Photographing Slot Canyons

I have just com­pleted my third trip to the slot canyons of the American Southwest, and a second one to Canyon X — and my 41^st to the Southwest. It is a breath­tak­ing place, some­what chal­len­ging tech­nic­ally, extremely reward­ing, and a sort of a spir­itu­al exper­i­ence — all at the same time. While I wait to print my new pho­to­graphs, I would like to share a few thoughts about that place, about my pho­to­graph­ic tech­nique, and about the feel­ing of being there.

As far as I know, the most fam­ous slot canyon is the Antelope Canyon, near Page, Arizona. It is beau­ti­ful, but it is very dif­fi­cult to exper­i­ence it the way its equally fam­ous pho­to­graphs por­tray it. In the pop­u­lar months, unfor­tu­nately, it is very busy and you will be trip­ping on oth­er pho­to­graph­ers’ tri­pods while queues of 15 – 20 people rush past you in a tight space. Sadly, it did not feel good to me, but I under­stand that steps will be taken in the future to reduce its present over­crowding.

Antelope Canyon. Arguably the most beautiful slot canyon on this list, this is also the most popular. Aug 20, 2016 Ten tips for slot canyon photography. Challenges for slot canyon photographers seem endless. They include extreme dynamic range, low light focusing, long exposures, small spaces, and lots of dust. Although slot canyons present many challenges to photographers, the well-prepared and properly equipped photographer will not be disappointed. How to Photograph Slot Canyons. RATE THIS STORY: Submit Rating. Backpacker Magazine. Rocks that look like sculptures deserve photos that look like art. Adapt to the Dimness. Hard truth: The tall, narrow walls that make a slot a slot also make it pretty dark. Your eyes adjust, but a camera will struggle to gather enough light.

Our full-day Slot Canyon Photography Tour is designed for those craving adventure. We'll customize the outing to the level of physical exertion you desire! Trek through narrow and winding slot canyons while photographing some of the most jaw-dropping scenery you've ever seen. We'll get you to the best parts at the best times of the day! For anyone of any age with an explorative spirit, slot canyons are a playground. The two most iconic, and likely the most photogenic canyons in the world, are within a two-hour drive of each other. They are the Zion Narrows and Antelope Canyon. Photo by Hikersbay Hikersbay.

Canyon X, also near Page, but a bit fur­ther, some 30 minutes or so, is still an oas­is of calm and peace. To get there you need to book a trip through Overland Canyon Tours, and if you are lucky, a help­ful, polite, and a kind­est guide, Charly, will look after you and just a hand­ful of oth­ers. When I went there in September 2010, there were just two of us, and there were only four of us in September 2011. You get sev­er­al hours to get busy, and hardly ever do you see anoth­er soul. Since my pho­to­graphy uses large format sheets of black-and-white film, each shot takes a while, and in the time I was there I have man­aged an extraordin­ary feat of tak­ing 12 pic­tures. This is a per­son­al record, as I rarely get more than 2 – 4 shots in a day, but Canyon X makes you want to take anoth­er one, after yet anoth­er: from a detail, to a whole-wall shot, to an abstrac­ted view look­ing up. Then, you start slow­ing down, and the silence sur­rounds you, while the gently warm wind slowly caresses the walls. You sit down on the sandy canyon floor, and your thoughts get quieter, and you slowly sip that extraordin­ary view, feel­ing so very happy to be there, to be so lucky to be prac­tic­ally alone. You start feel­ing the place, the canyon becomes more intim­ate. That’s when magic hap­pens, and you see images in the stone. That is the moment, when I visu­al­ise the con­trasts, the lines, and their rhythms, that make black-and-white images work in their own very abstract way. Your eye gets trained very quickly to spot those gentle grad­a­tions of reflec­ted light on the lumin­ous rock that, as you hope, will play a major role in the drama of the fin­ished image. My best pic­tures hap­pen then, but I am down to the last 2 – 3 sheets of film…

I sup­pose that to many vis­it­ors those walls are just pretty shapes, and the place is extraordin­ary. To a pho­to­graph­er, espe­cially work­ing without col­our, and on film, this canyon is pure magic: an excur­sion into the fin­esse of light that even the eye does not always see, and a study of the under­ly­ing raw struc­ture of time and the canyon’s geo­lo­gic­al his­tory, which col­our tends to mask.

