Antelope Canyon

Hurricane Harvey

My heart goes out to those struggling to survive Harvey in Texas. I'm not a big fan of Texas but no one deserves to be confronted with the disaster that awaits them this week. There will be flooding and a lot of damage before Harvey moves on. Let is all hope "The Donald" can get his head out of his a&% long enough to get the federal government to help with the cleanup and rescue operations. Enough said on that issue.

Antelope Canyon

I was in Antelope Canyon last year but the place is so beautiful I thought it was a good time to show another image from the place. I went in the early morning as I wanted to see what the canyon looked like with early sun. It was a different place for sure and that was a nice feeling. I didn't have any tripod or even a monopod as they are not allowed except during the special, and much more expensive, photographer's tours later in the day so I had to be extra steady. Most of the pictures came out blurred even with my stabilizer running because I tend to be more than a bit unsteady these days as I grow older. Some of the longest exposures were more than a second and not even the best lens stabilization can fix shaking that long. So I had to throw away a lot of images.

This photo is made up of 3 images, a bracketed series. What is interesting about the image is how "fluid" it looks. The lighter areas appear almost translucent, like a glassy surface is spread across the rocks. It's not, of course, but looks that way. What's happening here is the light, already diffuse from striking other rocky surfaces, is illuminating the right and left sides of this protrusion and making them appear like water is running across their surfaces. The effect only appears on the brighter exposures in the bracketing. It is a very interesting artifact of the light conditions and probably only appears in the early morning. Just another fantastic aspect of this very special canyon. I have to go back again some day and see what else is going on there.

Antelope Canyon - 35mm, F4,HDR,ISO 800,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Antelope Canyon

The sparse offerings...

I do have to apologize for the sparse offerings of late on this blog. I know I promised a photo a day but it's just been too hard to get my head into working on the computer of late. I've not been all that well and the wife has also had some very serious health issues that put her in the hospital for several weeks last month. Not exactly life threatening but damn close. Appears she had a minor stroke or a major epileptic seizure early last month and that left her with some paralysis in her right hand and overall weakness. She's now on some really awful drugs to help with the seizures and to hopefully return some function and energy but they leave her sick and weak. It's been a nasty adventure this last month and I just didn't have the inclination to sit at my computer in the hot sun and try to write blog posts. The weather has turned now so maybe I can be a bit more diligent. I'll be better ... I promise.

Antelope Canyon

The slot canyons on Navajo land near Page, AZ are a must for any serious photographer. They are gorgeous and very interesting. Carved by raging storm waters they have such amazing shapes and colors due to the layered sandstone that is everywhere in that part of the country. As they are on indian land there's a high fee to pay and you must take one of the guided tours so it's really hard to get good photos. They do offer photographer's tours but they happen at the same time as the other tours so you're always fighting the crowds to get good shots. And the special tours are very expensive ... $85 bucks for 2 hours. Maybe next year I'll opt for one of those. I took an early morning tour before the bright sun could penetrate the canyons so there was less light and many of my longer exposures (hand held) were blurred so I didn't get much to work with. But this shot came out very nice. It's HDR to get all the colors and tones. Taken with my new 6D and my 16-35 f/4 wide angle lens. Not a show stopper but nice none the less.

Antelope Canyon - 35mm,f/4,HDR,ISO 800,license CC BY-NC 4.0