SnakeMedicine_Book1

P R E FA C E
The snake is both revered and feared
in many cultures, ancient and contemporary.
Like all animals, the snake has a
practical as well as a metaphysical purpose.
For its authors, this book, too, has
dual intentions. Scott Angus is a gifted
photographer, whose talent is just beginning
to gain attention. Emily Sopensky has
earned her living crafting words for others.
This is her first foray into a joint project
with Scott and the art of photography.
With this collection of photographs,
we embark on the first in a series of personal
odysseys that explore sacred earth
sites. Capturing the power of these ancient
spiritual places is an off-sought, illusive,
lifetime goal.
It may be too much to anticipate visions
of the ancients dancing and chanting on
these pages while viewing the accompanying
photographs, but we do hope this
collection conveys what the photographer
sees; why and how he was drawn to each site;
speculation on what force powers the site;
and what was captured in the photograph.
Simultaneously this book was written
with the photography student in mind. As
a teacher of studio arts, Scott Angus gives
subtle guidance in taking photographs
that all can learn from, regardless of generational
differences.
The quality of a photograph, or a photography
technique, is often reduced to
capturing the moment. With a portrait, it
may be about capturing that fleeting smile
as it unwinds. Say you are at a party and
you want to capture the mood. You whip
out your camera, or more likely your cell
phone, and snap away. You learn quickly
the next sober morning how difficult it is
to distill your multiple shots into one that
reflects all that you felt then and now
about the party and the people who were
there. Capturing the moment, the light, the
feeling, the people, the room—all that you
“recorded” while at the party, is a phenomenally
intuitive process that goes underappreciated
because everyone can take a
picture. Similarly, the art of selecting
the picture to be recorded in landscape
photograph is just as difficult as flipping
through the takes you did get. Determining
the subject and its “frame”, selecting the
angle that best uses the light, are important
in making a memorable photograph that
has universal appeal.
We revere the great U.S. landscape
photographers. Sources of inspiration are
Ansel Easton Adams, Edward Weston,
Minor White and Sebastião Salgado, all of
whom were inspired by the great landscapes
of the American West.
In the analogs of photographic history,
Ansel Easton Adams surely is such a
household name that no one in the U.S.
has not heard of him or seen his pictures.
He and several well-known artists such as
Thomas Moran, helped introduce the
American West to the United States and
the world. Capturing the majesty of such
jewels as Yosemite National Park, Adams
also sparked environmentalism in the wild
west.
Older but still a contemporary of
Adams, Edward Weston too was enamored
of the West. More specifically, California
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