© Jillian Robinson

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Tobias: What percentage of your work, would you say, happens at magic hour, either sunrise or sunset time?

Muench: Oh, probably about 50 percent now, because everything happens and you shoot everywhere. I've learned to look in other places when you're in that condition. But there are a lot of things at midday that can be super, so you start scouting and doing other things. I like to shoot all the time — it's just so exciting that you can't wait for everything. You can't prepare always for that great sunrise. Sunrise gets boring, like a lot of other things get boring — autumn coloring or snow. You have to still do something with it. You have to be more creative. Sometimes you just point the camera and record it. People go "ooo, ah," but it doesn't last. It doesn't really have inner depth that some other images evoke.

Robinson: That begs the question, what makes a great photograph?

Muench: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Robinson: Oh no! Now come on!

Muench: Cop out.

Robinson: I know! (laughs)

Muench: Something that moves you emotionally, if you're the viewer. It has to. It has to move somebody emotionally. I think that's what it is. It has to get you involved. That's why you can look at so much art, like in Sedona, these galleries. I have a hard time getting inspired anymore by most of that stuff. And once in a while you get a feeling for somebody that's really been gutty and really mixed it with the earth or with nature, with something natural, something strong, with a power ... So what makes a great photograph — I think really it has to move you and be striking by timing or visual dynamics — and light, working with great light.

Robinson: A friend of mine describes it as soul.

Muench: Uh-huh. It has something, yeah — there's something else going on, something invisible that came out that really makes it special. And don't ask me how many I have. (laughter)

Robinson: Such modesty. So you were telling us about this day, I am curious about this. If it's a nice morning, you go out and do a sunrise shoot, come back for a good breakfast, and then how would the rest of a typical day play out for you?

Muench: Well, it depends on where I am, but ... Sometimes we'll like to scout and think of the evening shoot. Usually it's working with the light, so you're thinking something from the west, for the evening, looking east. But that can be all completely broken when you're there, when looking against the light. These are things where the great ones come out of spontaneous combustion in the middle of the planned stuff. But anyway, scout, look around — change films. I still load and unload films in the holders, and that cuts down my reading dramatically, but it's occupied a lot of my life, it really has.

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