Capturing natural beauty with a camera brings peace to Howard Paley and joy to thousands who see the breathtaking images he posts daily on Facebook and Instagram. Along with landscapes, sunrises, and sunsets, the longtime Tucsonan’s favorite subjects include wildlife, from hummingbirds to bison; lightning storms and cloudscapes; ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs; and colorful, often weatherbeaten doors, windows, and gates.
Paley’s interest in photography began at an early age with a Polaroid camera and later blossomed with a Canon G-III QL 35mm rangefinder his father gave him after his bar mitzvah. As a child his eye for photography was inspired by the images that filled the pages of Life and Look magazines, National Geographic, and Smithsonian.
Paley was active in 4-H and spent weekends and summers working on a picturesque 4-H farm in Riverhead, New York. He took the 4-H slogan “Learn by Doing” to heart, toting his camera everywhere. But his love for photography truly developed in the mid-1970s at Hofstra University, where he learned his way around the darkroom, and later in the desert photographing landscapes while studying range management at the University of Arizona.
After college, he married Tucson native Roberta “Bobbi” Schwager and worked for the Bureau of Land Management as a range intern on the Arizona Strip. They lived in St. George, Utah, and after a few years moved back to Tucson. Paley changed careers and started a direct mail fundraising consulting firm where he put his photography skills to work designing mailing pieces, ads, portfolios, annual reports, and brochures for his clients. Over the years he hired photographers for various projects and eventually began shooting photographs himself.
In 2006, as a founding member of the Phoenix Opera Company, he expanded his repertoire, shooting stage productions. And as managing director of Center Dance Ensemble, which performed at the Herberger Theatre in Phoenix, he honed his skills even further.
“There is a significant difference between shooting opera and photographing dance. One is almost always stationary; the other is in constant motion. In fact, anticipating what comes next in a dance performance is like photographing wildlife,” Paley says.
In a performance space, lighting and set design help transport an audience into “a moment of magic,” he says, and similarly, a good photograph should take people to “a place of wonder … a place where they may have never been.”
With enormous patience for his craft, Paley often spends hours waiting for the right light to illuminate a canyon or a cactus flower. He notes that along with using the best lenses one can afford, using a tripod to stabilize the camera makes all the difference in capturing an image crisp enough to see the edges of the mountains or count the needles of a saguaro. Sometimes, his patience is rewarded with an animal wandering into view. On a recent trip to the Grand Canyon, his wife alerted him to a bighorn sheep standing right behind him. When he turned, the animal leapt onto a canyon wall. It paused and Paley got his shot.
More than 200 of Paley’s photographs are on display at the Tucson VA Hospital and other medical centers in the Southwest. They’re also held in many private collections. He has exhibited his work at several local venues including the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson Jewish Community Center, Steinfeld Warehouse Gallery, and Art Studio 101 in Phoenix.
Paley is also a professional real estate photographer. He began shooting houses for his wife, a realtor with OMNI Homes International, and now shoots properties for many realtors. “Photographing real estate presents some of the very same challenges found in shooting landscapes. It is all about the light and capturing the essence of the space,” he says.
Fine art photography is still his passion. “My mother taught me that if you are going to share a work of art, you should always give it a name,” Paley says. The bighorn sheep at the Grand Canyon is “Close Encounters.” His “Alabaster Mist” graces the cover of the Kol Ami Synagogue prayerbook. While Paley is meticulous about reproducing color, he is flexible when selling his work. He offers prints in an array of sizes and mediums on his website. Every year, he produces a wall calendar with some of his favorite images that he sells through Facebook.
With fellow photographer and friend Stephen Shawl, Paley photographs events at Kol Ami, including renovations to the sanctuary. “From an institutional standpoint, it is so important to take photographs and preserve these memories,” he says, to record individuals and activities, whether it is done with a smartphone camera or by a professional.
Giving back to the community has always been important to Paley. Over the years, he has served as president of Congregation Or Chadash and has sat on numerous boards and committees in the Tucson Jewish community. Paley is currently president of Administration of Resources and Choices (ARC), which helps new homebuyers become homeowners and distressed homeowners and renters stabilize their living situations. For more than 30 years, ARC has maintained an Elder Protection Helpline, serving the urgent needs of the abused and neglected elderly in Southern Arizona. Paley also serves on the board of the Asylum Program of Arizona, one of the only nonprofit organizations in Arizona that assists non-detained asylum seekers in their quest for freedom.
While Paley remains engaged in serving the community, he continues to find solace in nature and photography. “In so many ways, photography is a form of meditation,” he says. “The camera becomes a centering device. You just have to give yourself over to the moment.”
Paley has always hiked with a camera and tripod over his shoulder. “Being out in the field is what it is all about. It is where I feel closest to God,” he says.
