Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 88

E8 The Arizona Republic Sunday, November 7, 1999 Digital technology lets photographer improve imagery Marking magazine's 75th year1 Jack Dykinga Agave, Baja Sierra San Borja, by Jack Dykinga. DIGITAL, from Page El I Next comes David Muench, who has been providing Arizona Highways with pictures for five decades now. The youngest of the three is Jack Dykinga. Although Adams' pictures are mostly black and white, Muench 's and Dykinga 's are glorious color. All three have worked in large-format photography, lugging around heavy equipment to get the largest, most detailed images possible.

There is not too much to be said for the pictures except that they are all gorgeous. Go and see them. But there are a few other comments that might be made. One is that the discipline has changed a lot since Adams worked. It is not just the addition of color that is different.

Adams worked in silver-coated paper the norm for photography for more than a hundred years. But Muench's and Dykinga 's color panoramas are made digitally, printed out on high-end ink-jet printers. At first, it's hard to tell the difference, so sophisticated has the digital process become. The pictures are richly colored and acutely sharp and detailed. The paper even has the slight gloss of silver paper.

But the digitization of the images allows the photographer to improve on the camera imagery. In the past, color photographers could manipulate the images only through the use of the incredibly difficult and expensive dye-transfer process, which required that three separate black-and-white negatives be made from the original, one for each primary color. But now, the images can be run through Photoshop or some equivalent software and controlled with incredible nuance, allowing for the advantage of the old dye transfer without its cost. The result: pictures with incredible range from detailed shadows to textured highlights. Anyone who takes family snapshots and has wondered about the washed-out sunlit parts of his pictures can appreciate how much finesse these photographers bring to the work.

You can gawk at the brilliance of the photographs on the gallery wall, but you need to know that photography itself has gone through a sea change. It isn't what it used to be. Forget the noxious chemicals and refrigerated printing paper. This new world is in many ways better than the -old. Certainly Adams, had he lived to see the new technologies, would have used them.

He always showed interest in the newest and fanciest. Photography has gone through a long history with museums. At the beginning of this century, museums in general refused to show photography, claiming that photography wasn't an art, because it was made by "a machine." The proselytizing of such people as Alfred Stieglitz eventually broke down the prejudice against the silver image. Yet even when the museums agreed to show black-and-white photos, they refused to show color, because the process wasn't stable and the colors faded. Black-and-white tends to be permanent "archival" is the word used in art circles and color was suspect as late as the mid-'70s.

Later, photographers such as William Eggle- at the Heard Museum from Sept. 30 through December. It will then move to the Museum of Northern Arizona from May 5 to Sept. 30, 2001. Also, two new books have been published by Arizona Highways.

First, there is Grand Canyon: Time Below the Rim by -Graig Childs with photographs by Gary Ladd. It is the first book the magazine has ever published on the" state's biggest tourist attraction. It is-filled with gorgeous color photo- graphs and the travel journals of Ladd, written as he hiked through the Canyon. "My intention with the book" Childs wrote, "is to describe what cannot be revealed through photo- graphs, while Gary Ladd is out there somewhere photographing what cannot be revealed in words." Also new is David Muench 's Art-'-zona: Cherish the Land, Walk in Beauty a large-format -book of the large-format color pho-" tographs of Muench, probably the best current practitioner of large, unbeatably beautiful pictures of the -natural world. Richard Nilsen The Arizona Republio- There are a number of events celebrating the coming 75th anniversary of Arizona Highways magazine.

The first is a current show at the Phoenix Art Museum, "Arizona Highways: Celebrating the Tradition," with photographs by Ansel Adams, David Muench and Jack Dykinga. It will remain at the museum until Jan. 30. It will then move, first to the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson from Feb. 19 to April 29, and then to the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff from June 24 to Nov.

5. A second show, "Arizona Highways: Celebrating Our Land, Our People," runs at the Desert Caballe-ros Western Museum in Wickenburg from Jan. 29 to April 16 and then moves to the Phippen Museum in Prescott, April 22 to Aug. 20. It will consist of 75 of the most popular images from the magazine.

