Norman G. Wallace
Photographed: Early 1930s
Norman G. Wallace wasn’t a photographer by trade, but in his decades of work for what later became the Arizona Department of Transportation, he always carried a camera to document the state’s new roads, along with the challenging terrain they traversed. This photo, of a stretch of Route 66 winding through Western Arizona’s Black Mountains, is an extreme example of those challenges. But Wallace wasn’t a novice — he had a keen eye for landscape photography, and the visually appealing images he captured set a high standard at a time when Arizona Highways was still an engineering publication.
Barry Goldwater
Photographed: Late 1930s
In 1964, the story goes, then-presidential candidate Barry Goldwater went with a film crew to Hunts Mesa, a Monument Valley overlook, to shoot a campaign ad. The only problem was that Goldwater didn’t want to put down his Nikon camera long enough to film the scene. He loved the Navajo Nation, but he also loved and respected its people, and their mutual respect allowed him to make intimate portraits such as this one. For a national political figure, Goldwater had a surprisingly humble and human personality, and he often expressed amazement that an amateur photographer like himself could be published in Arizona Highways. His work, however, displays his love for Arizona’s people and places.
Hubert A. Lowman
Published: 1949
This photo, of two people at the Elephant’s Feet on the Navajo Nation, offers hints of Hubert A. Lowman’s career as a commercial artist, where he started out before moving toward photography after World War II. The composition is impeccable, with the two figures providing a sense of scale for the stone monuments and the billowing cape offering a glimpse of the weather conditions at the time. It also features soft light that’s directional but not overbearing. It adds up to an image that, like some others in this portfolio, has been deemed one of the 100 greatest to ever appear on the pages of Arizona Highways.
Allen C. Reed
Published: 1951
Spectacular shots of autumn leaves have been a staple of Arizona Highways almost since we began publishing color photographs, and in those early days, Allen C. Reed was among the best at capturing fall color, such as in this lovely reflection shot. Reed was a generalist, but a really good one, with the skills to shoot everything from expansive landscapes to more intimate macro and portrait photos. It’s rare that a photographer excels in so many different areas, but Reed’s ability to view scenes in an abstract way gave him distinction — and led to a lengthy tenure as a contributor to the magazine.
Ansel Adams
Published: 1953
Raymond Carlson, Arizona Highways’ visionary longtime editor, once remarked that having Ansel Adams’ name and photos in the magazine “adds worth, character and value to our publication.” Indeed, Adams’ photographs of Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Mission San Xavier del Bac and the Hopi village of Walpi (pictured), among other destinations, raised the level of photography in the magazine. Even back then, Adams was a household name, and when we began publishing his photos, local photographers took notice — and upped their game accordingly.
Esther Henderson
Published: 1953
There’s an interesting connection between Esther Henderson and Ansel Adams: In the midst of making photos around the Southwest, Adams wrote a letter to Raymond Carlson, telling Arizona Highways’ editor that he’d encountered bleak skies recently and wished he could rent Henderson’s “Cloud Bag” to enhance his photos. Clouds were a hallmark of Henderson’s work, but she also excelled at capturing quiet, dreamlike moments, such as this scene outside Tucson. Her skill in those and other settings made her a trusted contributor for decades.
Josef Muench
Published: 1960
The importance of Josef Muench’s photos to Arizona Highways is hard to measure, but images such as this one were of equal importance to Hollywood. In fact, Muench’s images were largely responsible for John Ford and other directors descending on Monument Valley to film Westerns, and those movies are how countless people around the world picture the American Southwest. Muench loved Monument Valley, and it loved him back: Even in recent years, Navajo guides there have asked Arizona Highways staff members if they knew Josef Muench.
Ray Manley
Published: 1960
This image features a classic “Ray Manley sunset,” but it’s noteworthy for another reason: It shows how he used his background in commercial photography to perform his work in the field. Behind the fire pit is a flash, which Manley used to augment the evening light and cast more light on his subjects’ faces. By today’s standards, it might be considered an overreach, but Manley was able to pull it off. It’s an example of a photographer using what’s in their toolkit to make an image their own — and become an important part of our history.
