Sunset on South Mountain

1/20/2025

When I lived in the Phoenix area, I struggled to see its beauty.

It's been 3 years since I moved to Oregon. Each year I've gone back to Arizona for the holidays, and last year I end up taking some of my favorite photos for the year on that trip.

This year I learned that if you follow Central all the way south, you can drive to the top of South Mountain. I decided to try to catch the sunset.

A sunset lookout you can drive to is the perfect opportunity to bring out large format. I shot some Ektachrome and Portra 400 on my Intrepid 4x5.

I'm pretty pleased with these images. This trip was my first time using a new light meter (and I'm generally not very confident metering the sky anyway) but these turned out.

As I was waiting for sunset at the lookout point, I was reflecting on how much I had been looking forward to this trip, how much fun I was having taking photos, and how excited I was to see the photos. How could taking photos in this place be so fun now, when it so wasn't before?

I think back then I wanted to get away so badly that I didn't allow myself to notice. I only saw the things I disliked. I needed space away from it.

I had a roll of Portra 160 loaded in the Minolta, which I got a few decent shots out of as well.

I do think part of it is just that I take a contiguous chunk of time off of work around the holidays, which leaves me the time and energy to focus on photography in a way that I don't really get to in day to day life. But I look around and I can't deny how unique and beautiful the desert is.

That week we'd had a slew of divine sunsets but I kept not being in a good spot to really work them. Christmas day rolled around and I was at a friend's house with a great view camera ready and it was

actually, subtler than I expected. I was hoping for big bold colorful clouds. Instead, I got Phoenix itself, glimmering in the final moments of unimpaired golden light.