"Arizona Highways: Grand Canyon" opens at the Mesa Southwest Museum in April and runs through June. A second, permanent exhibit will open at the museum May 1. And finally, "Arizona Highways: Celebrating the Native Cultures," with photos by Jerry Jacka, will run ston, Joel Meyerowitz and Stephen Shore convinced museum curators that color had a place, too. So, for the past 20 years or so, color nas been considered a legitimate medium for photographic art. I not sure museums have reached a consensus on ink-jet prints yet, but the Phoenix Art Museum must consider itself in the vanguard.

Eventually, in a Postmodern age, where everything possible finds a place, the ink-jet issue must be considered a negligible concern. Permanence has become a moot issue in a world that values the gobs of fat of Joseph Beuys or the frozen-blood sculptures of Marc Quinn. Richard Nilsen is online. Send e-mail to him at 41 years later, women gain right to votef a Mi 1 1 i 1 fit' lit fSs I-. Pam Tubridy BaucomFlorentine Films Ken Burns, producer of the acclaimed Civil War documentary, is back as co-producer of Not for Ourselves Alone.

41, from Page E7 Stanton and her husband produced seven children but their work together would literally change history. "When these two women met, the lightning bolts started to come out of the sky," Lynn Sherr, a biographer, says in the film, "because that was literally the beginning of the women's movement." The two would clash from time to time, but they remained the closest of friends, working on projects far more reaching than just the right for women to vote they worked to oppose slavery, for temperance causes, for equal pay for women and several other causes that sought equality. The right to vote became their passion, however. In 1878, California Sen. Aaron Sargent would introduce on their behalf a suffrage amendment to the Constitution.

During a Senate hearing, one senator clipped his nails and read the paper; the amendment didn't make it out of committee. It would be reintroduced every year for the next 41 finally passing in Congress in 1919, written word-for-word the same as the original amendment. Not for Ourselves Alone delves deeply into the lives of both women, showing Anthony to be a tireless champion of women's rights. The most delightful discovery, however, is the caustic and brilliant pen that Stanton wielded. "It's not just a political, but also a literary mind, that's been lost in American history," Barnes said.

For instance, she wrote the following after an equal-pay measure A Joan Marcus Cotter Smith (left), Jack Willis and Judd Hirsch (right) create fireworks in the French comedy Art, which opens Tuesday at Tempe's Gammage Auditorium. In rehearsals, director discovered that Art' is deceptively simple Susan B. Anthony Hou'g Susan B. Anthony (left) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton became lifelong friendr in their fight for social justice in general and women's rights in particular. was defeated at a teachers' convention, in which most of the women voted against it: "What an infernal set of fools these schoolmarms must be.

Well, if in order to please men they wish to live on air, let them. The sooner the present generation of women die out, the better. We have jackasses enough in the world now without such women propagating any more." And her Solitude of Self, a speech Stanton gave near the end of her career, stands still as a powerful embracement of freedom. She also published The Women's Bible, which critiqued religious doctrine and turned into a scandalous bestseller. "If you think of how religious the nation was that kind of at- IF YOU GO 'Art' "I think they were both true great revolutionaries," Barnes "They were the ones who broke alt; the ground for all sorts of subse- quent actions in women's rights." And, as far as Barnes is con- I cerned, it's high time more people knew about it.

Reach Bill Goodykoontz at (602) 444-8974; or at bill.goodykoontzpni.com. tack on religious doctrine was truly outrageous," Barnes said. "That was an amazingly radical thing for her to do at the time." The threats, the harsh words, the strong rebuttals one thing that Not for Ourselves Alone makes clear is that these were not simply right-minded, strong-willed women fighting for a cause. They were something much more. WHAT: Matthew Warchus directs Yasmina Reza's prizewinning comedy.

WHEN: Through Nov. 14. Performance times vary with date. WHERE: Gammage Auditorium, Mill Avenue and Gammage Parkway, Tempe. TICKETS: $17.50 to $39.50.

