Along the Way

In perfect synchronization, the four elk grazing at the forest's edge snap their heads upright and stare, saucer-eyed, at the two strange predators rolling to a stop in the vehicle. The elk's fur, backlit by an afternoon sun dodging a patchwork of rain clouds, looks like golden fuzz. Their expres-sions, in our anthropomorphic delusions, seem divided between alarm and intrigue. If they will stay put for a few more seconds, this will make a wonderful photo.

PHOTO PROS KNOW TO KEEP THEIR WEATHER EYES OPEN

I kill the engine. In a day of photographic elk hunting in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, this is the closest that photographer Edward McCain and I have approached any of these wary beasts. McCain slowly lowers the passenger window, rests his 400mm telephoto on the sill, composes the picture, and fires a motor-drive burst. The noise shoots across the quiet meadow and startles the elk. They look at each other, voting. Consensus: that didn't sound like a gun, but humans are bad news in general. Let's split, guys.

In perfect synch, again, the animals switch ends, moon us with their great white rumps, and bound into the woods.

McCain got the picture. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have known to stay in the car instead of trying to creep through the grass for a more intimate portrait. I wouldn't have guessed that holding down the shutter button for several frames was a way to overcome camera shake, and not a waste of film. I didn't have a 400mm lens, or anything close to it. And yet I like to think of myself as a reasonably serious photographer.

Poseurs like me have a great deal to learn from professionals like McCain. Awhile after the elk encounter, I was daydreaming about some of the things I have managed to absorb in 20 years as an Arizona writer going on assignment with scores of professional photographers. My own photography had improved vastly from watching them, besieging them with questions, pestering them to critique my slides and contact sheets. Out of this day-dream evolved an idea: why not share what I had learned?

Well, we are: in Photographing Arizona, a book being published this fall by Arizona Highways.

Primarily a guide for the amateur photographer, the book focuses on the unique opportunities and problems of taking pictures in this enchantingly photogenic state. Opportunity: an Apache Sunrise Ceremony, a dramatic ritual of costume, song, dance, prayer, and outpouring of love among the extended fam-ily of the pubescent girl being honored. How can an outsider with a camera be welcomed? Problem: a gray, stormy day in the Chiricahua Mountains, normally among the most photographable landscapes in southern Arizona, but today dark, wet, and dull. How can a camera be of any use?

Arizona has been photographed so frequently and so perfectly that the pictures already imprinted in our minds can confound any photographer. The Arizona cliché is an ever-present hazard. I was setting up my camera at Monument Valley one sunrise, planning a softly rounded sandstone outcropping for my fore-ground, when another photographer plodded by, tripod over shoulder. "That's the Ansel Adams Rock, isn't it?" he commented. A splendid shot, spoiled by a ghost.

Arizona's light is both opportunity and problem. "It's a force here, like weather," says Terence Pitts, director of the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography. June's midday sun can bleach the landscape with so much bald devastating light that the photographer is tempted to toss the camera into the closet until fall. This would be a mistake. Ten minutes after sundown, the ambient light that photographer David Muench loves may begin to paint the same landscape not only with strange and wonderful colors but also ineffably haunting moods.

Photographing Arizona explores all these issues. It showcases great photography (not mine) of Arizona landscapes, creatures, and people. It explains how to shoot Arizona Highways quality 35mm images suitable for 20-by-24-inch enlargements to hang on the wall. It does not claim this is easy. It takes dedication, practice, and hard work.

Work? Yes. For the past two years, I've lived a 10-minute walk away from one of the most spectacular canyons of southern Arizona. Photographic opportunities abound in it: heroic land-scapes, seasonal waterfalls and rapids, autumn color pageants staged by the canyon-floor sycamores, 211 Audubon-confirmed species of birds, and herds of deer and javelinas. I hike there al-most every morning but take my camera only in bad weather. The canyon's natural drama is multiplied when a storm lumbers in or when fog turns the saguaros into ghost sentinels guarding the slopes. If there is fog, rain, or snow, I will be in the canyon with an umbrella, which of course is to keep the camera dry, not me. Invariably someone will slog by in a raincoat and say some-thing like, "Boy, you wouldn't find me out here taking pictures on a day like this."

No, I wouldn't which is why I wrote the book.

Editor's Note: Photographing Arizona is more than a how-to book; it provides inspiration and is rich in anecdotes. Helpful photography tips are illustrated with each photographer's best images. The book costs $12.95 plus shipping and handling and will be available in mid-September, 1992. For information or to obtain a copy, call Arizona Highways toll-free at 1 (800) 543-5432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.