EDITOR'S LETTER

editor's LETTER I've been seeing a lot of hawks

Lately. For a while, it was nothing but burrowing owls, but then Jack got "the shot of his dreams." It's an incredible image of a Harris' hawk gently touching down on a shaggy nest in the arms of a large saguaro. Inside the nest, a female and two eyases are staring intently at the patriarch, who is delivering their next meal. Red meat. I'm lucky to get random photographs of hawks and owls and lightning strikes from Jack Dykinga, our Pulitzer Prizewinning grandmaster who stillshoots with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy popping a wheelie. Despite my front-row seat at this magazine, my understanding of f-stops and focal length is limited, like the acreage of a cornflake. But to paraphrase Potter Stewart, I know a great photograph when I see one. It's a capacity I've developed from repeated exposure to the work of Claire Curran, Shane McDermott, Suzanne Mathia and other contemporaries. And Jack. And David Muench, who is one of the few photographers I've shared with Raymond Carlson, our editor emeritus Mr. Muench has been shooting for us since 1955. I've been tutored by the work of the early masters, too, the men and women recruited by Mr. Carlson to sit around his round table. Esther Henderson, Josef Muench, Ansel Adams, Ray Manley, Hubert Lowman, Wayne Davis ... their names are etched in our foundation. The first to leave a mark was Ms. Henderson. "Years and years ago," Mr. Carlson wrote in 1968, "we learned of a photographer in Tucson by the name of Esther Henderson, whose creations with a camera, we were told, were outstanding. They were and they are! Hers were the first photographs we purchased." "I chose photography for a career," she said, "because it seemed to promise freedom with creativity. But I found that owning one's business has its price: One is never free. In my first year in business, when I was wondering where my next customer was coming from, Raymond Carlson, then newlyappointed editor of Arizona Highways, rang the front doorbell and came into my studio wanting to buy photographs of scenic Arizona for his magazine, which he did. Oddly enough, I met my husband, Chuck Abbott, the same way. The moral to this is: Be sure to answer the doorbell you never know what editor, or what husband, may be on the doorstep." Around the time he was courting Ms. Henderson, Mr. Carlson launched our first-ever photo contest. It was his second issue as editor, and he was intent on transitioning the magazine from a monotonous trade journal to something more interesting, and more visual, like Life, Look and National Geographic. To get there, he needed to build an archive, but there weren't many professional photographers in the Southwest in the late 1930s. Thus, the contest. Petit a petit, l'oiseau fait son nid, the French like to say. "Little by little, the bird makes its nest." The call for entries was published in our February 1938 issue: "Arizona Highways cordially invites amateur photographers to submit pictures of scenic Arizona. Pictures tell the story best. We offer as cash prizes to the amateur photographers - who, in the opinion of the judges, submit the best pictures sums of $15, $10 and $5. Pictures must be glossy 5x7 or 8x10 inch prints, unmounted, with a name and address on the back of every print, and with a typewritten caption accompanying each print. Take your camera into Arizona, the scenic wonderland, and bring back pictures we can use to tell the story of this state, whose beauty defies description by mere words."

As our editor would quickly find out, there's no easy way to judge a photo contest, because there's never an objective best. "There are no rules for good photographs," Ansel Adams said, "there are only good photographs." And so, judging is a rudderless deliberation, a subjective debate in which one judge singles out a favorite image, and another judge, another. And down the line it goes. There's rarely unanimous consent, but with enough deliberation no matter how impassioned a winner always emerges. In June 1938, Mr. Carlson announced his. "Hundreds of pictures were submitted," he wrote, "by pictorialists from all over Arizona. The judges examined and reexamined, and finally theresult was four photographs instead of three. The judges felt the elimination of one of the four pictorials would be too difficult.

First place went to Norman Rhoades Garrett for On the Rim, a beautiful black and white of the Grand Can-yon. "That illusive, evasive something which everyone feels upon seeing the Grand Canyon," Mr. Carlson wrote, "seems to be grasped in this pictorial.

Perhaps the tree in the foreground, gnarled and weather-beaten, lends an intangible mystery to the Canyon in the distance. A prepossessing view!" The runners-up were James R. Wilson, L.J. Bennett and M.H. Deshler.

Together, when adjusted for inflation, those four images cost us $725.50. Like the Louisiana Purchase, it was a steal, because Mr. Carlson ended up with a pile of images he could use to help usher in the renaissance of Arizona Highways. None of the contest winners ever found their way to the round table, but Esther Henderson certainly did. And so did her husband. And so did so many others. Jack has been there since 1982. Waving his sword at the dramatic landscapes of Arizona. And the simpler things in nature. Like family dinners on a shaggy nest in the arms of a large saguaro.