It’s June already and our wall thermometer is reading over 100º so it’s time to shoot somewhere a little cooler. Queen Anne and I racked our brains to come up with a scene close enough for day trips, and we decided to focus on Jerome this month. It’s a ghost town close by, it is a mile high clinging to the side of Mingus Mountain, and it is cooler than here. I have personal recollections about Jerome that I plan on sharing later this week, but Sunday’s are reserved for new picture announcements, so let’s get on with it.
I’ve photographed Jerome several times over previous decades and I already have a library of the town’s familiar buildings, so on this trip, I wanted to look for details that give Jerome character—you know—the artsy pictures. I got some shots that fit that bill, but to set the stage for Jerome Month, I wanted to start with an image that would give people who have never visited the town an idea of its geographical placement, and I think this week’s featured image does that.
House with a View – Building and maintaining a home on a mountainside is a daunting task. But like this house in Jerome, the views are priceless.
I call this image House with a View and it is one of the few private residences that has survived intact. It’s a modest home that is one story on the street but has three levels at the back. It’s a brick building indicating that it was home to a family of means—like a mine manager. To me, it shows how steep the slope of the lot it’s on and how much engineering it took to keep the house from sliding into Clarkdale below. Conversely, the upside of being tethered to a mountainside is the million dollar view of the Verde Valley two-thousand feet below—and to the north, the red rocks of Sedona. Can you imagine having cocktails on that veranda while watching the sunset on the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau?
You can see a larger version of House with a View on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and join Queen Anne and I as we show off Jerome this month.
This week’s featured photo concludes our May adventure to Alamo Lake’s mud cliffs. I have another couple of detail shots that would fit nicely into this grouping, but I’ve run out of weeks this month and we have other places to go. I suppose I could put together a set of six and make up a folio like Santa Lucia Fog, or maybe I’ll go back and shoot enough images to complete a portfolio. I’ll have to think about that—what do you think?
False Cave – This appears to be the opening of a shallow cave, but it’s not that simple.
May’s final image looks like I shot the mouth of a shallow cave with—if you squint and let your imagination go wild—a pair of cherub heads as keystones, and that’s exactly what it looks like when you approach this structure in the field. But there’s something in the photo that gives a clue that this isn’t a cave. It’s the light shining on the floor past the opening. If you crawled into the cave where that light area is, you could stand up—or you could just walk around the pile of mud to the left, and come back down the stream bed. This is actually a low arch that is torso high. If I had a model, her legs would show in the lower opening while her head and shoulders would be visible on top. It would make a unique open shower design—like you would have poolside.
In all honesty, I wasn’t creative enough to come up with that idea. The woman in spring’s photo class, whose images inspired me to visit this place, came here with a group, and one of her friends posed behind the arch. Except he was a guy and he wasn’t naked. When I walked up to this spot, I wasn’t sure it was the same because it’s so well camouflaged. If I do go back for a reshoot, I’ll need to have a model join me. What are the odds of that happening: me—a toothless old geezer—convincing an attractive woman to go with me to this barren wasteland so that we could shoot that picture? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.
You can see a larger version of False Cave on its Web page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and join Queen Anne and I as we present new photos from a different location—this time in Yavapai County.
This week’s featured image is the third of my Mud Cliffs series that I’ve written about for the last couple of weeks (here’s the original). In the first post, I started at the mouth of the slot canyon and last week, we got to the narrow passageway’s end—or the head. Today, we begin filling the spaces between.
The Spout – With a low sun showing the cliff face structure, the low point turns into a waterfall during stormy weather.
I shot today’s photo, like the first, late in the day on the outbound hike—after the light turned to gold. The low sun adds a warm color to the mud and, in this case, really shows the pillar structure in the sediment. All though, I wouldn’t want to put myself in that kind of danger, I can imagine a temporary waterfall pouring over the spout between the mounds during a summer monsoon. I’ve seen it happen at Lake Powell. We were exploring a similar canyon by boat when an afternoon deluge hit us. It was a Disneyland ride with waterfalls all around. Fortunately, we weren’t hiking and need to worry about escaping a flash flood.
You can see a larger version of The Spout on its Web page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and tag along as we look at the canyon walls for the next couple of weeks.
Continuing last week’s adventure to the mud cliffs at Alamo Lake, I took this week’s picture at the other end of the slot canyon. It’s not a very long hike—maybe fifteen minutes if you don’t dawdle—but I was exploring with a camera and stopped to take pictures often along the route. The reward waiting for you at the canyon’s head is this mudstone arch carved by rushing water draining from the surrounding mesa. If you hike a few yards beyond the arc, the canyon ends, and you’re on the mud flats between Date Creek and the Santa Maria River. The water is runoff from the Black Mountains in the north that has carved the canyon from the flats.
