This spring will mark the 6th anniversary of the death of David Crowe to an aggressive form of brain cancer. Lots of people locally knew him as a popular and successful orthodontist. Nationally, those active in autism research knew him as the father of Taylor Crowe, who traveled the world with his father giving talks and speeches. I knew him as a friend and photographer.
I first met David in about 1990 when he hosted a get-together at his office for an atmospheric scientist (and former classmate) giving a talk on ozone depletion. His orthodontic office was decorated with a number of large and very good photographic prints. We got into a conversation about landscape photography and medium format cameras. At that point I didn't even know that there were cameras larger than the standard 35 mm. But within a few years I was shooting a Pentax 645 and eventually owned two vintage Pentax 67's. He also turned me on to a place he had discovered near Page, Arizona called 'Antelope Canyon'. This turned out to be a blessing because over the next several years I would make a handful of trips there and was able to take some nice shots of upper and lower Antelope before it was 'discovered' and became the crowded tourist trap that it is now.
In about 2008 David organized a small expedition to a place called 'Hunt's Mesa', which overlooks Monument Valley from the south. Hunt's Mesa is on Navajo land, so it requires a Navajo guide. From a conversation years earlier he knew well-known guide and photographer Tom Phillips. So that fall, Tom and his nephew took a few of us up to Hunt's Mesa for a 3-night photography camping trip. One of the early highlights of the trip was when we all had to pile out of the vintage 4x4 and help push it up an especially sandy spot on the path to the top. But the trip is one of my favorite photography memories. We shot at first light in the morning and last light in the evening, before returning to the smell of pinon pine burning in a cook fire. This shot was actually taken one afternoon when the rest of the group was on a side hike. I stayed behind and took out my slow but trusty old Wista 4x5 and took 3 or 4 shots on black and white film. I essentially ignored this shot for about 20 years because I had several great sunrise and sunset slides from my Pentax 67. But eventually this has become my favorite image from the entire trip, and I think David would approve.
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