A HISTORY LESSON AND A FRENCH CONNECTION
This is a modest attempt at a short history of landscape photography in the Moab area, specifically focusing on photographers who have a large body of work from Moab, Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park the La Sal Mountains and the spectacular BLM lands of the area. If your work has mostly involved people, or adventure, or lifestyle – – sorry that’s not what this is about.
With the number of landscape photographers in Moab these days, one would think that such a photogenic place has always been a draw for still photographers. Having been around the scene since the early 70’s and in doing research for my now out of print book Utah: Then and Now, that hasn’t always been the case.
For Utah:Then and Now I went through thousands of old photographs of the state and found very few of the Moab area. The first landscape photographs taken anywhere near Moab have to be those done on the second Powell expedition. These images were of Labyrinth, Stillwater, and Cataract Canyons, and I did not use them in my book since they had already been the source for a previous re-photography book. William Henry Jackson seems to have made it only as close to Moab as the Green River area while traveling on the train, and though some early images of Moab Valley by unknown photographers exist which I used in the book, images of Arches and Canyonlands predating the 1940’s were nowhere to be found.
As a matter of fact, the first good images of what would become Canyonlands National Park seem to have been taken by Joseph Muench in the 1950’s. I use his image of Angel Arch in my book. As for Arches, Muench may have been among the first to photograph there in color. I have a copy of Life Magazine from the 1950’s with Delicate Arch on the cover in color, and the article portrays the Arch and the National Monument almost as new discoveries.
National Geographic articles also have featured some of the first photography of the area, going back to the first published images of Natural Bridges and a splashy color article of Canyonlands with photos by Walter Meyers Edwards which helped put it on the national stage in the early 1960’s.
Josef’s son David, did some of the best seminal work in the Arches and the newly formed Canyonlands and on the then seemingly unknown (to the outside world) areas of the White Rim and Dead Horse Point in the early 1970’s. I have spoken with him about being in Moab for one of the largest snowfalls in the area before or since–about three feet. In his first UTAH coffee table book this very unusual storm is figured prominently. Particularily noteable are the “moguls” shown at Fisher Towers.
At nearly the same time David Hiser, a aspen-based climber and photographer, and Philip Hyde, a Californian produced some of the first great imagery of Canyon Country. In Slickrock for example, Hyde almost certainly was the first to publish images of Lavender Canyon, Chesler Park, the Dolls House and locales in the La Sal Mountains. Hiser was probably the first along with David Muench to popularize the now famous dawn glow at Mesa Arch and the dawn view through the North Window to Turret Arch.
Up to this point, all these photographers were merely visitors to the area, which brings us to the first photographers who shot the Moab landscape and actually lived in Moab. Frank Mendonca, holds the distinction as the first local photographer whose images of Moab gained some outside attention. Though he has not been truly active in landscape photography since those early days, his image of lightning at Castle Rock and his work as sole photographer for a book about Arches are highlights of this early career.
The late Fran Barnes, shooting mostly in black and white, was a prolific photographer and explorer of the Canyon Country. In dozens of books, Barnes took the first images of many of the area’s amazing and lesser known wonders.
I think the next photographer on the list is me, and I began serious shooting with good equipment in 1975, and took up the 4×5 in 1977. My career up until a few years ago is detailed in volume 49 of the Moab Museum’s publication Canyon Legacy, so I won’t go into to it here.
Here is a link to the Legacy archives:
http://www.moabmuseum.org/pageview.aspx?id=17500
Steve Mulligan, whose work is lauded worldwide in both color and back and white moved to the area in the late 1970’s and has continued to produce distinctive imagery of the local area to the present day. Steve’s accomplishments include a long running column in and Darkroom Magazine, the best photograph ever taken of Cataract Canyon, most recently, a portfolio of wonderful aerial photographs of Southern Utah, and two instructional books on black and white photography and composition. His two published black and white portfolios, and Terra Incognito are some of the finest work of its kind ever done. Steve is now working on a portfolio of images of petroglyph solstice markers across the Colorado Plateau.
Bruce Hucko’s photographic work is just one part of his resume, but I remember seeing his 35mm work for the first time in the late seventies and being stunned by it . At the time, though not yet living in Moab, he had some of the best and perhaps the only images of places like Fish and Owl Canyons, and other areas I had still not explored fully. Though Bruce bought a house in Moab, he lived for a number of years in Santa Fe. Before he left, we teamed up with Terry Tempest Williams on the long-running multi-media show The Canyons Edge. Upon returning to Moab, Bruce has been very active in photography teaching classes for young and old, producing the wonderful Moab Photo Symposium each spring and authoring books on Dead Horse Point, among others.
Dan Norris came to Moab in the 1990’s and has built a solid body or work concentrating on local landscapes, rock art and ruins, and night photography.
Starting in the 1980’s photographers from around Utah and around the world began to discover the potential of Moab as a photography center. Although the list is long, some who have done great work in the area but live elsewhere include George H.H. Huey, Scott Smith, and John George.
The photographer with the largest resume to move to Moab in recent years is Jeff Foott. A famous wildllife and nature still and video photographer, Foott makes his home in Castle Valley for half the year. In the last five years, Foott has concentrated much of his energies on landscape work.
In the younger generation of photographers, Chris Conrad has done some exciting traditional and experimental work. A recent issue of Sojourns Magazine features his amazing night photography.
I know Moab is now full of some great young aspiring photographers, but someone else will have to write their story. Some may think that with so many photographers working in the area that all the photographs have been taken. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m sure we’ll see great new images by a new generation of photographers in coming years.
Most of my October was spent in France and Switzerland where the first exhibit of my images of World Heritage Sites was held. The show was held at the U.N in Geneva in a beautiful old art deco building built in the 1930’s for the League of Nations. and was a big success. It was quite a thrill for a farm boy from Hornick, Iowa and Moab, Utah to be there. After the show opened I spent several days shooting the amazing Alps around Mt. Blanc and Chamonix, and then headed over to the Loire Valley to shoot castles. Again, my car gps was an indispensable tool in finding my locations and my hotels. Another observation is that in my last three trips to Europe, not one person asked me to leave a place I was shooting, was suspicious or uncooperative, or was less than welcoming. I got bad vibes from no one, and was left alone to work without hassle everywhere I went.
I don’t know why I love castles, but I’ve shot about 100 or more now in many countries. France has the best I’ve seen, hands down. Another great thing about France is the usually beautiful light. It may be because of the frequent cleansing storms from the ocean, or the nuclear power, but the air is often amazing clean and clarified.
I realize that this list of photographers does not include any women. This is only because there are none that I am aware of. If you know of some that fit this criteria that we all should know about please – – let me know.
Happy Halloween!
