© David Muench

© David Muench

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TUBA CITY CANYON

(MUENCH VOICE OVER)

I've got some places where I've got 3,000 feet below, and you just move very slowly — Very slowly, so you don't do anything, make an unusual motion. Some of the best shots are right out on the edges like that. But I'm still knocking on wood. Don't do something highly irrational. But no, I get claustrophobic like in New York City.

LOMAKI

There's something about real heart and soul country for me, and I miss it. I need to be there.

I've tried to figure out what draws me, and it probably is a quality of the world before we were here. It has an ancient significance.

BETATAKIN HIKE

I feel like I'm coming home when I come into places like this.

(VOICE OF STUDENT JOEL)

My day job is a CPA. Working with the tax law not the laws of nature. I am very fortunate to be here because we have the opportunity to be very, very close to nature and very far away from tax laws.

(MUENCH VOICE OVER)

You feel a tie with these people. It's quite humbling to realize that's the way that you can live that way. This is your home. I think there's some great lessons to learn from these people. They really had a sense of value and the spirituality of every object even within the clouds, rock formations. This is what always draws me back to not only photographing, but just being here.

It has a strength that's really formidable. You start to feel . what a house, I mean what a place.

The light is the big ingredient that really triggers it and sparks the things. This is the closest thing to real sublime happiness.

I'm trying to simplify, to give the eye something to lead through three dimensionally.

The light today is extremely ambient. I mean, very subtle, but with all the tones being quite even, you can expand and create your own light by overexposing quite a bit, and you can create sunlight, especially with a Velvia and Provia films.

You have a space in the middle that gives you tension.

But this is really an exercise in wide-angle imaging. It looks like we have eight seconds at 32. Which I will do.

There's a little bit of a breeze, but soft focus won't hurt. Here we go.

Really awesome.

What I enjoy doing, being able to record this feeling with a camera. It could be with painting, it could be any other way, but to me, the photograph can record best the feeling that I get.

It's a very powerful image that stays with me — very strong memory. And that's all we have, really, are memories of things. And with a photograph, it brings it back, so that you don't lose it.

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