Antelope Canyon meet HDR

I have never been a big fan of a digital process called HDR (high dynamic range) imagery because it sometimes renders photos that look fake. But I have been working with a software called Photomatrix which is working much better than I had expected. I used it on some bracketed exposures that I took at Antelope Canyon and was pleased with the results. The difference beteween the highlights and the shadow/dark areas was pretty extreme within the canyons, but the software was able to merge several of these exposures together to come up with a very balanced shot. I plan on experiementing with this HDR software some more and perhaps work it into some composite photos that I have been learning about.

Antelope Canyon

I got the chance to visit Antelope Canyon on Thursday with my friend Mia. Mia lives in Seattle and for a long time has wanted to photograph these unique canyons in Northern Arizona. We booked a tour with Carol Bigthumb, a Navajo tour guide from the local area. Carol was a big help with transportation and she knew quite a bit about photography. Many times Carol got us in the right location for the best shot. We hired her for the entire day and went to a total of five of the canyons. She was called away for an emergency meeting with the tribal counsel so her son Lane took over during the afternoon. He was also an excellent guide and was an interesting person as well.

Because it is November the sun is much lower in the sky and therefore the "shaft of light" phenomenon does not occur as much as it does in the summer when the sun is higher and comes down through slots in the upper part of the canyon formation.

Taking these photos is much harder than I had thought. Because the way the light enters the area, there can be large differences in the light levels causing difficult blowout of either very bright areas of the photo or very dark areas. In the digital age this situation is called "clipping", I struggled with it all day.

Like many people, I tend to get compliacent about the place I live and don't explore enough. I had heard about the "slot canyons" many times but never made the effort to go see them. I was very happy that my friend motivated me to go see them.