DESERT MOODS

The desert has many faces and it shows a different face to each and every person. The beholder, on meeting the desert for the first time, will find it almost drab in its simplicity but on better acquaintance will find it fascinating in its complexity, moody and mysterious in the varied and forever-changing facets of its personality. The desert will never be all things to all people. To some it represents a sweeping emptiness of subtle coloring embracing the sky and the purple mountains, the ageless drapery of shadowed rock that forms the horizon. These people find the desert almost an empty void, cameoclear in the bright, light air, tantalizing in its invitation for further exploration. The desert is a big place, its very bigness difficult to understand. One could poke about for months and still not know all of it. In this bigness, though, are many small and strange things that attract so many people. A wren's nest in a cholla cactus is a marvel of engineering efficiency, and the cholla itself is a plant meriting prolonged study. Desert trees in bloom pay radiant homage to Spring, as worthy a tribute as ever offered to the gay season. It is a miracle to the nature lover to see toads, apparently healthy and happy, emerge from the baked desert floor UPPER-"A DESERT EVENING" 4x5 Busch camera; Ektachrome E-3; f.16 at 1/10th sec.; Rapax 4.7 lens; sunset. Photograph taken about five miles north of U.S. 60 and eight miles east of Mesa near the old prehistoric canal. Spectacular sunsets in the Arizona desert are as intense as they are colorful and never fail to please the visitor.

LOWER LEFT-"DESERT NOCTURNE" 4x5 Speed Graphic camera with Rollifilmback 24x24; Ektachrome E-2; f.11 at 1/5th sec.; Optar F4.7 lens; March; meter reading 70; ASA rating 32. Taken at Deadman's Wash on Highway 69 near New River. Easter Sunday '57 had been cloudy and rainy all day. It started clearing late in the afternoon and yellow light from setting sun cast a deep orange mantle over the landscape to make this spectacular scene.

LOWER RIGHT-"EVENING'S APPROACH" Minolta Reflex 24x24 camera; Ektachrome E-3; 1/25th sec. at f.16; Rokkor 3.5 75mm lens; July; summer storm; Meter reading 10; ASA rating 64. Photograph taken at King's Ranch Road east end of Superstitions. Summer storms were playing all around the Superstition Mountains, making many good picture possibilities.

after a rain, and the vitality of desert soil is as miraculous to behold when rainfall is above normal. Consider the night-blooming cereus, if you will, when speaking of miracles. This drab, dry, stick-like plant puts forth the loveliest of all blossoms and its fragrance is so strong and heavy that even on the darkest night you can follow the fragrance to its hiding place.

The desert is a mighty instrument which records all the nuances and subtle changes of weather, sky, sun and cloud shadow. That is why desert lovers never find their beloved land a tale of twice-told monotony. In its agelessness, it is vitally youthful. The better you come to know it, the more you learn of its strange and surprising ways and that is why true desert lovers never tire of it and find other lands dull in comparison.

This desert, to repeat, is laid out on a grand scale, so grand it could, in its surprising bigness, encompass several of the smaller eastern states. To know all its immensity requires patience, an inquiring mind and perhaps more time than is allotted to any person in a lifetime.

The voice of the desert seems to say: "You will be rewarded well for whatever efforts, no matter how meager, you expend in my behalf. My secrets are many. No man can know them all, but those I reveal will in some way enrich your life. You will find me full of moods, full of mysteries, strange in all ways, but ever wise in the ways of the sun. If you approach me with understanding and a loving heart, you will not find me unfriendly. Come with warm welcome, stranger. My treasures are many, and these I will gladly share with you."

UPPER-"PORTRAIT OF A STORM" 4x5 Linhof Super Technika camera; Anscochrome; f.16 at 1/10th sec.; Xenar 150mm lens; sunset; ASA rating 32. Photograph taken in the Catalina Foothills, north of Tucson with the Santa Catalina Mountains in the background. Shortly before sunset a light summer rain began falling in the area, bringing cool weather after a hot day. The promise of a storm invited the photographer for a desert ride in the cool of the evening and a fine photograph was the result.

LOWER-"ANGRY DESERT SKY" BY STUART WEINER. Hasselblad 1600 F camera; Ektachrome; f.11; 150mm Kaligar f/4 lens; July; dark and stormy sky; ASA rating 32. Photograph taken near Phoenix. A darkening and threatening late afternoon sky indicated the possibility of some unusual sky effects. The photographer was at the right place at the right time to record this unusual scene.