I've been driving most of the night, except for a brief nap in some, bare rocky hills, a few hours east of San Diego. I'm racing the sun on Interstate 8, trying to get to the big sand dunes west of Yuma, Arizona before it rises. I have an idea for a spiral in the fine virgin sand of those dunes, the same dunes that were portrayed as the planet Tatooine in the first Star Wars movie.
The horizon is becoming blue black. There are the dunes. Exiting off The Eight, I quickly park my truck, grab the cameras and excitedly head out into the dunes. The small footprints of mysterious animals are in front of me, leading the way.
Mystery. Magic. A sense of the Sacred in a place. The ordinary made extraordinary. This is what I hope for in my work, and at times it's good to say something about what I do and, at other times, best to be quiet. This is one of those quiet times, for the photograph of Tatooine's mystery is in its size. How big is that spiral? How tall is that ridge? How did he get that high to shoot it? Or did he?
I'm not trying to be coy, but I've noticed at times, when people ask how I do some of my images, I see a look on their faces afterwards, as if I'm a magician and I've just told them how I cut a woman in half or how I stuck a knitting needle through a balloon. They thought they wanted to know, but now the mystery and the magic are gone with the telling.
So....
An hour or so later, I walk out of these delicate dunes, past the little mysterious footprints and my big footprints, and I discover that the California Highway Patrol had put a warning sticker on my Pathfinder, instructing me not to park where I did. Weird. I didn't see or hear them come or go. It was as if I had parted a thin veil and crossed into another world, when I went out onto those dunes. No sound other than the wind. No sight other than the sand.
I peel off the orange sticker, load up the truck and head back to The Eight, smiling as I drive into the early morning sun, listening to Crowded House on the CD player, thinking I could use a cup of coffee.
I'll stop in Yuma and get a cup. Get some gas there, too.
[Note to the reader: In many of the upcoming Circle Stories, I do tell how I produce the magic in my images. Since I wrote the above story, I've had a change of heart, coming mostly because of you, the audience, having over the years told me how much you appreciate my telling y'all, how I do what I do. So if you don't want to know how the photographs are done, you may want to pass on the Circle Stories. However, most of the stories are about emotions, relationships and faith, and less about technique. Anyway, this is your formal Spoiler Alert.]
[Spoiler Alert #2: The sand spiral in the image called "Tatooine" appears to be quite large but in reality is only about six inches in diameter.]