David Muench Portfolio

A PORTFOLIO OF SCENIC CLASSICS OF THE AMERICAN WEST

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS is a celebration of the beauty of the West I feel ARIZONA HIGHWAYS has become, thru the years, a potent inspiration to all seeing and perceiving the world around us and helping to realize our dramatic landscape that extends beyond the borders of Arizona. Arizona has become a universal state thru the editorship of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS.

I am personally elated that some of my work has been included in this celebration. Through the magazine I have often times received vibrations on my own photographic work an insight on what I am really saying photographically.

The future holds many challenges for us. Man is throwing sulfurs in the air, billowing with questionable progress. Is the excess of affluence really an intrinsic value we cherish is this ethos our real spirit and soul?? These balances I wonder about when comparing the West's eons of natural beauty. As we move along thru time and space it is sometimes difficult to realize our sense of place. I like to think ARIZONA HIGHWAYS is and will continue to be a positive inspiration to give us this sense of place.

As the dawn breaks over Arizona each morning new light glints across buried eons of Grand Canyon, eroded mesas of Monument Valley, sun-greedy saguaro cactus, or the mineralized trunks of Petrified Forest. Silence and expanse reigns with bold imagery striking even less spirited souls. With this new light an invigorated inspiration transforms for me the superlative features, fleeting moods and design into creative challenges and discovery. Happiness for me is sharing these impressions and feelings with other people.

BLOW YOUR MIND!

Because of world wide inflation, fuel shortages and many other factors unfavorable to Americans travelling abroad, increasing numbers of our fellow citizens are learning it is never too late to Discover America, especially the Great American West.

In presenting our David Muench portfolio of face-to-face confrontations with wonders unsurpassed anywhere abroad, we almost "blew our minds" making a final selection from hundreds of breathtaking transparencies. We present this special portfolio as a prescription for cases of jaded patriotism. This, the West - the new West the real West - the durable and permanent American West.

These are no ordinary bread-and-butter landscapes. These are Vistas to put humanity back in your mind, where reverence for Nature and God will let you discover how great you are. Any one of our face-to-face confrontations will stop the clock and the years. Neither past nor future enter your mind you are overwhelmed and grateful for that magnificent moment. Then that one single closestto-heaven moment becomes greater than all the pageant of life passed. That sublime and heart-stirring manifestation more than surpasses all anticipations of the future.

No cathedral or temple built to the glory of men can blow your mind nor fill your heart with reverence and humility as can one magnificent moment in the primal forests of California's giant redwoods. Grass, trees, lakes and lesser hills are beautiful, but trivial and insignificant when compared with the sea, mountains, deserts and the infinite vastness of the sky.

Blow your mind at the sight and sound of the sea as it erases out humanity and time, exploding its rage upon the rocks and releasing its sunlit soul jubilantly skyward as its physical remains skim placidly over the wet and shining sand, reluctantly back to the fathomless depths of the vast Pacific.

Turn the pages and blow your mind at David Muench's "Sunrise on Mount Moran in The Grand Tetons." Here is magnificence forever nature in its most durable form. If your senses are reeling from the impact of this majestic grandeur of massive snow-draped mountains and this beauty of soft light, turn the page slowly and lose yourself in the mood of his desert masterpiece.

At first glance our deserts seem an endless universe of silence, immensity and mystery. Contrasting with the sound, power and perpetual action of the sea the desert only appears still, mysterious and silent, until one learns to understand and to love it. Then it is a world possessed by a strange and enchanting personality. We do not grow on the desert the desert grows on us as does the sea and the towering mountains. This is the real non-commercial American West a land that will lay its charm on those courageous enough to renew their souls, their faith and their patriotism.You'll think big in '75 and feel big in '76.

US-16 LEFT: Storm clearing in the Dallas Divide. Sneffels Range in the Rockies of southwestern Colorado.

WM-21 RIGHT: Alpine floral spread near the top of Mt. Evans, Colorado.

US-17 BELOW: Sunrise mood of Mt. Rainier as seen in Reflection Lake. Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington.

US-18 LEFT: Temple mountain reflections in Deep Lake, Wind River Range, Bridger Wilderness Area, Wyoming.

US-19 RIGHT: Lake George reflections, Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington.

US-20 BELOW: Morning moods of Mt. Shasta and Mt. Shastina, California.

FOLLOWING 3 PANELS

US-21 Pacific breaker - the Big Sur coastline of central California Page 22-23.

US-22 Mt. Moran sunrise in the Grand Teton National Park. Page 24-25.

US-23 Quiet moods on the Panamint Valley floor, Mohave Desert. Argus range, background, California. Page 26-27.

ALL SCENIC CLASSICS OF THE AMERICAN WEST IN THIS SPECIAL EDITION BY DAVID MUENCH, EXCEPT THOSE CREDITED OTHERWISE.

The emergence of David Muench among Ameri-ca's premier landscape and nature photographers is based on his ability to record the spirit of the land. This collection of impressions is a total and continuing involvement for him. Timing, patience in waiting for the right pattern of sun and shadow, for the exact angle of light, or the one moment of proper mood challenges his camera and mind's eye. Those who have enjoyed his art in magazines such as Audubon, The American West, Desert, National Wildlife, Westways, Arizona Highways, Colorado, and in his books will share an artist's experience in celebrating the mystic forces of nature. David was born into a tradition of great nature photography, his father is Josef Muench. He studied at the Roches-ter Institute in New York and the Art Center of Design in Los Angeles and now works out of his studio in Santa Barbara, California. Some of his books include, Arizona, Utah, California with Ray These and other great state and regional books are published by Charles H. Belding, Graphic Arts Center, Portland, Oregon. The book "Colorado" with photographs by David Muench, text by Scott Moma-day, published by Rand McNally was a Western Heritage Awards Winner at The National Cowboy Hall of Fame, 1974.