NONFICTION - Nov. 21, 1993

ANCIENT LAND, ANCESTRAL PLACE: Paul Logsdon in the Southwest Photographs by Paul Logsdon; essays by Stephen H. Lekson and Rina Swentzell; photographic text by Catherine M. Cameron. (Museum of New Mexico Press: $39.95; 149 pages; 80 color photographs.) These striking aerial photographs of Anasazi ruins, shot by the late Paul Logsdon from the open cockpit of his tiny Cessna 150, offer new perspective on “the ancient ones” who nearly a thousand years ago built great towns across the arid Southwest. From his perch in the sky, Logsdon could truly see these structures in context, a near-impossible undertaking when viewing them from the ground. His color portraits, often shot just after sunrise, reveal carefully planned structures of native sandstone and adobe blending organically into the landscape. The Anasazi strove for wholeness in their building, a principle still embraced by their descendants, the modern-day Pueblo people. Logsdon’s haunting images of lonely masonry walls and unexcavated mounds slowly melting back into the earth also serve as quiet reminders of life’s fragility. The pictures are accompanied by two perceptive essays and an informative photographic text.