Memory Lane
Memory Lane — Before we had BB guns, we ran around with cedar branches from our tree houses. We never played cowboys and Indians because we knew John Wayne couldn’t kill 10 Indians with one shot. In my family, we can vividly recall my grandpa’s tone, influction and facial expression when he said “That’s BULL 💩!!” Our metal Transformer toys lasted the Rez dirt and certainly, we all wanted to be Ultimate Warrior. He was rad!During those early years my father took me everywhere. We never really camped but made a ton of day trips all over Northern Arizona and into Southern Utah. He’s seen my growth behind a camera but one thing I do take from him is to simply put everything down to scan the land. In doing so, in a magical way the scanned landscape transitions to taking time to see inside oneself. This was my favorite kind of time out.Now days when we are both home, we often head out and he still shows me these awesome places and bless his heart, he wants me to photograph them because I have a few cameras. Often I’ll leave the lenses, filters and tripods behind because it’s simply about my time with him, in a way putting everything aside.I have a long life ahead of me to return later where the objective is to capture a photograph. I can’t thank my mother and father enough for allowing me to spend so much time in nature to be nurtured.I’ve been to The Wave numerous times. Times where the BLM employee would ask how many days I wanted to spend in North Coyote Buttes. Sometimes I’d take a day trip. Sometimes I’d take 4 big green tags for four days because back then, it was quiet. When I took this exposure, the only living thing I saw was an old coyote. It’s too bad I couldn’t set up my 4x5 in time because he was freakin majestically standing on top of the frame!! I called him in from afar while playing my Native American flute. Out here, sounds can travel quite a ways.The Schneider 210mm lens with a wonderful 4x5 Tachihara body mixed with @ilfordphoto Delta film were the tools to create this exposure. Though this exposure was taken years ago, I can recall it like yesterday — f/45, 1 second, all alone...
