GOLD CANYON, Ariz. — On the low shoulder of a manmade hill, where the air smells faintly of horses and creosote, the horizon is lined with foothills of the Superstitions. Joanne West waits patiently. She’s like a maître d’ waiting for a door to open. She stands upright, composed, everything already in its place, ready for the night’s event.

Moments before, she was feeding her pet 200-pound Sulcata tortoise, Sheldon, a thick sprig of romaine, thinking about the artist gallery that she’s hosting this weekend . The twilight sky brings her back to the present.

“See the pink?” she asks. “It’s time to get up there.”

This is a cue she’s known for decades.

West is one of Arizona’s most prominent lunar and desert photographers, known for full-moon rises over the Superstition Mountai

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