"The camera, and the photographic process, serves the critical and important role of medium to these fleeting glimpses of my primal landscape - a landscape filled with natural rhythms, opposites, tolerances, mysteries and clues."

From David Muench's forward to his book NATURE'S AMERICA

David Muench is one of the most respected landscape photographers in the US today. He has that very special gift for selecting his subjects carefully and then composing and photographing even more carefully to bring out their best. The two images you see this month are, obviously, of the same landform - Gunsight Butte in Lake Powell in northern Arizona. When I took these pictures I purposely experimented with the two different compositions to see how the closer and wider views of the same landform would portray it differently. This is, to me, what Muench means when he describes photography as the medium between himself and the landscape.

If you are interested in excellent landscape photography, take a look at NATURE'S AMERICA which captures images from around the US, or Muench's book PLATEAU LIGHT which contains images from the Arizona-Utah redrock canyon country. Both are reasonably priced for photography books of this type, and you'll find them endlessly enjoyable. And if you want to see what a truly professional landscape photographer can do with the same Gunsight Butte image, look at Michael Fatali's photograph in the "Indian Country" section of ARIZONA: THE BEAUTY OF IT ALL. I have been fortunate to be able to take a couple of photography workshops with Michael, and his work is outstanding.