Mud Arch—As a reward for your effort, a mud arch is located at the end of a short hike up the slot canyon.
Since I’m not a geologist, I can’t tell you how old the arch is, but because the surrounding soil quickly erodes and because I slept in a Holiday Inn Express once, I assume that it hasn’t been there for very long—geologically speaking—and it may soon crumble. You’ll notice that the arch’s shape isn’t smooth and rounded like the sandstone arches in Utah, which tells me it hasn’t been polished by blowing wind. That’s another clue to its relatively young age. I won’t be surprised if it disappears in less than a decade.
When I arrived at this scene, the sun was low enough that it didn’t shine onto the canyon walls, but it did add that late afternoon glow to the mound behind it and separated the arch from the background—sort of a spotlight, as it were. With streaky clouds in the sky … what more could a photographer ask for?
You can see a larger version of Mud Arch on its Web page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and tagging along for the other canyon shots I’m revealing this month.
Ask any Arizonan about Yarnell and they’ll most likely tell you about the horrible 2013 fire that swept through the town and the 19 hotshot firefighters that lost their lives when the fire trapped them, in an open field. It’s a big deal for us and to honor those men, Arizona built the Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial Park. Someday I hope to show that park to you, but I must first build up my stamina to be able to complete the seven-mile round trip trail over a 1200’ elevation rise. For now, I want to talk about another Yarnell attraction that’s celebrating its 79th anniversary this year; The Shrine of Saint Joseph of the Mountains. I’m guessing it’s a place that even most Arizonans haven’t heard about.
As you travel north on Yarnell’s main street lined with antique shops, it’s very easy to miss Shrine Drive, a paved road on the east side barely wide enough for passing cars. The road winds through dappled shade of scrub oaks lining Harper Canyon. The pavement only lasts a half mile, and when it turns to dirt, it’s at the Shrine parking area. As you get out of the car, the first thing you notice is how quiet it is. Even the birds whisper. You don’t see much at first, but through the trees in front of you, seated at a table is a welcoming statue of Jesus.
Praying Jesus – A statue depicting Jesus Praying is an example of Felix Lucero’s artwork at the shrine and makes a stop worthwhile.
The retreat (park, pilgrimage, or however you may interpret its purpose) was the concept of the Catholic Action League of Arizona in 1934. They worked on the plan for four years and contracted self-taught sculptor and unemployed dishwasher Felix Lucero who was living under the Congress Street Bridge in Tucson. Felix’s life is a story of its own and his other collection of work is in Tucson’s Garden of Gethsemane; now know as Felix Lucero Park. The shrine is a representation of the 14 Stations of the Cross—a ritual where Christians symbolically stop and pray at significant events that happened on Jesus’ crucifixion path. The stations at the shrine are along a stair pathway that climbs the mountainside culminating with a sculpture of Jesus on the Cross. Then you continue down the stairs past the last stations until you reach a sculpture representing the resurrection—a slab in an empty grotto draped with a shroud cloth.
Stair Path – The stairs leading to the Stations of the Cross are often Steep. Considering that they already start at a moderate elevation, it’s not an easy journey.
The 2013 fire swept through the shrine site. It destroyed several of the support buildings, charred the trees, and completely burned some of the wooden station crosses. The fire burned away the crucifix on the hilltop completely leaving the sculpture of Jesus floating in the air suspended by bolts welded to a metal frame. Remarkably, the ivory colored statue was not damaged or discolored.
Shrine View – There are places along the path where the canopy opens revealing beautiful views of the surrounding countryside.
I went to Catholic school for four years and that was enough to cure me of organized religion, but as an artist, I enjoy the architecture of churches and the paintings, sculptures, and stained glass within them. I think that’s why I enjoy places like this shrine. I can see the thoughtful planning, hard work, and attention to detail found here. Besides, as you near the top, the tree canopy opens, and you have wonderful views of Yarnell and the Weaver, Bradshaw, and Granite mountains.
The next time you’re traveling the back road to Prescott, I recommend you spend some time visiting The Shrine of St. Joseph in Yarnell. If nothing else, walking the stations is good exercise. Let me warn you that your starting elevation is 4700’ and the stairs are steep. It’s almost a rock scramble; bring water. You’ll enjoy the art, the views, and the serenity. There’s no charge but there is a donation box that you’re welcome to use.
