I hope I may be forgiven, in this period of a dearth of operatic tales to tell, for turning the page back a week or two. And even six decades!
Last Tuesday we were in Georgia O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch way north of Santa Fe, as we made our way to Durango, Colorado. The previous week, before arriving in Santa Fe, we had been to the Canyon de Chelly - an inspiring prelude to seeing the Grand Canyon on the following day.
While at the Ghost Ranch I picked up a nicely printed reproduction of this famous Ansel Adams picture of Georgia O'Keefe with Orville Cox, the Ghost Ranch wrangler who was O'Keefes guide and friend. Ansel Adams grabbed this shot at the Canyon de Chelly - in his own words:
” I used a 35mm Zeiss Contax and 50mm lens to make this photograph. I was standing precariously on a slanting ledge and did not control the horizontal tilt of the camera. A conversation was in progress, and I waited for a moment of peak interest; the 35mm camera is ideal for such photographs.” (Ansel Adams - The Camera)
As it happens, the very first photograph I snapped as a child in the 1940s was with my father's Contax I - with a f 2.8 Tessar 50mm lens, presumably the same glass that Adams describes above. My father used that camera to the end of his life in his 95th year in 1994. He had bought it when it was new in 1930!
So I will keep this picture in my office to remind me those happy two weeks discovering a magical part of the United States. And below you will see my picture of the Canyon de Chelly, as it was two weeks ago today!
Comments