Tumamoc Hill

Author's Comments

The road up Tumamoc is paved and steep and entirely too crowded at sunset, and I still find myself walking it. The hill rises out of the west side of Tucson like a low volcanic dome, and the summit gives you the basin in every direction at once. Catalinas to the north. Tucson Mountains pressing in close to the west. The grid of the city laid out below in a way that makes sense of the valley. The photograph everyone makes is the sunset one. The Catalinas going pink in alpenglow as the sun drops behind you. It is a real photograph and worth making once. But the image I keep chasing is the one twenty minutes earlier, when the light is still on the saguaros along the road and the city has not yet started to glow. Late January. Late February. The air is clear in a way it never quite is in summer, and the depth of the basin reads in a single frame. A wide lens is the obvious choice and the right one. But I have started bringing something longer too, because the compression of the Catalinas against the near ridges is where the picture gets interesting. Most people walk past that frame without noticing it. Go on a Tuesday if you can. Weekends at golden hour are a parade. The hill is loved, and rightly, but the photograph you want is easier to find when the crowd is thinner and you can stand still long enough to watch the light actually move.

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