The Neo-Cons are waging weird wars and spending money like Poor White Trash on a Saturday night. My own party is showing no backbone at all, or simply ranting, not out of conviction but just so contributions come in during the midterms in 2006. A number of my friends are fighting the good fight, planning political strategies, being righteously indignant. I've done it too and I don't fault my friends. And all it's done for me is raised my pulse, and taken my focus off of The Beautiful Things.
During World War Two, Ansel Adams was criticized for taking those magnificent landscapes during a time of global strife. Henri Cartier-Bresson was quoted as saying, "The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks!"
Hand me the tripod, Ansel.
Nero, pass me the fiddle.
Monsoon rain clouds hang in the valley below. Reminds me of the Blue Ridges back home, yet if the sun suddenly appears here, these clouds will burn away fast. Not like the damp low-layers that last all day in the Appalachians.
My Krispy Kreme hat shields my glasses from getting too wet. The light Polar Fleece is a bit hot for July in the mountains but it's really just fine. The serendipitous patchwork of burned and living Ponderosa Pines surrounds me as I walk down this well-worn trail. A trail I usually avoid for I got into the forest to get away from people not to be with them, but it's raining hard today and most will stay home. I passed a couple of Nuevo Hippies backpacking in, just a while back, all in studded sandals, one fat and winded fella, smoking a cigarette as he walked. And most of all, I'm really happy to see some the centuries-old Firs, Spruces and Pines missed dying in the fire two years ago, and still sad to see the black skeletons of those who didn't make it.
The rain slackens. The trail begins to steeply descend. Not into a big hike today. But then the trail begins to level off and through the trees, up ahead, I can see sky. The thickly wooded ridge I've been walking on appears to be coming to an end. Here must have been one of those places where the fire broke, I think. A line of dead trees, then a line of old living ones, and then I'm at the endpoint of the ridge and my breath is slightly taken away.
"Well, look at that." I quietly say to myself.
Below me is the Frontal Ridge of the Catalina Mountians, something the all Tucsonans see every day when looking North. I saw them up close just last weekend when I hiked up the Ventana trail to the crest of one of its ridges. Just about killed me. (My one rule in hiking is to turn around when I'm half out of water, not matter where I am. Given the good fortune of an early start, a cloudy morning, and a large water bladder, and what I was expecting to be just a four, five mile hike became a seven eight miler. I turned around not far from The Window, a large arch of rock in the Frontal Ridge. A mile down on my return trip, I knew I was in trouble. The Sun came out, the water went faster, and I stumbled back to my truck at the trailhead, like a zombie on Vicodin.) Still a little sore in the calves a week later, which is unusual for me. I hike a lot. I don't want to tear myself up again this week. Not yet.
What made me gasp was in my 20 plus years living in Tucson, I've never seen the Frontal Ridge from this angle, looking South and from a viewpoint, a thousand feet up. I can't see The Window but I know where it is. I can see though, the large grouping of granite rocks on the just below The Window, where I rested last weekend. I smile a crooked smile.
I take out the Brownie and set up the shot. Ponderosa Pines, a piece of Granite not quite covered in needles, the whole of Tucson below me. I think, ‘I can dodge out the town when I print. I hope I can pull off the Cathedral Effect."
Two days later, I see the negs. Dense, good. And I got really lucky with the trees lining up like they did. This might work.
Two weeks later, I've printed the neg, scanned the print, cleaned the file, popped the contrast a little more in the computer, and colored the Black and White, Cobalt and Pink. A documentary about Dylan is playing on my TV behind me. After five versions, I dial in the Blues and Reds. I think "Not my best, not my worst." A solid C.
I print up a couple of 13 x19s on the Epson 2200 and let them cure. I'll look at them tomorrow and see if I can improve on them. Maybe just Sepia, maybe just straight Black and White. Probably just leave the Cobalt, and be thankful.
A redwood barstool straddles the open circle of hay in my studio. On the seat is a white electronic instrument tuner, a couple of burgundy colored Fender picks, a small brown notebook that holds all the chord progressions for my songs, and a huge polished black nut and bolt my father refinished, that I use to lay down drones on my keyboard. If I have an annoying buzz mysteriously resonating inside my studio and I can't find it, I just put the heavy bolt on low C and walk around and pretty soon I find the rattle. Plus if I want to put in a drone in a piece and play on top of it, it does just the trick.
I've got a few minutes before I have to get back to the day job. Becky's upstairs sanding some pedestal extensions for an upcoming show. No one's in the darkroom right now. Afternoon traffic is loud on Toole Ave.
I play the chords of "The Three Surrenders", then I simplify it, taking out a chord, playing it an octave lower, putting in, leaving out the major and minor 3rds. My wall is buzzing from the lower notes. Maybe a switch is vibrating on the back of a monitor. Who knows. Who cares. D minor 7th. A minor. G major. C major. Low and round. Bright and sad. A song from a distance. Not about this place, this room. Another place.
I turn of the synth and get ready to leave, but then remember that I'll forget. I'll forget the chords, and the keyboard settings if I don't write them down. I'm old now. I forget things now.
I grab the brown mini notebook, find a blank page and write down the info. And at the top of the page I write, in my best handwriting:
"The Window"
Copyright © 2005, Stu Jenks