HDR (or High Dynamic Range) is an increasingly popular process of combining digital files to create an image that more closely resembles what the eye sees. It’s used primarily when the contrast in a scene exceeds the latitude of what the film or sensor is able to capture in a single shot.

Depending on the amount of contrast in the scene a series of up to 7 identical brackets one stop apart are combined, which represent all of the tonal value from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights. This image of False Kiva in Canyonlands National Park is very close to what I saw that evening, but the extreme contrast would have made it nothing more than a vision in my mind’s eye if not for HDR.

Photographic purists may balk at the use of such digital wizardry, but in fact it is not unlike the dodging and burning that Ansel Adams used countless times in the darkroom to achieve his magical prints. As he put it, “the negative is the score, and the print is the performance”. I concur, and feel that any photographic process which helps render a natural scene as it was witnessed is acceptable as long as it does not deceive the viewer or alter the truth.

The cliff dwellings of the American southwest are the most spectacular ruins north of Mexico. The Anasazi Indians (or ”ancient ones” as the modern Navajo call them) were the prehistoric pueblo culture that thrived in the Four Corners region between 900 and 1200 A.D. then mysteriously disappeared.

Many of their elaborate structures are well-preserved in national parks such as Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. From three story citadels perched precariously on canyon ledges like Square Tower House above, to the 500 room Great Houses of Chaco Canyon, these skilled masons left a legacy to rival the ruins of ancient Greece.

Archaeologists and scholars still debate what caused their sudden demise toward the end of the 12th century, but the stone handywork of the Anasazi remains a fascinating testament to the vision and tenacity of these ancient people.