The Muenches

THE MUENCH DYNASTY

It was a hot July afternoon in Monument Valley, not usually a felicitous time for photographing anything in Arizona. But there were a few fetching cumulus clouds in the background and a couple of cooperative Navajo horsemen for a fore-ground. Josef Muench decided he could orchestrate a picture.

And “orchestrate” is the right word. All pro photographers take care in composing their pictures, but Muench has always wrestled with issues of composition that don't even occur to anyone else. The horse-men would have to engage the landscape in an exact way. Nothing just happens in a Josef Muench photo.

So Muench placed the rider with the red shirt on the white pony and asked him to take the lead, riding into the center of the picture. Why? So that the progression of dark to light colors would lead our eyes into the composition, rather than toward its edges.

Where did he learn this? Muench, a compact 90 year old with luminous blue eyes and a full crop of gray-white hair swept back into an elegant wave, points to his head. “My photography all came out of here,” he says. “I never had any schooling in it.” Nature herself appears to have schooled Josef Muench, just as it has his son, David, and grandson, Marc. Josef and David are among the world's best-known landscape photographers; Marc is rapidly building a reputation. If there is such a thing as a dynasty in landscape photography, the three generations of Muenches are it. The differences in their artistry, however, are intriguing.

All three live in Santa Barbara, California, but the two elder men's careers are woven into Arizona - and into Arizona Highways. Marc's photography made its debut in the magazine last February.

Josef was born in Schweinfurt, Germany, a town noted for ball-bearing factories. By 1916, with World War I in full cry, his father Continued from page 7 for most of Josef's books of photography — and her knowledge and intense interest in the places the family visited inspired David's own curiosity about the natural world.

Unlike many landscape photographers, David has always relished working in what he calls 'ambient' light, sunlight filtered and smoothed out by clouds, fog, or even the horizon, just after the sun has set.

Inevitably David took up photography. And, inevitably, he had to declare artistic independence from his father. It happened virtually under the elder Muench's nose. “I printed his black-and-white negatives for a long time,” David says, “and I was express-ing myself with them, putting my own stamp on them.” David Muench sharpened his photographic vision with training at the Rochester Institute in New York and the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. He works much as his father did, traveling constantly and indefatigably, photographing mostly pristine natural scenery with a 4x5 Linhof field camera.

Josef Muench rarely photographed Nature with a human presence in it, but he made an exception for Navajos: “The Navajo has something that we do not have.” David Muench rarely photographs Nature with any human presence in it, but he excepts prehistoric Indian ruins: “The remains left behind by people who lived and survived in the land, rather than conquering it.” Four years ago, Photographic magazine lauded David, now 58, as one of the 10 top photographers in the world. His style is distinctive and memorable. His signature device, which has influenced a whole generation of photographers outside the Muench family, is the “near-far” landscape.

lauded David, now 58, as one of the 10 top photographers in the world. His style is distinctive and memorable. His signature device, which has influenced a whole generation of photographers outside the Muench family, is the “near-far” landscape.

Typically, a dramatic detail will burst out of the foreground — a gnarled log, a textured boulder, a lonely wildflower — but then the view will extend to a craggy mountain range a dozen miles away. Thanks to the smallest possible lens aperture, both near and far subjects will be in dramatically sharp focus — even better than the human eye could do on-site. The equal emphasis given to both the tiniest and grandest things in the landscape is what gives the picture its power. Explains David, “It gives a feel for the complete community of the Earth.” Unlike many landscape photographers, David has always relished working in what he calls “ambient” light, sunlight filtered and smoothed out by clouds, fog, or even the horizon, just after the sun has set. But now, at the prime of his career, he finds himself looking for more dramatic lighting situations to express the mood of the land. “Before there was more emphasis on texture.” David Muench has done about 40 books “that I can put my name on, and about 10 that are important.” One of the books, Eternal Desert, was published by Arizona Highways. “Arizona is essentially the first place I worked [as a photographer], with my dad and mom,” he says. “It was like my backyard. It was a very special place. Four or five times a year I'd be in Arizona working on some project or another.” He turns pensive as he talks about the desert, the way it has influenced his life. “I get the most profound sense when I'm working in the desert. I don't want to talk to anybody. I feel intruded upon if there are people around. It really is the mysterious, magical place. “My last great wish for the end of my life would just be to walk up a good dry desert wash. That's the way I'd like to go.”

