe, depends upon two factors-granted mastery of the mechanics of the trade: the willingness to plan and prepare and the ability to anticipate the unusual and take advantage of it.

Perhaps an unusual weather condition will change a commonplace view into a striking illustration. Most of us who have been at it a long time can count instances of such luck on one or possibly both hands, and even here the successful shots are more often the result of patient planning and waiting with an idea in mind than of the fortunate coincidence of timing and exposure. A professional can't count on the unexpected for his livelihood. He must, however, be prepared always to take advantage of an unusual condition and, most important of all, to anticipate what may happen, whether it be in the action of people or in extreme lighting effects brought on, for instance, by a summer storm or a winter sunset.

As a case in point, there is the sunset view of mine that appeared in the December, 1955, issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS.

I had long felt that a silhouette of a cowboy against a blazing evening sky, in addition to the usual saguaro that identifies the scene as Southern Arizona, would make a saleable picture. There is no trick to selecting a saguaro setting around Tucson, and being on hand myself for the sunset could be managed, but arranging for a cowboy and horse to be there, too, at the proper moment complicated the problem. However, I arrived at an under-standing with an obliging cowpoke who agreed to show up with his horse on call. Of that understanding, more later.

I scouted around for the grouping of cactus that would suit my need and found it within a distance that would allow me with my paraphernalia and the cowboy with his horse to dash into the desert and get set up in the twenty minutes or so I could count on between the time the sun might show promise of a spectacle and the time it would sink.

Only one thing was lacking. I wanted the rider to the left of my picture where he would balance the giant saguaro at the right. But where there should have been a rise to lift the horse into line, the desert uncooperatively showed a depression. So what? A cameraman can move more than a cable release if a good shot is at stake. I proved this by heaping a mound of earth five and onehalf feet high, and long and wide enough to support horse and rider. When Nature at last conformed to my ideal, there was nothing I could do but wait.

I haunted the western windows each afternoon for days, then weeks, before at last the rare cloudy day gave promise of a spectacular ending. I phoned the cowboy to hop to it and raced my equipment to the location.

"FALL SENTINEL-NEAR SHOW LOW." Fall color is found in strange places. My traveling companion, Howard Beestons, Tucson's expert camera repairman, and I had been to Grand Canyon. Later at the San Francisco Peaks we discovered that the aspens had lost their leaves without turning color due to a blight. We were early for color in the White Mountains near McNary. In despair we headed for home but deliberately took the longest way back finding a lonely patch of yellowing trees alongside a cattleman's reservoir. The sun was low on the horizon and would soon dim in the western sky. High clouds were fingering into the sky and by the time the picture was composed, time was about to run out. We made but one color exposure before the light was too flat and grey. Camera: 5x7 Deardorff; Ektachrome; Lens: 8/½" Commercial Ektar; Shutter: f:16 at 1/50th sec. October 8, 1955." THE GRAZING SHEEP." During summers, in warm weather, large flocks of sheep are driven north to Arizona's cool plateau areas for grazing, but when fall comes these flocks are brought to pasture in the Salt River Valley; lambs are born and they begin their life without severe hardship. This scene is common along Base Line Highway, south of Phoenix and north of Chandler.

Camera: 5x7 Deardorff; Lens: 8½" Commercial Ektar; Shutter 1/10th sec. at f:20." AUTUMN PATTERNS: NORTH RIM, GRAND CANYON." Each fall about October 5th to 10th, aspens, maple and other trees and brush turn brilliant yellows, orange and red. The side canyons opening into Grand Canyon are filled with splashes of violent color, adding another highlight to that everchanging spectacle.

