/// Wild Tracks - Landscape Photography by Eduardo Gallo

WILD TRACKS

Passion for Landscape Photography

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Antelope Canyon Tribal Park, AZ, USA

October 2011

Antelope Canyon Tribal Park, AZ, USA

Canon 5D MkII & EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, 4s + 1.5s f/19 ISO100 @32mm

Google Earth for this photo
SENSUALITY

There are thousands of slot canyons in the Southwest. Created by the wear of water rushing through cracks in the rock, their formation is facilitated by the strong downpours flooding the desert during the summer monsoon season, the inability of the barren landscape to hold onto most of that water, which quickly channels down washes and ravines picking up speed and momentum, and the soft sandstone and limestones characteristic of these latitudes, which erode with ease. Once water finds a crack, each flood progressively cuts through it resulting in canyons that are several times deeper than they are wide, hence their name.

The interaction between the rushing water and the sandstone sometimes creates beautiful rounded shapes, and nowhere are those so beautiful and uninterrupted as in Antelope Canyon. Over the years I've had the good fortune of visiting slots of all types and colors, some technical and other easy to navigate, some smooth and others rough, some solitary and others well-known, some extremely narrow and others more comfortable, but Antelope is an extreme case no matter how you look at it. Nowadays converted into a tourist trap, it is impossible to find solitude in here, specially in its upper section, which I now avoid in favor of the steeper and less known lower canyon. No other canyon contains so many beautifully contoured shapes, so many angles for photography, so much variety as the angle of the light changes with the sun.

Photographing in slot canyons is a matter of taking advantage of reflected light while avoiding direct light at all costs. In each reflection against the canyon sandstone walls, the light gets progressively warmer as it picks up the color of the rock, and you may come up with three, four, or even more different tones in the same image, warmer and darker the closer you are to the canyon floor.

Antelope Canyon is located near the town of Page AZ, close to the only two bridges over the Colorado River for hundreds of miles in both directions. It is hence difficult to avoid driving through here when crossing from Arizona to Utah or viceversa, not precisely what you would call an "out of the way" destination. The day before my arrival I always tell myself that I've already been in this canyon too many times and that I do not need to stop this time. But the result never varies. I always end up finding an excuse to pay the hefty fee to get into the canyon and also the surcharge for exceeding the two hours that as a photographer you are allowed to roam free. The good news is that once you pay the surcharge you can stay there for as long as you wish, and I take advantage of that. This last trip it was four and a half hours, a new record for me. Nevertheless, it is money and time well spent, as the canyon always shows a different face every time I visit.

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