THE RIO GRANDE – AN EAGLE’S VIEW, Photographs by Adriel Heisey, Edited by Barbara McIntyre, Foreword by Robert Redford, Essays by John Horning, Steve McDowell, and Senator Tom Udall. WildEarth Guardians, Santa Fe, NM; wildearthguardians.org; distributed by U. of New Mexico Press. 2011. 240 pages. $75.00 hardcover, 10″ x 11-1/2″ ISBN 978-0-615-23453-3 color photographs.
More than a work of exceptional nature and aerial photography, this “Rio Grande” also means to call attention to the environmental protection required for the river to survive as both a resource and incomparable natural wonder in the Southwest. Robert Redford writes a personal memory of the River from when he was a boy which begins, “The Rio Grande is an important part of the way I see the American West…”; and ends with the note alluding to both the wonder and purpose of Heisey’s photographs, “Photographs, however beautiful, can’t surmount the Rio Grande’s many modern challenges. But they can show why it’s important that they be surmounted.” Senator Tom Udall in his short closing essay writes, “The Rio Grande is part of who we are as Westerners. It is central to our identity and to our sense of self, as well as to our economy.” He is speaking as well for all Americans as the Rio Grande is a part of the history and the legend of the West. Udall points to the deterioration of the Gila and the Santa Cruz rivers for what could happen–is happening–to the Rio Grande.
Heisey’s aerial photographs vary in subject and perspective, including a few which are close-ups among the majority which are panoramas of sections of the River and the mostly vast open spaces it traverses. The professional photographer whose photographs have appeared in National Geographic and other popular, large-circulation periodicals and professional pilot built an ultralight, customized airplane used for the project of this book. In his work in piloting Navajo officials to appointments throughout the Southwest, he knows the Rio Grande and the Southwest terrain and its population centers well. The photographs, many full-page and some double-page, follow the Rio Grande from its source in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico.
Taken during different seasons, times of day, and weather conditions along different stretches of the river, the photographs take in wilds and also cities. The photographers do not conform to a uniform style of Heisey’s, but rather capture the full range of the terrain and views along the long course of the river–each photo holding a different scene and scale inviting examination so as to respectively absorb the mood connoted by a variously rugged, desolate, or forested view or the layout and pattern of a city. Thus do the expertly done and thoughtfully selected photographs leave a lasting impression of the varied facets of today’s American Southwest all bound together by the defining feature of the Rio Grande.