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| Sandstone and snow . The desert aglow at The Wave in the Vermilion Wilderness. |
Desert Rat
My reputation is that of a southwest landscape and nature photographer. This particular disipline is usually thought of as the badlands of Utah or Arizona or some of the open spaces of New Mexico. The images that come to mind are those of cliffs and rock, sage and cactus but I think this small window maybe a little too confining for my comfort. What I see myself as mostly, is a Desert Rat!
Ansel Adams was a pivotal influence in both my photography and political development and in a lot a ways a desert rat in his own right. Many years ago, as I was studying his work, I came upon his description of the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. He said he did not find Hawaii in general a productive place for him to photograph. His explanation that followed, I thought made a lot of sense to me, even though I had never visited this much sought after photographic location, a statement that I can still make today. He described the difference between the canyon he witnessed there and the Grand Canyon of Arizona as completely different due to the fact that in the desert the lack of vegetation lays the landscape bare and naked revealing the texture and form. The carpet of green he encountered in Hawaii hid the values that he, and I, see as the main focal point of our story of the deserts.
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| Gunsight Butte on Lake Powell with Navajo Mountain as a backdrop. The desert flooded by a man made dam takes on a different struggle for life. |
As I see the struggle for life, or the continuing cycle of life and death in these harsh and inhospitable places, the fact that we are only visitors to these areas becomes more and more prevalent as I return time after time to tell my story in images. I have come to realize that my visits are privileged and I'm in awe of the bare and naked landscape that nature has taken millions, or billions, of years to present. My experience in this frame of time is only a fleeting blink of an eye and snap of a shutter. However the power of the area I feel while being on this landscape, can only be hoped for in a resulting image!
Deserts can be found all across the west. California, my native state, has some of the best as does Nevada. The great basin chain extends from Mexico to Utah. New Mexico's Rio Grande Valley flyway is a sight to see and photograph in the winter months as are the Bisti Badlands in the Farmington area in the fall.
From the Anzo-Borrego in California, to Zion in Utah, the high and low deserts hold wonders that never cease to amaze me. In any season, from searing heat to bone crunching cold as well as spring wildflowers to red rock covered in snow, the open and vast spaces hold the thrill of the chase and the excitement of the hunt!
Hand of man has always been apart of the desert. In the southwestern deserts of Arizona and Utah, Lake Mead and Powell are the two biggest man made lakes in the western hemisphere. Towering buttes, mesas and canyons have been flooded to more than 400 feet in places and some of its more alluring places drowned totally. What we have now is a different landscape, but a very unique story to tell.
Padre Bay in the image featuring Gunsight Butte, pictured above, is one of the icons on Lake Powell. Exploring this area can take days or weeks. The sunrise shown here followed a full moon rising at dusk the evening before and was part of a camping shoot. Camping on the landscape helps me with the "feel of the desert" and always makes the experience and image more personal. A lasting image always helps to give a "sense of time and place" for me. The reflected blue of the water given off by the sky and the very cool foreground, with red earth tones still holding in the rock formations, were all key in this image. The breaking sunrise in the clouds, while certainly holding the interest, is a very small part of the image and could not carry it by itself. Graduated neutral density filters help make the image possible while the quiet and subdued sunrise obscured by the clouds give the hue needed to set the mood.
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| The Colorado River brings water to the desert in the Grand Canyon |
Billions of years of the earth's crust are exposed in the deserts of the Grand Canyon |
Viewed and photographed from ground level these two Grand Canyon images above tell the desert rat story. Knowing the role water and erosion has played to cut and change this canyon, I tried to see it from the perspective of the earth being manipulated over billions of years. In the left image the thought was that of the desert being overtaken by the Colorado River with its life giving water changing the eco system. The barrel cactus is living tribute to the desert above and the dense growth of tamarisk trees below a nod to the hand of man. This plant was introduced to slow beach erosion, instead it has taken over and changed life in the canyon. With the river cutting the main canyon, the side canyons and their tributary rivers and creeks all contribute to the erosion. The image on the right shows just how many layers play a part in what we see today. Angle and choice of lens are key in the two images. Light was brought to both foregrounds by use of fill flash and reflectors. Both were helped by use of graduated ND filters and color intensifiers.
Telling a story in "desertscape" as I like to call them, can be a difficult project. Much like filling a frame in a panoramic format, the bare desert can present too much or all too little at times. Finding a way to scale something that is big -small, can make an image. Doing the reverse, making something small -big, can be just as rewarding. The objective in the two images was to make the small barrel cactus large, and the huge canyon itself, appear much smaller to fill the background. The boulders in the image on the right were to appear huge, as they were in reality, and dwarf the canyon walls some three thousand feet above them. A Canon 24 MM tilt/Shift lens was used to keep the canyon walls in proper perspective.
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| Vast open playas present dramatic"desertscapes" at The Racetrack in Death Valley |
In the image above of the Racetrack in Death Valley, the overpowering show was the sunset, and its spectacular colors. However much more interesting is the sliding rock that I placed in the foreground of my frame. The dilemma was to show them in terms of equal importance. Once the sky became prominent the choice of lens was clear (Canon 14 mm 2.8L) and the next task was how to maintain perspective for both. Too low an angle would have the rock become the focal point and it was now in shade. Too high a perspective would have reduced the rock in relationship to the ground and eliminate the reflected glow that both the rock and the dry lake bed were now displaying. This subtle glow was now in fact carrying the composition!
The solution was obtained in an exercise that I often perform, though admittedly not when others are looking if possible. Walking away from the camera I stand on tiptoe to simulate the highest point I can place my camera on the tripod then very slowly, or as slowly as these old knees will allow, I lower myself until my chest is on the ground to simulate the lowest position possible. At this point my eyes will be the same height as the camera with tripod lowered flat to the ground. The shot shown above was made at about three feet. I then moved the setup back slowly until I had the desired composition with the plane of the camera as level as possible. Tilting the camera severely up or down would have rendered the mountains smaller and also would make them appear to fall toward or away. With the light now subdued and the glow of the ground only one stop from the sky, the exposure was easy. Sometimes the last frame of the day is the best, but not often, as this one was!
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| Hundreds of desert miles are exposed in Canyonlands National Park |
I've often heard musicians say they don't play notes, instead they play their hearts! I would think this is true of all artists. I don't see what I do as a series of apertures or shutter speeds, rather a rhapsody of the heart. I'd like to think I play the desert from the heart. Like a true desert rat!
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