Dick Arentz told me once that the greatest views for 12X20 cameras are always found within 50 feet of your vehicle. If just anyone had told me that, well, I might doubt the truth of the statement, but being that it was Arentz I pretty much took it for truth. I confirmed this truth once by hiking about a mile with the 12X20 on my back, with the tripod, some holders and a couple of lenses. When I reached the spot I realized that the better view was from the car, so I trudged back up the mountain and made the negative. Some truths just can not be challenged.
It is curious how such truths are revealed to us. Several years ago I was driving along a dusty road in Nine Mile Canyon in Utah and saw a panel of rattlesnake petroglyphs on a cliff about 150 feet from the road, across a small stretch of sage bush. It seemed at first obvious that the better view of the panel would be had by walking through the sage bush and climbing up to the panel, using my 12X20 camera. However, about half way through the bush I saw a small rattlesnake violently shaking its rattles about 1.5 feet from my left foot. After very carefully extricating myself from this difficult situation I thought for a few minutes about the petroglyph, and two thoughts eventually came to mind. First, those native americans who made the rattlesnake petroglyphs some centuries before really knew this area, and two, I realized that it was much too late in the evening to continue through the bush to the panel, and that the best view of the rattlesnake panel would be with a medium format camera with a telphoto lense, stading near the car. It also crossed my mind that there might well be a lot more rattlesnakes out there between me and the panel.
Sandy
