Sentinel Peak (A Mountain)

Author's Comments

The window is narrow and it is the whole point. From the moment the sun drops behind the Tucson Mountains at your back to the moment full dark settles over the valley, you have maybe twenty-five minutes when the city lights have come on and the sky still holds a wash of cobalt and rose above the Catalinas. That is the photograph. Everything else is preamble. I prefer Sentinel Peak in November or February, when the air is cleanest and the Catalinas read sharp on the horizon rather than dissolving into haze. The summit road closes at sunset, which sounds inconvenient and is actually a gift. You walk up. You arrive without a car between you and the view, and the short climb resets your pace to something closer to what the hour requires. Set the tripod early. Frame wider than you think, because the Catalinas are farther away and larger than they look, and a tight crop on downtown loses the relationship that makes this composition work - the small grid of city light pressed against that long dark wall of mountain. Then wait. The first lights come on while there is still too much sky. The exposures that hold both at once arrive in a five minute window, and if you are fussing with settings you will miss them. After full dark the photograph becomes a different photograph. The mountains go black, the city becomes the only subject, and long exposures start to make sense. Both versions are worth making. I usually stay for both, and walk down the road in the dark with the lights of Tucson spread out below me, which is its own kind of photograph that the camera cannot quite take.

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