Fun factoid: 104 with eight percent humidity in Arizona feels like 93 with 50% humidity in Los Angeles.
I’d like to point out how lucky I was to be able to book a spot on this photo tour with minimal lead time. I called the Friday before to book this tour. I did try a different tour group (which was highlighted in the Photographing the Photographing the Southwest: Volume 2--Arizona (2nd Ed.) book and they were either not running tours this day or they were booked solid. I didn’t have high hopes that I would be able to see the Upper Antelope Canyons on this trip. Had I not been able to book the tour, I would have canceled the entire trip. The photo gods were once again friendly towards me. The weather conditions were touch and go. Not a good thing. There was rain predicted throughout the day and along with rain meant there would be clouds, obscure the sun light clouds. While waiting for the tour SUV to come get us, we had bouts of clouds moving through and hiding the sun. I had prepared myself for the unacceptable clouded inspired poor lighting conditions and ruining the photo session and had therefore inquired about booking another photo tour with the tour group but there wasn’t anything available, at least not with this current tour group. This was a one shot deal for the week. I was running up against a major holiday weekend and I knew it was either today or another trip in future months/future years. Deborah did suggest coming in off season; either in October or November. However, the angle of the sun for these months is less than ideal for the trademark slot canyon shot.
Deborah was our Indian guide to the Upper Antelope Canyons. I identified her right off the bat and asked to claim the front seat of the tour SUV. Score. Along with me on the tour was a middle aged couple from Florida (the wife was the photog and the hubby was the serpa – luckily she wasn’t a gear person and her stuff was pretty simple), two middle aged ladies from Oceanside, California, and a photographer from Canada/Florida. Greg Constantakis had some hardcore gear with him. Along with a Nikon D3s, Greg was sporting my non Canon dream lens: a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. Had the conditions been less dusty, I think I could have slobbered on his lens from three feet away. He also had a spacer for his L-bracket for the shutter remote for all the portrait based shooting. Greg also mentioned to me that he had to his fame, two photos highlighted as photos of the day in National Geographic. He knows what he’s doing. On a side note, she shot extremely wide open. Something in the f/3.2 range. Along with an uber wide angle lens and a crazy sensitive sensor, he shot without a filter. His shutter times were lighting quick compared to my camera settings which were set to shooting in near darn conditions.
It took us 10-15 minutes in a heavy 4x4 vehicle to get to the opening of the slot canyons. The dirt road to the canyons was well travel and had substantial tire grooves from the many tour vehicles traveling along this only road to the canyons. Had I not sat in the front seat, I might have gotten a meaningful bout of motion sickness.
Before entering what looked like a cave entrance, we got our quickie parameters of the tour. Then upon entering the opening we saw a camera crew cleaning up. I was thinking great, we have to compete with other people for photo time. The place was packed. Like airlines buying landing and takeoff slots at an airport, the tour groups have slotted canyon times. Brief opportunities to have parts of the canyons to our group were almost surgically partitioned, which some happy play nicely/coexistence with the other tour operators. I assume, considering in theory all the tour guides are from the same tribe, the tour guides all get paid from the same general pool of money with some proportional weighting system.
The high point of this whole experience was the opportunity to rub elbows (almost literally) with Peter Lik, the uber successful landscape photog who has four galleries in Las Vegas (two of which live in Caesar’s Palace – I’m constantly amazed at this fact – WTF, two of them in one shopping area?). We were herded back to near the opening of the cave where Deborah arranged a few moments for some quality shooting time. I positioned my tripod next to a video camera operator whom I assume was shooting for Peter Lik’s Weather channel series. He, without sounded insulted, immediately corrected me and told me he was with Nat Geo (Nat Geo sounds so much cooler than National Geographic). He told me he was filming a story on flash floods in canyon locations and he finished off the banter by suggesting that the front element of my 16-35mm f/2.8 may not be weather sealed. Argh. I had to remove the polarizer to quicken the shutter speeds and left my front element unusually unprotected. On a completely tangent side note: If I could do it all over again, I would have purchased the 17-40mm f/4.0 instead. That lens is a much better value at a $500 dollar savings to my 16-35mm Mark I version.
I wanted to take a quickie photo with Peter but he didn’t seem approachable. I’m sure he was pressed for time and had to do what he needed to do. Also, I’m sure Peter wasn’t in the best of moods with having to contend with the tremendous amount of tourist traffic with each person wanting an extra 20 seconds, at every five steps, for his or her point and shoot digicam to achieve focus/exposure and overcome shutter lag. However, I’m surprised, considering Peter is sure to have a decent budget, he didn’t just buy out the time slots have the canyon all to himself. But come to think of it, that could be extremely costly. I’m sure that one canyon generates approximately 25% of the local revenue.
The Upper Canyon was amazing though. The Upper Canyons was at least 10 times cooler looking than the Lower Canyons. The Canyon looks almost fake, artificial, as if someone comes in regularly to repaint the walls and sand the imperfections out on a consistent basis. Like something the famous Dinsey Imagineering staff would created for some Disneyland based attraction. At 50 bucks a photo tour or twice of the price of the Lower Canyons, I thought the tour was fairly priced.
Once again, there was sand landing on us from over head. These trips are hard on my camera. Luckily, we had little challenges from the clouds. However, we did get some spurts of rain.
Photos to come. I have fewer restrictions on my Upper Canyon photos. Sweetness.
After cleaning up, I had the bright idea of being able to capture sunset at Bryce Canyon.
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