(480) 965-3434. PARKING: Free. SUITABILITY: Adults, mature young people. Is it a cult, or just entertainment? ONLINE: Do the stand-alone X-Flles episodes measure up to the mytholo to Arizona Central and have your say. Also look (or Goody's Guide, links to recent columns and the TV Talk message board.

All at ww.azcrTtral.comrepAvindex.html on the Internet. from Page E7 Files, remember. X-Files episodes fall into two categories, the so-called mythology shows, which chronicle a cloudy government conspiracy involving UFOs and which only series creator Chris Carter seems to truly understand (and I have my doubts about him), and stand-alone episodes that are scary, weird, funny and sometimes all three. Not surprisingly, X-Files fans split into two camps as well. The hard-core fans love the mythology episodes while pretending to understand them.

The rest of us can't get enough of the stand-alone shows, which have dealt with such appetizing topics as inbreeding, circus freaks and a fluke man who made his home for a time in the sewer. That's why last season, which was loaded with whimsical episodes, was such a delight to everyone but the true-believing X-Fders. "I think it probably has something to do with being in the sixth year of a show," Duchovny told TV critics this summer. "You start to wink at the audience in some way, just because you have a history with the audience. think that people got scared because they all happened to occur in one spate there, like five or six in a row, and people went, 'Oh my God, it's AllyMcBeai:" Speaking of Ally McBeal, that show and The X-Files are the only life rafts in what's becoming a shipwreck of a season for Fox.

Thus, the probability that this is The X-Fdes' last season looms even larger. "I wouldn't say 'never' about anything," Duchovny said, "but as of right now, my contract is up at the end of this coming year, so I'm living my life as if this would be the last year, and I'd be fine if it were the last year." So fine, in fact, that Duchovny has sued 20th Century Fox Film claiming that Fox gave its FX cable channel and its broadcast stations favorable licensing deals for reruns of The X-Files, thereby undercutting bigger money that could have been made by seeking higher bids. With all that in mind, what does the "Again, without wanting to be rude, I care as little about that as I care about the relationship," Du- chovny said. Check. Conspiracy theories: ask.

Duchovny was, however, willing to put the series into perspective. "I think that at its heart, at its baseI at its core, it was just a (expletive) good show, you know?" he said. "And it was fun and it was exciting and it was well-written and it was well-acted and it was well-directed. And sure, it; had some kooky elements that might have been, you know, end-of-the-cen--tury oriented. But in the end, it was just cool and it was good and it was ZZ different." And, at its best, almost understand- able.

Duchovny certainly sounds like a man coming to terms with the end of the series. So, then, should we. Let's just enjoy it while we've got it. We can try to figure it all out later. Reach BiD Goodykoontz at (602) 444-8974, or atUII.goodykoontzpni.com.

IN REHEARSALS, from Page E7 ship. The play's French author isn't the Only one to benefit from its brilliance. Warchus' direction of the London and New York productions, and now the American tour, has catapulted him into the heady realms of Entertainment Tonight and Extra! The ultimate proof of his meteoric rise? Simpatico, a film based on a Sam Shepard play he directed in London, opens later this year with Jeff Bridges, Nick Nolte, Sharon Stone and Albert Finney in the cast. "I can't let Sam get all the glory," he says, referring to fellow Brit Sam Mendes, whose stage work led to the chance to direct the critically acclaimed movie American Beauty. Warchus takes his new status in stride, even if he's feeling a little harried from the multimedia attention.

He's been on the phone for several hours with theater and film writers, and incoming calls are still stacking up. "The public wants its piece of flesh," he jokes, and Warchus is new enough at the game to be willing to bleed a little. Still, he's an honest guy. Everyone may be shouting his praises for 'Art, and, yeah, the advance buzz on Simpatico has been pretty good, but he reminds you that it wasn't all that long ago that British critics were screaming bloody murder after sit-Jing through his revisionist Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company. 1 "I do recall terms like 'wrong-headed' and he says, chuckling.

