Grand Canyon – South Rim

Posted on October 9, 2007 in Photos Vacation Fall 2007

I am not [[Ansel Adams]] and I make every effort not to frame my photos as he might have done. For every scene, I endeavor to create a unique take. And yet there are places on this planet where my camera turns out material like that being engendered by the legions of shutters being pointed by those beside me, as engendered by the legions who came before me, and by those who are yet to come.

Photographing the Grand Canyon and maintaining one’s peculiar artistic vision sucks. Thank the Universe for the condors, the clouds, the split-twig figurines at the Tusayan Museum, and for the junipers beside the rim trail.

The canyon was once a wondrous discovery for Pedro de Tovar who came on orders of [[Francisco_Vásquez_de_Coronado|Vasquez-Coronado]] and, having no camera, found himself unable to relay the vibrant magnitude of the gorge. Somewhere near Desert View, he and his men scrambled into the abyss, aiming for the river they saw in the distance. Palisade after palisade thwarted their desire to drink of the muddy Colorado. Perhaps Tovar was a lucky man because he did not have to bring home images that looked pretty much like all the other images that people have taken over the years of what one writer described as “an erosion-control engineer’s nightmare”. All that pinkness and yellowness squashed together in layers that Fundamentalists have tried hard to read as incidents in the course of The Flood despite the reality that the canyon is an amazing indictment against Creationism. Yet its magnitude overwhelms its details, so the story is not heard. We see it as a backdrop, a canvas without a voice, the epitome of what [[Alfred_Stieglitz|Stieglitz]] held to be the accessibility of all Nature to the amateur photographer: you see one picture of the Grand Canyon from Grandview Point, you’ve seen them all. Or just about.

We started our day at Mather Point where we made our acquaintance with the condors who were a sensation two days ago when we posted them to our blogs. (See Lynn here.) We then rode the bus designed for the hordes to the El Tovar, had a fine lunch with a mediocre view, and then rode back to the truck. Because the Red Line was down for the day, we drove out to Hermit’s Rest, gave a ride to a stranded girl back to the Village, and then went out by way of the Tusayan Museum (where I scryed the famous stick figurines*) and Desert View.

In other words, we did our tourist duties.

It was at Desert View, while others were trying to capture the colors, that I aimed my camera into the sun and the mist:

Was this more like Adams or Stieglitz? Or could I claim it as distinctly my own?

Here is the album in my gallery (20+ pics).

*Check out the Quicktime plug-in of the split-twig figurines on this page.

Click on more to see important notes.

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