Willis Peterson
Published: 1964
Willis Peterson was one of the first Arizona Highways contributors to specialize in nature photography, and although he had a broad skill set, he loved photographing wildlife. To make his visions reality, he would acquire spotting scopes and lenses, then have them adapted to fit the large-format cameras of the day. The amount of work Peterson put into researching and studying the life cycles and rhythms of his subjects was amazing, and he was adept at combining artistry, technical skill and scientific knowledge to make compelling images.
Bob Bradshaw
Published: 1978
Best known for his work in the Sedona area — where he was heavily involved with both still photography and movie productions — Bob Bradshaw did get around Arizona, and he had a wonderful eye for aesthetics. This photo of the San Francisco Peaks illustrates something most photographers in Bradshaw’s day weren’t doing: making photos during the “magic hour,” meaning very early or very late in the day. Film speeds and lenses were slow back then, but more than that, few photographers were seeing the landscape that way. Bradshaw was an exception, which meant he could work with the softer light to make a better photo.
Jerry Jacka
Published: 1979
Here’s another shot that’s a bit out of the ordinary for the photographer in question. While Jerry Jacka did shoot scenic landscapes, Arizona Highways readers knew him best for his photos of Indigenous people and artifacts, particularly pottery and jewelry. But early in his career, while he worked for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Jacka always had a camera with him and would make photos before or after his forensic assignments. In doing so, he captured some lovely images, including this one of the Four Peaks with a rare coat of snow.
David Muench
Photographed: Early 1980s
Much like his predecessor Ansel Adams, David Muench was an innovator, and his way of seeing landscapes influenced an entire generation of photographers. In this photo from Petrified Forest National Park, the hard leading line of the petrified wood in the foreground leads the viewer to the rainfall in the background. Muench excels at using early and late light to bring out textures, and in the 1970s and ’80s, he stood out among his peers in that regard. He’s also a master at providing a sense of place, as this photo demonstrates.
Bob and Sue Clemenz
Published: 1987
There have been a handful of husband-and-wife photography teams in our history, and Bob Clemenz was a member of one of those with his wife, Sue. They lived in Sedona and traveled around the state in their camper van, photographing the landscapes they encountered. The story behind this image is that they’d just returned home from a long trip and started a load of laundry when a photographer friend called them and said they needed to come to the White Mountains immediately to photograph this field of wildflowers and spiderwebs. Reluctantly, they finished their laundry and hit the road again, and two days later, the duo captured this morning scene — a result of the dedication that’s come to define the best Arizona Highways photographers.
Gary Ladd
Published: 1987
Gary Ladd has lived in Page for half a century, and even though he’s also extensively photographed the Grand Canyon and other iconic Arizona locations, the Lake Powell area is his playground. Ladd’s love of geology and astronomy comes through in his photos, and his familiarity with the area helps him shoot locations most photographers don’t know about. This shot, of the placid reservoir during a winter sunrise, is purely aesthetic, with the snowy landscape and distant Navajo Mountain adding to a wonderful combination of elements.
Frank Zullo
Published: 1988
Frank Zullo has specialized in astrophotography for decades, and back when he started, he was a pioneer in that field. Today, digital cameras have made it possible to make an image like this one with a single exposure, but in the 1980s, that wasn’t the case, which meant Zullo had to photograph the saguaro and chollas, then merge that shot with a color photo of the moon. It speaks to his vision for this kind of photography and the technical know-how required to create an original work of art.
Ken Akers
Published: 1989
In the history of Arizona Highways, no one photographed rodeo events the way Ken Akers did. He loved photographing sports of all kinds, and he was good at it — finding the peak moment and freezing the action in a compelling way. This photo was made with a 600 mm, manually focused lens, and it took a lot of skill to follow the action, keep the subject in focus and create a pleasing composition. Our readers were used to seeing rodeo in a different way, and when Akers came along, it felt as if Sports Illustrated photos were appearing on our pages.
