Photography by Richard E. Loftis

“When I was growing up, I would go to the Saturday afternoon shows, for a dime, and watch all the Westerns and Serials.  My visual impressions of the West were formed while watching a lot of movies that used the Monument Valley area of Arizona and Utah as a background.  Later, as I traveled around the West, I never found anything that looked like the West that I had in my mind.  One year returning from California I decided to take a short cut up through Arizona and Utah on my way to Colorado.  As I travelled North of Kayenta, Arizona and crossed into the Monument Valley area, I suddenly saw my West, or what I had pictured in my mind was the West.  There it was…all the buttes, mesas, mittens, six-shooters, the Hogans with Indians, and all the formations I was looking for.  I realized that all of those Western movies were shot in Monument Valley by directors like John Ford.  As time went on I travelled extensively in the area and began calling that area the Southwest, while California I called the West.”  REL