"All you can do is approach the work honestly, or at least with what you believe is honesty. You deal with the rest of that when it happens." There has been a tendency among Francophiles to worry that Christopher Hampton's English translation has robbed Reza's play of at least some of its Gallic sophistication. "I don't know where that's coming from," Warchus says. "I've been involved with this from the beginning, and I can tell you that Christopher has been extremely sensitive to Yasmina's style. "The original always was a little quirky.

Yasmina raises a voice similar to David Mamet's voice in American theater. Not because she's Jike Mamet, but because her choice of words is quite jazzy." coming season hold? Well, inscrutable plots, iffy endings and more "mythology" episodes that are starting to play out like the world's longest bad sci-fi movie, certainly. But how about Mulder and Scully? Will they, you know you know. "I couldn't tell you how uninterested in that I am, really," Duchovny said. "I could not make it clear enough.

I don't mean to be rude when I say that. It's just not interesting to me in any way, shape or form, and thankfully, it doesn't have to be, because I don't have to write the show." OK, got it. Romantic relationship: Doesn't care. How about how the conspiracy theories will finally play out? One of the things Warchus and Hampton (the author of Les Liaisons Dangereuses) wanted to avoid was any hint of "BBC English," the director says. It took them several drafts in London before they were satisfied, and the play was revised again for New York and yet again for the road.

"I really think this last incarnation is as close as we can get to the French original," the director says. When Warchus first read the script, "it made me laugh a lot 1 like to do plays with something of substance to say and, when they say it through humor, so much the better. To me, laughter is the most eloquent way to involve an audience." In rehearsals, Warchus discovered that Art "is a deceptively simple play. It has the quality of a classic even though it is new. Sometimes you come across rather disposable, shallow work masquerading as something deep.

This is something deep and important pretending to be frivolous." He isn't surprised at the play's success in countries other than France. "We all feel, at one point or another, that our family, our lovers or our friends are leaving us out of things or are judging us unfairly. "There are so many emotional entry points for the audience, it is like splitting an atom. There is enormous fallout. Yasmina hits you hard.

She makes you laugh while you're in the theater and talk long after you've left it." Kyle Lawson can be reached at (602) 444-8947, or at kyle.lawsonpni.com. For a list of theater events, go to Work on stage, screen, TV keeps Mandy Patinkin busy be accompanied by pianist Paul -Ford, who's had that particular job so long that the Chicago Tribune was moved to comment: "They communicate by telepathy." -In a New York Times interview, I Patinkin said it's simpler than that; 'Hf nlave I eino WORK, from Page E7 creative crisis. Things began to percolate again in 1989 when he made his concert debut with a gig at New York's Public Theatre. He called it "a terrifying jaunt into an unknown world," but the critics and the public welcomed him to the new arena. (Anyone who has seen and heard him perform Buddy's Blues from the Follies score knows why!) In 1990, there was the less than magical Born Again, based on Eu- dent was an aberration in an otherwise-exceptional career.

His life became a calendar-keeper's nightmare in the mid- and late-'90s as he switched between theater, television (Chicago Hope, earning Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, and the superb BBC adaptation of Arthur Miller's Broken Glass) and film (Mike Nichols must be eating his heart out after seeing Patinkin's delicious villainy in the current Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland). At the Scottsdale concert, he will gene Ionesco's Rhinoceros, which, despite its title, failed to resurrect Patinkin's star status in the theater. In 199I, however, he had a hit with the musicaf version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's childhood classic, The Secret Garden. He played Archibald, the heroine's cold uncle who obsessively mourns the death of his wife. Patin- kin relished the part not only forthe dramatic opportunities it offered but because the producers sought him out for the role.

It was proof, if any was needed, that the Heartburn inci- sure, ana icasso paints. -We get the picture. I Kyle Lawson can be reached at (602); 444-8947 or at kyle.lawsonpni.com vi e-mail. For a list of theater events, go ta www.azcentral.comrepartsindex.html..