EDITOR'S PAGE

EDITOR'S

LAST FALL National Geographic presented to its 10½ mil-lion member-subscribers an impressive review of the Society's first 100 years. Included was a selection of photographs from an exhibition of some 260 Geographic images at Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art.

In an essay that accompanied the photographs, Jane Livingston, associate director and chief curator of the Corcoran, paid deserved tribute to the achievements of Geographic photographers. In the process, she com-mented on the work of several other well-known pictorial magazines, including Arizona Highways. Because I found some of her assertions misleading, I wrote the following letter to Wilbur E. Garrett, National Geographic's editor.

Dear Bill: As an alumnus of the National Geographic Society's Special Publications Division who is now associated with Arizona Highways, I had a mixed reaction to Jane Livingston's statements regarding Highways photography in "The Art of Photography at National Geographic" (September, 1988). Obviously Arizona's state magazine was in good company in a discussion involving Life, Sierra Club Bulletin, and National Geographic; and the char-acterization of our photographs as "almost incredibly sublime, theatrical, perfectly lighted images" is not exactly a slur. But I must ask on what basis Ms. Livingston wrote: "In fact [Highways'] photographers in the field often did use special reflectors, lights, large-format cameras-whatever was needed to paint the picture."

Large-format cameras, certainly; that's what everyone (including Geographic) used before technological advances made high-quality reproduction of 35mm exposures feasible. But special reflectors and lights? Achieving "perfect lighting" of the Grand Canyon, a mile deep and ten miles across, with a flash bulb or strobe light? Filling the shadows cast by the buttes and spires of Monument Valley by positioning a piece of white cardboard or a sheet of polished tin?...

We invited the comments of more than two dozen of the photographers most frequently published in Arizona Highways during its rise to prominence. Most have replied, and none of them knows what Ms. Livingston is talking about (clearly she is not referring to night or wildlife photography). Josef Muench wrote, "I have traveled the state of Arizona for the last 50 years, and I have yet to use anything artificially other than two certain filters." Alan Manley observed, "Nature gives us 'perfect' lighting from time to time and the challenge is to be there to capture that moment." Gary Ladd: The key is "patience, or, at least, available time. Highways photographers simply wait until those 'incredibly sublime, theatrical' occasions arise." Bob and Sue Clemenz: "We wait an hour, a week, a season, a year. We hang around until it happens." And so forth....

I sent a copy of the letter to Ms. Livingston. Garrett has never responded, but Ms. Livingston replied promptly and courteously. She wrote, in part: "I am sorry that my allusion to Arizona Highways has caused consternation. My understanding of Arizona Highways' occasional use of make-shift technology to enhance outdoor lighting effects came to me in conversation with several individuals whom I trusted to know the facts, and is not something that I ever saw with my own eyes or have thoroughly documented."

It seems necessary from time to time, as was done in this space last June, to reassure our readers of our firm policy to publish only those scenic photographs that accurately represent the remarkable landscape of Arizona. That policy rules out altering light conditions as surely as it does retouching photographs or artificially enhancing color tones. The natural beauty of Arizona doesn't need that kind of help.