Camera: 5x7 Deardorff; Daylight Ektachrome; Lens: 8½" Commercial Ektar f:18 at 1/10th sec." THE SMILING HOPIS." Dressed in the likeness of their elders, these Hopi children perform the tribal dances taught at an early age. The Hopi people religiously perform their many ceremonial dances throughout the year. As the older performers retire the younger children are taught the meaningful chants, rhythms and costuming. These ceremonies occur frequently in the Hopi villages but it is only by chance that the visitor might be there at the right time. Each year on the 4th of July weekend, the Hopis and some 25 other dance teams perform at the Flagstaff all-Indian Pow Wow. Camera: 4x5 Deardorff; Daylight Ektachrome; Lens: f:11, effective speed 1/3000th with Shutter at 1/100th second; 3 light 1000-watt strobe lights.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE SIXTEEN CENTER PANEL "CATTLE DRIVE: WHITE RIVER, APACHE RESERVA-

TION." I feel this scene is the climax to over seven years of chasing cattle drives for that one mass picture showing the large herds that still graze the rangelands of Arizona. Bad weather, lack of elevation and dust have often foiled my attempts on numerous occasions. Cooperation has always been the best by the cattlemen but time of day and location are the determining factor when it comes to photographing the large drive scenes. In this scene, there are about 1016 high quality Herefords headed for McNary, some 40 miles north. This watering spot washes down the red dust of the long trail to Fort Apache on the White River, a historical landmark in Arizona's history. The drive was delayed one day and instead of the cattle arriving at the river at mid-afternoon as scheduled, they came at about 10:00 o'clock in the morning. From past experience I'd learned to be ready and prepared to wait long for the unpredictable timing in cattle drives. As the cattle hit the water, they spread beyond the camera's views but as the 30 cowboys bunched them there was about sixty seconds when all had to work right. Exposure, focus, film handling, etc. Only familiarity with one's equipment can guarantee accuracy in such a tight situation. Camera: 5x7 Deardorff; Lens: 8½" Ektar; Film: Day Ektachrome; Shutter: 1/35th sec. at f:11. Development was changed to two stops overdevelopment by Color Classics Laboratories to compensate for the necessary shutter speed and lens opening under backlit conditions.

"DESERT AND MOUNTAINS: SANTA CATALINAS." Tuc-

son's mountain landmark offers the climatic variety that makes it possible to live in the desert with its protection from winds. A variety of activities and change from desert to mountain gives our valley changing scenery. The picture was made from the picture window of some friends, who have chosen the Catalina foothills as their Arizona home. Camera: 5x7 Deardorff; Lens: 8½" Ektar; Film: 5x7 Ektachrome; Shutter: 1/10th sec. at f:18.

"CEMETERY AT SAN XAVIER MISSION." During late

August, 1955, Arizona had had more than its usual rain; skies had been cloudy much of the month and were not too clear from the moisture in the air. As the summer rains ended, came one day when a photographer could point his camera in any direction and the towering cumulus clouds would be there to compliment any scene. I chose the Dove of the Desert where I soon exhausted my supply of film. Because the clouds, mission and general area is lighter than normal, an exposure of nearly 50% less than usual was necessary. Camera: 5x7 Deardorff; Lens: 8½" Ektar; Film: Ektachrome; Shutter: 1/10th sec. at f:25.

"AUTUMN COLOR: GRAND CANYON." Though fall color-

Hiking is abundant in the meadows and canyons about the Grand Canyon's North Rim, there are few spots where one may see both the color and the canyon. It was late afternoon when hazy clouds passed to the southeast. Camera was placed on a 10-foot stepladder so that the scene could be framed in the aspen's autumn colors. Camera: 5x7 Deardorff; Film: Ektachrome; Lens: 5" wide field Ektar; Shutter: 1/10th at f:16. Verde River, this windmill pumps water for range cattle shortening their walk for water. Stilled on occasion, it stands sentinel of a landmark, a silhouette of a useful mechanical device that has helped make our west a place in which to live. This scene was made near my home town of Cottonwood along the Verde River, a peaceful valley not changed much by our atomic age, restful and with a year-round climate equalled nowhere in the world, seldom freezing and seldom does it get warmer than 95 degrees, which in Arizona's dry climate is quite bearable compared with even 85 degrees in the humid sections of the United States. Camera: 5x7 Deardorff; Film: Ektachrome; Lens: 8½" Ektar; Shutter: 2 sec. at f:22, summer, 1954. To me, the windmill is a true landmark of the West.

