FROM BROWNIE TO DIGITAL

A Rural Westerner Reflects On Life Behind The Lens

By Story and Photos By Marion Dickinson, 1-15-07

	Photos by Marion Dickinson.

I was born in Shoshoni, Wyoming and grew up on a mink and sheep ranch in the Riverton Valley. I got my first camera, a Brownie 127, for Christmas when I was a preteen. I remember being terribly disappointed because what I really wanted was the Kewpie doll my sister got.

But I guess my Mom knew me better than I knew myself, I have been taking pictures ever since. As a child, I took pictures of my family whenever we went to Yellowstone. And, like a lot of the tourists, I generally took pictures of the roadside bears.

I was fascinated by them and I don't recall seeing a buffalo or elk much. Of course, there are a few images of Old Faithful in my childhood collection, and since my uncle was a fisherman, pictures of family with strings of trout.

Before me now, there are boxes of the 110 photos just waiting for the day I actually take time to start separating them into folders for my four sons. They tell the story of my life as a mom: Babies, toddler, little cowboys, junior rodeos, 4-H and FFA animals; they are all there.

My youngest son went into the Air Force after graduation, so without college expenses for him, I went back to school to become a Certified Nurse-Midwife. I attended school in Jackson, Mississippi and talk about a culture shock to a life-time Westerner! But that, as they say, is another story.

Upon graduation and certification myself, I went to work for Indian Health Service in Tuba City, Arizona. One day, I found a Cosina 35 SLR on sale with a lens and bought it. There were frequent phone calls to a couple of my sons about depth of field (not a big problem with point-and-shoot 127s or 110s), f-stops, etc, but I learned by trial and error.

Tuba City is about 75 miles from Flagstaff, the home of the nearest college, so it was pretty much a self-learning experience. Fortunately I am a voracious reader; that helped. I also took a couple of photo workshops—one to Katmai National Park in Alaska in 1993. I also took another field seminar in the slot canyons of northern Arizona.

I can’t remember the name of the company, but I sure remember the instructor, LeRoy DeJolie, who now does workshops for the magazine Arizona Highways. Folks came from all over the United States for the workshop, I lived about 60 miles away and had been one of the DeJolie midwives. LeRoy was outstanding and I learned a great deal about lighting from him.

This all brings us to the subject of this article, Antelope Canyon, which is arguably the most famous of the slot canyons, partly because of its accessability. Both Upper and Lower Antelope are within sight of the Page Power Plant and are on the Navajo Reservation. They are more like caves with an opening in the ground above them.



Upper Antelope is a couple of miles from the highway along a very sandy road. A Navajo family has the concession and drives folks back to the canyon to take pictures for about an hour, and returns them to the parking lot. They charge for this service and it is worth every penny.

Controlled access is necessary because of the large numbers of people wanting to go in there. Of course, there is always the danger of vandalism in this day and age. Any damage to the area would be irreparable, and is best prevented through this method of guiding. Optimum photography in the canyon is around midday in May, as that is when the sun beam comes down directly through the slots. One technique is to throw sand into the air to make the light show up. The image of the columns shows lighting when the beam is not shining directly down.

Lower Antelope is much closer to the road, but can still only be accessed with a Navajo guide. One has to go down ladders to reach it. The lighting and the formations are different than in the Lower Canyon. You will see a log wedged between the walls high above your head. It did not get there by accident—it was brought in by flood waters.

Both slots are extremely dangerous during rains, even rains in the mountains many miles away that can flood down the gullies. Twelve people were caught in the canyon in 1997 and eleven drowned.

Today, I'm back in Wyoming. I retired from Indian Health Service in 1997 and came home. In 2000, two of my grandsons graduated from high school, one in Kingman, Arizona. I went back in May for his graduation, and stopped off in Tuba City to visit my friends.

Recalling the magic of my first visit, I decided to make another trip to Antelope before going to Kingman. One of the images I took that day was entered into the 2000 National Wildlife photo contest. I was fortunate enough to win a spot on the back cover of the winter 2000/2001 issue of the magazine.



I had been looking at digital cameras and reading about various models, despite being told that digital was just a flash in the pan and could never equal film cameras. I still prefer taking wildlife images so I wanted a zoom and bought an Olympus 2500 UZ with the winnings from that photo appearing in National Wildlife and a couple others I sold as a result.

I have not gotten back to shoot Antelope with my digital cameras, but hope to perhaps this year. I now have a Pentax istD (because I already had k- mount lenses), and added a Panasonic FX7 to my bag. I still use the Oly too. It's been an amazing journey going from my old 127 black and white Brownie to digital in one lifetime.

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