Wyman Meinzer

Living in the Texas panhandle for a decade, I had a good feel for Palo Duro Cqnyon and a few of the other canyons. I first read Dan Flores' "Caprock Canyons", then fifteen years later Meinzer's "Canyons of the Texas High Plains". Flores' book is an information text with wonderful photos as illustrations. Meinzer's book is a naturalists photo book with a focus on scenic views and complemented by wildlife and flora.

As most of you know, Meinzer began as a wildlife photographer, then broadened his work to document all of the natural world in the drier part of Texas. His photos in this book are so good, there is nothing at all to criticize. They're all perfect and invoke beauty and wildness. Those who have not hiked through these canyons should know that they really are like this, beautiful and inspiring. It takes a superb photographer to actually capture that.

From these vistas and scenes, you can almost feel the interdependence between the plants and animals and between both and the climate, the water, and its erosive forces.… (más)

The author of this book is an exceptional native Texan photographer. He has incorporated outstanding landscapes and closeups of Texas within this publication. I do not care for the captions inserted for the photos. In the preface Meinzer states the book is to highlight both the visual diversity of the state and some prose from a diverse selection of sources. The prose comes from everywhere; biblical sources, unknown ranchers, restaurant owners and just about every politician from the state. i would rather have seen a caption that records the general location of each image, its season, and whatever plant, wildlife, or grainfield is its focus than the random thoughts of politivcians and biblical writers. Those biblical writers never saw Texas. Meinzer does list the locations of the photos on two pages in the back of the book for those persistent to hunt for them.

There is no order in the photo subjects, geography, caption authors or in the seasons or subjects the images portray that I can detect.

In summary, the photos are excellent but I think the 'whoopla' praise of the state in the captions gets in the way of appreciating the moods and beauty captured in the images. it seems to be just a coffee table book with very good images.… (más)