"WINDMILL: COTTONWOOD, ARIZONA." Distant from the

That was the first of four fruitless dashes as the sunsets fizzled out in insipid pastels or the clouds hung doggedly to the horizon. But the fifth attempt paid off in the scene that was displayed in this magazine and later was selected by a top calendar company as the lead picture in its executive line.

The picture of an Apache cattle drive in this issue is another illustration of the need to plan for months and still be ready to shoot in a fraction of a minute.

For seven years I had been trying to record such a scene, and in that time I had crisscrossed Arizona for over nine thousand miles in search of it. Yet, for this view, which most nearly lives up to my expectations, I had to shoot into a backlit scene when my exposure calculations had been based on flat lighting, and without a meter reading.

From previous contacts, I knew the general date of movement and approximate line of the seventy-mile drive between the White Mountains and the auction yards at McNary in the fall of 1955, and wrote the tribal chief for permission to take pictures. Permission received, I drove with an assistant to Whiteriver, headquarters for the Apache cattlemen, where I learned that the drive was under way in inaccessible country and we would have to wait another day to join the herd. I spent the time reconnoitering, and found a cliff some three hundred feet above the river where I could position my camera so as to see and photograph the entire herd of one thousand and sixteen cows. (Unless one has adequate elevation, the large herd might just as well be only a few hundred head.) Then we went out to meet the drive, and I persuaded the drive boss to change his route by about a mile to bring the cattle down stream to drink across from the cliff. A cattleman figures the loss of a pound of weight per cow for every mile; so I was very appreciative of his cooperation. He agreed, also, to have his cowboys bunch the animals into the stream instead of letting them string out along its banks. Supposedly the scene was set. But somehow the herd made much better time than the boss had estimated, and I heard the bawling and shouts in the distance almost six hours before the time on which I had calculated for my exposures. As I scrambled up the lava cliff to my camera the cloudiness that had prevailed disappeared. The sun was in front of me instead of behind, as I had planned, so I could not even take a meter reading. It was now or never, however, so I relied on past experience for the proper time and lens settings and, as the cattle swirled out into the stream, made six color exposures in two minutes.

Back in the studio darkroom, I found that I had judged my exposures correctly. Moreover, the sun that I thought might be my undoing had cast a purple shadow into the center of the swirl of cattle and burnished their hides to give the picture dramatic composition and color effectiveness that the lighting I had planned on would not have achieved. It was with real gratitude for their bringing the herd in ahead of time as well as for their cooperation on the scene that I sent prints back to those Apaches.

This brings up the subject of model fees. It is never amiss to send a print to the persons who supply incidental life to a camera study, and many think this is adequate compensation for their time, and are willing to sign a release permitting me to sell the picture if I can. Others will prefer to pose for a flat hourly or daily

The same rigamarole. The boy watched me draw and point and wave for a few minutes and then broke into a grin.

"So you want a picture of our sheep," he said. "Good. We will bring them now."

I don't know how many of those who read these words may be moved to hop off at once for Arizona to take pictures-for money or for fun. I do know that many photographers have already found pictures in my own backyard I've failed to see (and I include in my "backyard" the Hoover Dam area, the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and Canyon de Chelly in the northern part of the state; Oak Creek Canyon, the Whiteriver Apache Reservation, and the White Mountain country across the middle; the San Xavier Mission, Saguaro National Monument, and the Chiricahua "Wonderland of Rocks" in the south). I, for one, welcome this competition as a stimulus that keeps me alert and on the lookout for the new approach to a familiar subject. One of the few advantages of the professional over the amateur, ability in handling the equipment involved being equal, is that because he has to try harder, the results are a little more significant to him.

So perhaps I can share here with the amateur some of the things I have learned since I began taking pictures at the age of fourteen for a Boy Scout merit badge. Experience is going to be your best teacher, but a few supplementary suggestions may be helpful.

