The Slot Canyon Portfolio
I recently, (December 2014), went to photograph the slot canyons outside of Page Arizona with two friends - also photographers. I was expecting to have to hike a bit to get to them, but to my surprise the Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons are about 5 minutes outside the town. You drive up to the Lower Antelope Canyon guest center and hire a Native America guide to lead you through the canyon, which is only a few hundred feet from the office. Our guide was quite knowledgeable and friendly, and helped me greatly. I only had time to go through the Lower Antelope Canyon on this trip, but I hope to go back and see the other canyons as well. I was told that if you just want to walk through the canyon it might take 5-10 minutes. The tour was 2 1/2 hours long, and we JUST made it through the canyon to the end in the 2 1/2 hours! I could have photographed for another 2 1/2 hours if I had the time.
The canyon is quite unbelievable. It seemed everywhere I looked I could compose a fantastic abstract shape or design. The flowing lines in the walls and their sandy texture made this a very interesting experience. The only other place I could compare it to was when I first went to the Mesquite Sand Dunes of Death Valley National Park in California. I was also able to capture abstract shapes of the dunes on that trip, which was back in 1982.
Most of my images are shot looking almost straight up, as the light comes from above all the time. It may appear that the image is shot ahead or behind you but usually the walls are so close you can't get a good composition in the horizontal direction. Even though I have seen many photographs of the slot canyons before, I was overwhelmed by the canyon in person. I used my new digital SLR camera (Nikon D800E), on a good tripod, to make the photographs. The exposure times were above 1 second most of the time, at ISO 100 and F11 to F16. I used a 16-35 F4 Nikon Zoom lens to try to get all of the depth that was there into the image.
