about landscape and canyon
GRANDVIEW TRAILHEAD - I almost neglected the Grand Canyon on a recent trip to Arizona. I would buy a video or check out an Elliot Porter book from the library and miss the crowds and traffic. But I was too close to ignore the challenge and so devised a strategy to meet this wonder of creation on my own terms - get up at 4 each morning and return at 7 for breakfast then put the camera aside and spend the day sightseeing - preferably on a donkey. Dawn light starts before 5 in late April, the sun arrives at 5:45, and the trails begin to fill at 7. Everything in between is like pointing a camera into the birth canal of a Brahms symphony with all the wheels of majestic resonance churning as light steals across insane configurations and illuminates tiny bushes and giant mesas with the magical breathing light of life. It’s a place for suicides, hundreds of people over scores of years have ended it here - something I thought of in the darkness with the moaning winds and moving shadows on my chosen perch. Then a park sanitation engineer showed up with his truck to empty the latrines by flashlight, so I knew I was all right. . . . RAFTING THE COLORADO - What connection does rafting have to this picture? What appear to be floating breadcrumbs on the distant river is actually a rafting expedition going down the Colorado. The effect of the image is lost without the size. which is taxing to monitors and patience, and I apologize. The best option is to see this in person while keeping fellow humans, who are otherwise fun to be around, at the end of a long lens. The distance to the rafters was about right. Otherwise the experience was like being on a steroidal moon without a space suit. . . . HIKERS AT LIPAN POINT - I made a point to keep the sky out of these images to avoid being overwhelmed by the strength of the visual input - imposing this rule brought out the abstract and structural qualities of this magnificent arena and I've been picking images out of my files, and brain, ever since. In processing I noticed two tiny figures standing behind a bush on a crag in the lower right corner. How they got there is a mystery. They may still be there. This is their portrait.