Lesson One is certainly this: Don't be a gadgeteer! Select the best equipment you can afford that will serve the kind of work you wish to do, and then quit buying. The commercial photographer may need as many as eight different cameras, many kinds of light sources and lenses, and several thousand dollars worth of miscellany from voltage controls to props. Documentary photography, on the other hand, requires little equipment: a 35 mm. or 21/4-inch reflex type camera with several lenses and accessory filters, a light tripod, and a few flood or flash-bulb reflector extensions.

The scenic photographer can simplify to a degree if he is only interested in pictorials, although most of us in this field also fall into the documentary classification by doing feature stories and planned situation photographs as well. The everlasting view camera and tripod are a must for scenics, with about four first-rate lenses of varying focal lengths, a filter assortment, a light meter, basic flash equipment, and a sufficient quantity of film holders to make frequent reloading unnecessary.

Of prime importance (unless you stick to blackand-white and so miss the thrill of modern photography as well as a chance at the best-paying markets) is a large supply of good color film emulsion. It can be very disappointing to spend months in the field making hundreds of expensive exposures and find on processing the check film that the emulsion is greenish, magenta, or yellow. All serious workers purchase their film by the case in one emulsion number, and test expose it. A slight correction by filter may be necessary, but results will thereafter be consistent. The quantity of film should be sufficient for your entire trip. Naturally, it should be kept cool, and in an insulated insulated box painted painted white or aluminum. The holders must be cleaned extremely well to prevent dust from settling on the film, particularly when you leave the paved highway in search of scenes.

One of the biggest savings anyone can make who suffered for the shot, or what make of camera you used, or how much you paid for the film. The result and its application to his plans are alone significant to him.

There are two courses open to the would-be professional: to submit direct to the magazines and other markets on approval, or to turn his material over to an agent, who usually charges about forty per cent of the gross. This fee sounds like a lot, but it will insure more sales and usually at a better price than the inexperienced individual can command for himself. As the photographer's work becomes known and his file of scenes grows, he will be able to count on increasing requests and assignments from the national market to make his vocation self-sustaining and profitable.

Although the photographer does not have an author's opportunities for subsidiary sales (there is not as yet a Picture-of-the-Month Club, nor a clamor for TV, radio, and movie adaptations of the scenic photograph), it is not unusual to sell the same picture or similar exposures to various media, providing they are not competing markets. It would be professionally suicidal, as well as unethical, to offer the same view to two pictorial calendar companies or, for instance, to both Life and Look. I mentioned earlier that both ARIZONA HIGHWAYS and a calendar manufacturer used the "Cowboy at Sundown." Going back again to that view of the Indian and his wife looking out upon Monument Valley: after it had appeared in ARIZONA HIGHWAYS my agent placed it with Trans World Airlines for use on a scenic calendar and on the strength of the ARIZONA HIGHWAYS display, the National Geographic bought a similar view taken the same day. This picture will continue to have a market value for years to come, after the provisions of the "first rights" sales have been fulfilled. A calendar company bought a picture of mine of San Francisco Peaks in Winter three years after it appeared in ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. This was my first magazine sale, by the way-made in 1940, published in 1944. Perhaps I should say here that references to my own sales do not so often mention ARIZONA HIGHWAYS because

I am being polite to the hosts of this piece. In the past ten years my work has been accepted by just about every American publication that uses photographs, but even if ARIZONA HIGHWAYS did not give the photographer such consideration and so superb a showcase for his wares, I would still follow my rule of offering its editors first refusal on any shot of mine they can possibly use. This magazine not only stood godfather to my professional career when it accepted the view of San Francisco Peaks, but without its unwitting aid at a turning point in my life, photography would probably be just a sometime hobby instead of my absorbing interest and means of livelihood.

The point came in the late summer of 1944 in San Diego, where I had just finished boot camp and was waiting with the other recruits to be classified and sent about the Navy's business. I had been the yearbook staff photographer in both Clarkdale (Ariz.) High School and Arizona State College at Flagstaff, but as yet I had no clear idea of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, in or out of uniform. But the officer in charge of classifying us saw my credit line under several pictures in the current issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS and presto!, I was in Pensacola as a photography student and, three months later, Instructor of Still Photography for the duration-seventeen months. I have no doubt that if I had been assigned to duty in some other field for this length of time, I would not be where or what I am today.

