©  2011 Piero Leonardi.  All rights reserved.

Within "The Corkscrew"--Lower Canyon

 

 

© 2011 Piero Leonardi.  All rights reserved.   © 2011 Piero Leonardi.  All rights reserved.

The ticket office is a crumbling wooden cabin at the end of a dusty square. On the right, you can sit on a couple of roofed benches for shelter from the hot sun as you wait for the guide who will lead your group through the canyon.  Antelope Canyon is located in northern Arizona and is a source of tourism business for the Navajo Nation.  It is divided into the upper canyon—referred to as “The Crack” and the lower canyon—referred to as “The Corkscrew”, since the main road cuts the canyon in two.  The upper is within reach only onboard a special sport utility the Navajos have equipped to drive tourists around; the lower is right behind the ticket office.  The old Navajo woman selling tickets catches sight of my photo equipment and asks me whether I need a “Photographer Pass.”  The pass costs $40 just to visit the lower canyon, although I’ll be able to stay as long as I want.  I accept and find myself with a yellow note bearing the writing “photo” tucked into a plastic badge that I hang around my neck.

  

The tourist groups enter the canyon hourly.  They disappear, swallowed by a tight cleft opening in the ground.  Our guide is a tall, bulky Navajo man who gathers our group and gives us our first advice.  While he’s talking, towering above our heads, I can’t help wondering if he will be able to slip into that tight cleft.  Nevertheless, he steps forward before us and easily snakes his way down into the ground, pausing while his head is still visible to turn and invite us to follow after him before he disappears among the rocks.

 

To go down to the level of the canyon, you must climb down a metal ladder.  The group climbs down a bit less than ten meters (30 plus feet), and we discover that we are enveloped in color.  The walls are indeed within our reach--just a bit more than a single meter (3 plus feet) away.  There are only a very few spots where we can keep our arms wide open.  The light sliding in from above echoes against the walls and grows brighter and brighter with each step.  The farther down we climb, the more we are surrounded by an intense and involving orange hue.  The rocky walls look like fabric.  The lines scratched by the rain and the wind have drawn their soft folds so that they seem to follow us along the half mile of the whole path.

 

©  2011 Piero Leonardi.  All rights reserved.

 

I lag behind the group to begin looking around.  I feel an urge to start shooting everything and anything by instinct, since the whole of it is, indeed, thrilling.  But I must keep control to choose and understand what my canyon will be, to capture the visions of my instinct, not my eyes.  To get a good depth-of-field, I close the diaphragm; the shutter speed becomes slow--six or eight seconds sometimes.  I must use the tripod together with the “mirror-up” setting because vibrations may deprive the rocky drawings of their brightness by clicking.

 

© 2011 Piero Leonardi. All rights reserved.

© 2011 Piero Leonardi. All rights reserved.

It’s very difficult to place the tripod in such a tight place.  I need to use different lengths for the feet of the tripod and, above all, to lean the feet of the tripod against the rock very carefully so as not to scratch it.  I use rubber protective devices. Another item of equipment that’s necessary to shoot Antelope Canyon is a cable release, or even better, a remote shutter release so I won’t touch the camera, avoiding further vibrations.

 

 

© 2011 Piero Leonardi. All rights reserved.

 

 

A peculiar feature of Antelope Canyon is the “light wells”: beams of light slipping down from the apertures as far as the ground.  They can be seen only in given periods of the year or in the middle of the day.  They confer a peculiar emphasis to your snapshots.  If you happen to visit during another period of the year or time of day, you can simulate the effect by throwing a fistful of sand in the air.  The dust floating up around for just a few seconds will make the light beams visible.   Tip: Throw the sand in the air far from your camera.
 

 

©  2011 Piero Leonardi.  All rights reserved.

 

 

Another consideration you should keep in mind in such a peculiar condition of light is that the closer you get to an upper framing, the more the light will “burn” the rocks.  You should take care to keep yourself within the exposition range—about five stops--the position your photo detector allows you.  No doubt, an external spot exposure meter can be useful.

 

My group is far ahead by now and I can hear the voices of another group that will reach me shortly.  I stop in the first corner, take a look around, and wait to be lapped by them before I return to shooting.  I remain in the canyon for three hours before I walk back to the metal ladder to climb up to the surface.

 

© 2011 Piero Leonardi. All rights reserved.

© 2011 Piero Leonardi. All rights reserved.

"The Crack"--Upper Canyon

 

I jump into my car and drive to the square of the upper canyon.  The surroundings appear the same--a crumbling wooden cabin where I can buy tickets and roofed benches where tourists sit to wait.  All around there are many sport utilities parked--pick-ups with two rows of seats for tourists.  I buy a ticket to visit the upper canyon--this time without a “photographer pass.”  The cost is $25 for everybody.

 

© 2011 Piero Leonardi.  All rights reserved.

Our guide, a young Navajo girl, has us sit in one of the sport utilities and drives us to our destination on a wide sandy path, crossing through two steep rocky walls.  From time to time, we can see apertures around us where people are arranging ladders.  Perhaps they are in other canyons that tourists will be able to visit shortly.  We finally reach the entrance of the upper canyon.  This time there are no ladders to climb down.  The canyon is on the same level as the path, and the walls surrounding it rise about ten meters from the sand.  Other sport utility vehicles are parked around the entrance--one for each group visiting the canyon.
 

© 2011 Piero Leonardi. All rights reserved.

© 2011 Piero Leonardi. All rights reserved.