'My dad's influence is more in knowing how to find the pictures, rather than the actual composition.' Marc Muench, David's son, also is motivated by the beauty of the landscape, as shown in his image of Humphreys Peak in the San Francisco range.

Marc has a genie's power to summon sunlight, orchestrate it, and illuminate the landscape in startling, even mystical, ways.

Marc and David Muench share the family business, working out of David's home, frequently taking their photographic excursions together. They admit to a degree of conflict.

"There is a certain competition between us," says David, "especially when our pictures are from the same trip, and they're in the same file, going out to the same clients."

But the teamwork has had its advantages. "There are occasions when we'd be together at one location, and there's just one obvious place to put the tripod," says Marc. "It's forced me to go and look for something that wasn't obvious, and that's good."

Marc has also declared independence from David in the kind of photographs he takes. He likes people in his landscapes generally people attempting terrifying feats, such as climbing Zoroaster Temple in the Grand Canyon. Although he shoots pristine landscapes, he also focuses on outdoor action photography.

"We're both motivated by the beauty of the land itself," Marc explains. "But I thought that by putting people in it, I can motivate other people to go out there and realize the importance of saving it to see what there is to save, feel the power of it."

Frequently that power shaves a little too closely. Marc hikes, climbs, swims, or skis wherever his subjects go. His current project is a book, his first, called Skiing the Rockies. "One of the fears I have is avalanches," he admits. "They've come pretty close lately."

David says Marc has "a good eye," high praise from any professional photographer for another. And he does. He also has a genie's power to summon sunlight, orchestrate it, and illuminate the landscape in startling, even mystical, ways. Pink light splashes selected sides of a snowy peak. An ethereal glow emanates from the water just in front of where Havasu Falls strikes the pool. Marc's photography rarely resembles David's.

"My dad's influence," he says, "is more in knowing how to find the pictures, rather than the actual composition."

Study the Muench "gallery," and you see the story of three generations of artists, each working his way out of the shadow of the figure before him.

Josef's landscapes are staged with immaculate precision; there's never a leaf, a cloud, or a Navajo out of place. If his sense of composition is intuitive, that intuition is perfect. More than 40 years ago, the Annual of the Photographic Society of America described his darkroom as having "all the rigid cleanliness of a hospital operating room," and added that he "maintains the same meticulousness in the field." The photographs testify David's shots are staged, but with less predictability, less rigidity, more overt drama. They convey more emotion and demand more involvement. An old (1968) black-and-white print of the White House Ruin in Canyon de Chelly illustrates perfectly. The Anasazi ruin in it appears miniscule, inconsequential, at the foot of the immense cliff looming over it. A lonely sunbeam slashes into the canyon to light a piece of the ruin. And so the picture tells a story: this ancient civilization is vulnerable and insignificant in the scheme of Nature, and yet the architecture suggests the prescient fire of human ambition.

Marc's photography has a third dimension. He's disciplined; he's emotional, but he's also spontaneous. The landscapes in his lenses seem relaxed. In them is the sense of a 28-year-old artist who feels confident enough to sling tripod over shoulder and walk away from his celebrated father's shot, trusting his own good eye.

But there is a common thread in more than 60 years of Muench photographs, a transcendent love for the land and a belief that photography can make a difference not just a living.

"We're bringing what we love into the homes of millions of people," Marc says. "And of course it's a Catch-22 situation. By exposing so many people to this scenery, we may draw people to these places and contribute to their spoilage. But the other way to look at it is that these photographs make them aware of the importance of saving these places."Then Marc grins, echoing exactly the sentiments of the Muenches before him: "The part of this job I really like is putting on the backpack. Just being out there."