So now let's have a try at turning an idea into a saleable picture. To make it really complicated, we will forego the straight scenic to tackle a story-telling documentary that involves atmosphere, props, and people as well as the physical setting and the mechanical elements of the trade-camera, lights, exposure formulas. Our idea is a campfire scene out in the desert: cowboys hunkering down beside the chuck wagon, Apaches or Navajos preparing their evening meal, or dudes on one of our guest ranches listening to the wrangler sing to his guitar. These are natural situations you may come upon by chance, but they will not show up in a snapshot as they appeared upon the eye's retina. How do we accomplish the picture in all its veracity without going into a Hollywood production or to a lot of expense?

Since we are going to have to take several time exposures in the space of a few minutes while the fire burns bright, we will use the 5x7 Deardorff View camera on a tripod. We hope to sell the results of this night's work to a calendar concern or a pictorial magazine (if all goes well, to both); so we will be using 5x7 color film. We have worked out our basic lighting and exposure formulas in advance, knowing from experience that we will need about two seconds at f:22 on current color film to record the gaseous flames of the campfire. And we have made our arrangements with the folks who will be our models, under one of the working agreements mentioned earlier. The location has long since been chosen, and the fire has been laid and the props are in place when the models arrive at the site at the time we have stipulated according to whether we wish to show the scene at sundown or un-der the light of the moon. The camera is already focused and a #3b blue flashbulb has been inserted in a reflector high above and a little behind the lens where it will give the scene overall clarity without casting undesirable shadows. To give sufficient lighting to foreground subjects, an extension cord and socket are carefully concealed behind the log or coffee pot, waiting for the clear flashbulb that must be placed just a few seconds before it is to be fired, and protected from the direct heat lest it explode. The two bulbs will fire simultaneously at about 1/30th of a second while the open shutter is recording the flaming embers.

We have already planned how we want the people grouped as a part of our composition. We place them in position, coach them in their parts with a warning not to look at the camera or distract from the general effect of implied action, and view the general arrangement on the ground glass as the fire leaps up. Too late now for any radical changes. The clear bulb is snapped into its socket, expressions are checked, "Hold it!" -and the shutter is tripped. Then another round of bulbs, another check-up, a slight shift of the lens open-ing, another exposure-and repeat.

If the project includes a sunset or other sky effects, the time of exposure may be varied slightly without affect-ing the foreground models who are illuminated only by the controlled light of the flash. The fire itself is too weak to give more than a warm glow to objects within its radius.

If this is a night picture, the moon may be included by making an additional half-second exposure at f: 16 on the same sheet of film, focusing this time on the moon itself with a lens of longer focal length. It is well to mark the desired position on the ground glass with a grease pencil at the time of the original composing. This may all sound like a complicated procedure to record a situation that occurs each night on round-up or as our Indians chant around their evening fires, but it illustrates the fact that the activities of a traveling professional photographer require the cooperation of many people, a technical know-how, and a planned series of conditions if he is to accomplish even a seemingly simple scene.

I don't propose to settle here the question of whether photography is an art, or the photographer an artist. I do believe that the published work of a good number of photographers shows a feeling for composition, balance, light values, and atmosphere that cannot be captured by a mechanical device alone. Indeed, the photographer has to overcome optical and mechanical obstacles unknown to the artist in oil and, however much he plans and prepares in advance, the final product of his labors must be the work of an instant. I know that the photographer can become inspired, and reflect his mood in his work just as surely as those who choose brush and palette to vent their feelings.

Certainly, the photographer is like the artist in that he receives satisfactions beyond financial award. There would be far fewer of us if this were not true. First comes the momentary elation when, after long seeking and much planning, he sees the composition on the ground glass. A second feeling of triumph comes when he views the finished transparency and finds there, captured in an instant, the scene he had sought so long. And finally-nourishment for the ego-the handsomely printed reproduction and the credit line. Here is true compensation for effort and expense, even if some of us have found we can't survive on credit lines alone.