Joel Grimes
Published: 2008
In the same vein as Ray Manley, Joel Grimes often uses studio lights — in his case, strobes — to add light to his landscape images, as he did with this photo of a Joshua tree. He also is comfortable merging photos, and this image is a composite of different photos of the sky and the desert landscape. Grimes considers himself an artist and not a purist, and that approach sets him apart. He’s always pushing the envelope, both artistically and technologically, and his work has been a wonderful addition to the magazine in recent decades.
Adam Schallau
Published: 2013
Adam Schallau first caught our attention in 2013, when he won our annual photo contest with this stunning image of a monsoon storm at the Grand Canyon. And while many of our contributing photographers shoot at the Canyon, Schallau has been dedicated to that place since he was an artist in residence there in 2009. After that experience, he moved to the Flagstaff area so he could be close enough to get there quickly during storms or other noteworthy events. His consistently excellent work is an example of what can happen when an artist focuses on the subject that most speaks to them.
Bruce D. Taubert
Published: 2014
These days, when we’re in need of wildlife photography, Bruce D. Taubert is the first person we call. He can shoot other things, but his background in wildlife management, combined with his artistic eye and endless enthusiasm, makes him stand out. He photographed this egret at a riparian preserve in the Phoenix area, but he’s also always looking for innovative ways to capture animals, including by setting up camera traps in the wilderness. And his understanding of animal behavior has helped him make many memorable images for us.
Shane McDermott
Published: 2015
The first time the Arizona Highways staff saw this image of fall color in the San Francisco Peaks, we were blown away. It felt completely different from anyone else’s idea of an autumn photo, and that’s a credit to Shane McDermott. He’s very thoughtful in his approach to photography, and he’ll spend countless hours at a shooting location to get a sense of it. Here, the combination of yellow aspen leaves, illuminated by a streak of sunlight, and other aspens in open shade — which digital cameras render as blue light — makes for one of the most memorable images we’ve ever published.
David Zickl
Published: 2016
We’d never seen a photo like this one before David Zickl had the idea to sit in the bow of a boat on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. He asked Brad Dimock, a legendary boatman, boat builder and author, what he thought, and Dimock agreed but said if Zickl fell out, he was on his own. (He didn’t fall out, but the constantly splashing water did ruin his camera.) Previous photographers, including John Blaustein, had made photos while sitting in boats, but they were shooting from stern to bow. By sitting up front, Zickl was able to capture the action and emotion of the scene.
Jack Dykinga
Published: 2016
A lot of people who got their start shooting with film had trouble embracing digital technology, but when Jack Dykinga jumped into that medium, he did so with both feet. This image, a composite of a dozen exposures, is a credit to his skill with a camera but also to his knowledge of Southern Arizona. He had scouted this spot in the Sonoran Desert, and when a monsoon storm came along, he got to the site and used a lightning trigger to capture numerous bolts. The result is an image that captures the power of nature.
Mylo Fowler
Published: 2020
Today, digital photography allows us to shoot the Milky Way galaxy and a terrestrial foreground — in this case, a hogan on the Navajo Nation — in a single image. For this photo, Mylo Fowler placed himself in a spot where the silhouette of the hogan leads the viewer up toward the Milky Way as it stretches across the sky. The cool tones of the stars are juxtaposed against the warm light from the hogan, and the image speaks to the passage of time and the people who have lived in this part of the world for thousands of years. It’s a credit to Fowler, both as a thoughtful photographer and as a Navajo himself.
Claire Curran
Published: 2023
Like many photographers in our history, Claire Curran started her career with commercial work, shooting with large view cameras in a studio. Like Jack Dykinga, though, she’s embraced both landscape photography and digital technology. Curran also works very hard to find new locations, often staying out on the road for weeks at a time. This photo of wildflowers on a Western Arizona sand dune is one of her best, but it’s always a pleasure to see a submission from her — there’s no one better at performing the delicate balancing act between art and craft.