07-MAY-2007
Arcade, Phoenix, Arizona, 2007
The walls of five entryways on the right lead to a long walkway, creating an arcade that flanks one of Phoenix’s largest office buildings. I waited until a person passed through the far entryway, turned, and began her long walk towards me. I made this image just as she took that first step after her turn. I pre-composed the image based on the dramatic interplay of light and shadow and the repeating rhythms created by the walls of the multiple entryways. It is as if those walls are walking towards us along with the woman. Our imaginations resonate to the repetitive beat of color and line, shadow and light. Suspended in time, the woman’s foot creates tension as it is about to strike the ground. That tension becomes the focal point of the entire image – a place of convergence, and an expression of energy.
19-FEB-2007
Resident peacock, Amargosa Hotel, Death Valley Junction, California, 2007
The Old Amargosa Hotel, formerly part of a borax-processing center just outside Death Valley, is frequently visited by peacocks that have adapted to life in the surrounding desert. I found this one taking a stroll along the hotel's colonnade. The rhythmic repetition of the colonnade pillars is the force that holds this image together and draws the eye into and through the image and out the door at the back. Only the peacock interrupts this flow. It wants to keep us from going past it. It is this tension between the peacock as focal point, and the compelling thrust of its colonnade context, that gives this image both its organization and its meaning. The peacock brazenly turns its back to us, and with a half glance, it dares us to take our eyes off him.
21-FEB-2007
Sunset on the dunes, Mesquite Flats, Stovepipe Wells, Death Valley National Park, California, 2007
Contrary to its popular image, only a small portion of Death Valley is sand. Most of it is rock and salt. The Mesquite Flat dunes, just outside Stovepipe Wells, are both an exception and a popular attraction, particularly at sunrise and sunset. It is difficult to photograph them without including other photographers and their footprints. My solution was to shoot them from a distance, and let my composition tell the story. I make the image whole, instead of fragmented, by anchoring my image with a dune on the bottom and letting the flow of its shadow echo the shadow of the dunes behind it. Three shadowed bands in this image tie it together as a series of layers. These bands, and the dunes they define, get progressively smaller as they flow back into the depths of the image. The tiny clusters of people who walk these dunes at their crests lend scale to the scene. I take out all evidence of sky – and instead fill the background with the base of the Amargosa Mountains. The entire scene now becomes an expressively unified series of sand dunes, rather than a fragmented description.
20-DEC-2006
Into the valley, en route to Tineghir, Morocco, 2006
From the crest of a mountain road, we can envision our journey through the distant valley, to the oasis town of Tineghir. This is a “vista image” (See my entire gallery on vistas at
http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/vistas ) To make a vista work in terms of composition, it is important that the eye move through it with ease. In the case of this vista, I have built it in layers, featuring a twisting mountain road in the foreground that leads the eye into the image, followed by a village in the middle layer as a focal point, and then backed by a layer of ridges that take the eye into the far background.
16-DEC-2006
Koranic school, Fez, Morocco, 2006
The Merdersa Bou Inania, a Koranic school built in 1350, still stands in the middle of Fez’ old city. It was first organized in the 10th century, becoming the world's first center of higher education. I abstract the school building by focusing on small details, making a point of its extreme age by stressing the plants incongruously growing out its roof tiles. I tie that detail together with a geometric composition, bringing the eye into the image from the upper right hand corner by using the roofline, with its tiles and plants, as a strong diagonal. The roof suddenly veers left at the end of the diagonal thrust. At that point, I carry the eye up and out of the image via a strong vertical segment of the building itself. The balance of the image itself is composed of rhythmically repetitive decorative embellishments common to traditional Islamic architecture.
29-DEC-2006
Waiting in the old city, Marrakesh, Morocco, 2006
My subject is a salesman, waiting on a street of shops in a Marrakesh souk. He sits next to a row of closed doors. To tie the man to the doors, I abstract both. I shoot the man in backlight so he becomes a silhouette. I bring the camera as close to the building as I can and use a 300mm telephoto focal length to collapse the line of doors into a rhythmically repeating row of vertical patterns. The eye moves through the rhythmic doors and the building wall until it reaches the man. The overall geometry of the image plays a series of vertical thrusts on the left against a vertically shaded building wall, silhouetted man, and a horizontally divided two color wall in the background at far right. The effect is coherent, compact, and expressive.
22-SEP-2006
Fisher Towers, Moab, Utah, 2006
The late afternoon light makes it seem as if there is a glowing city of stone just beyond the curve of this rich red dirt road. I deliberately walked well back from our parked car in order to use this gradual curve as my foreground and lead-in line. A large chunk of earth, capped by sage, provides an anchor at lower right. This anchor is diagonally opposed to the mountain supporting the Fisher Towers.
28-SEP-2006
Grazing elk, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2006
I built this image around the layers of jagged projections. A pile of dead tree branches anchor the foreground, a softly veiled elk grazes in the middleground with its massive antlers lowered to match the branches, and a dead tree with similar u-shaped projections stands in the deeply fogged background. The whole image, from front to back, becomes a series of repeating rhythms.
22-SEP-2006
Leading lines, Castle Rock, Moab, Utah, 2006
A line of big rocks marks the approach to this famous landmark just outside of Moab. I used a low vantage point to make them into a leading line that pulls the eye diagonally into the image from the lower left hand corner. The big butte of Castle Rock becomes its target at the upper right. The entire thrust of Castle Rock, which actually resembles a massive castle, rumbles through the middle of the image from right to left, eventually reaching a pair of tiny pinnacles. A brown ridge at left provides a third leading line, echoing the thrust of those rocks at its entrance. All of these leading lines help the eye move into and through the image. It is up to us to make sense out of them.
29-SEP-2006
Two worlds, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2006
This male mule deer came right up to our van in Yellowstone’s Dunhaven pass to stare us down. I shot this through an open door, building the image around the symbolism of the white line marking the side of the road. The white line creates a diagonal boundary separating man from nature. We stand on our side, a world of asphalt. The deer stands its ground on nature’s green earth, just inches across that line.
20-OCT-2006
Navy Beach, Mono Lake, California, 2006
Mono Lake’s Navy Beach is dominated by fields of sage that take on a backlit glow late in the afternoon. I cover almost the entire frame with this sage, almost filling the image with its glowing flowers. I bring my top edge down to almost touch the distant mountains, creating tension between those peaks and that edge. By pushing down on the mountains, I force the viewer’s eye deep into the image. Unless there is spectacular color or striking clouds in the sky, I rarely, if ever, use much of it in my compositions. An empty sky pulls the eye up and away from the content below it. This is an empty sky, and so we see very little of it.
18-OCT-2006
Burned tree, Buttermilk Hills, California, 2006
The thrusting branches of sage that fill the foreground of this image seem to salute this scorched tree, which stubbornly refuses to fall. The sun dramatically splashes the incongruously white and black tree, just as it does to the massive rock that fills the background of the image. I rarely center my subjects, because centered subjects usually make for static images. This tree, however, demands center stage. In spite of death and disfigurement, its branches, which seem to echo the antlers of a deer or elk, soar over the scene in triumph.