My Slot Canyon Photography Technique

You don’t need to coax those images very hard out of the rock. There are a few simple ideas, which I seem to fol­low. I arrived at them myself, and I would like to share them with you. If you are inter­ested in know­ing how to pho­to­graph a slot canyon in express­ive black-and-white, I can help you. Colour is a very dif­fer­ent story, per­haps much easi­er in a way, but also per­haps too exuber­ant for the senses to com­pre­hend without fall­ing into a ste­reo­type. Black-and-white, I think, is much truer to the slightly ascet­ic spir­it of the place.

By all means, please break my sug­ges­tions, as there are as many ways to express your vis­ion, as there are grains of sand on the canyon floor. Until then, let me help you get star­ted:

• Timing. Arrive very early in the morn­ing. B&W film is a sen­su­ous being and it loves the gentlest shifts in sub­ject bright­ness range. A full f‑stop is a lot, and most of the time I find that if the sun hits a wall dir­ectly, it makes it lose its magic. The best light for my slot canyon pho­to­graphy is dif­fuse and indir­ect, when the glow is bounced off the walls of the canyon. By all means walk through the lower and the upper canyons to sur­vey them quickly (you need a good 10 – 20 minutes for a brisk return walk), but get star­ted pho­to­graph­ing soon, before the sun gets too high. It is as if the lower-lying sun hits the very tops of the canyon and zig-zags into it by reflect­ing off the walls, cre­at­ing those incred­ible gradi­ents. Do not wait until it gets bright, trust your film, or trust your (good) sensor.
• Light. In none of my pho­tos there is any dir­ect sun­light on the walls. Film is won­der­ful at accen­tu­at­ing that shaded sub­tlety of light — but get your expos­ures right in the middle. I usu­ally want to have the light­er sec­tions placed on zone 7, and the dark­er around 3, so I aim for a 5 zone range. If you do not use the zone sys­tem, you are just in luck, as in this case you can meter for the rock that is in the middle, between the light­er and the dark­er. Nonetheless, while meter­ing, I usu­ally dis­cov­er that the dark­er sec­tions tend to fall on zone 3 – 4, and the light­er on 6 – 7, so we need a touch of con­trast expan­sion — read on.
• Brightness Range. As the inter­est­ing light-dark grad­a­tions tend to fall in a 3 – 4 zone (f‑stop) range, I gen­er­ally devel­op my Canyon X sheets N+1. If you are not shoot­ing indi­vidu­al sheets but an entire roll, this is one of those situ­ations when you can safely N+1 the entire roll, unless you are plan­ning on shoot­ing this canyon with dir­ect sun­light on its walls. If you are not famil­i­ar with the concept of N+1 devel­op­ment, I sug­gest you find out the approx­im­ate time in a book, such as Chris Johnson’s “Practical Zone System”, as the exten­ded devel­op­ment time may be 10 – 40% of the nor­mal devel­op­ment time. This will increase the appar­ent con­trast, spread­ing the range of sand­stone tones to fit a “nor­mal” (grade 2 or 3) paper range nicely. I also like to tone my prints in sel­en­i­um, which adds a fur­ther, smal­ler level of expan­sion. I think those con­trast expan­sions show the glow around the edges of the curves on the rock in the most magic­al way. Of course, if you are shoot­ing digit­al, you can exper­i­ment by mov­ing the level sliders until you get the res­ults you desire, but go gently, as the glow is a very eph­em­er­al thing and it goes away as eas­ily as it appeared. It is easy to miss it digit­ally, I think.
• Focusing. Focus using move­ments, if you have that option on your cam­era, as it will be pretty dark there, and you may prefer not to have to stop your lenses all the way down, as the res­ult­ing expos­ures would be very long. Some of my shots are at EV5, and I gen­er­ally use HP5+, which is an ISO400 film. Most of my neg­at­ives are taken at (ISO400) EV7 – 8, which trans­lates into per­haps a 4 s expos­ure at f/22, before the reci­pro­city fail­ure factor has been added, mak­ing it into more of an 8 s expos­ure. Personally, I prefer to have the whole shot sharply in focus, because that is how my eye sees the place — you are always an arm’s reach from a wall.
• Filtration. In some of the shots you might want to coax a little bit more detail out of the mostly red rock. I exper­i­mented, I think suc­cess­fully, with using an oth­er­wise rather odd fil­ter: a #47 Tri-Blue, for which I need to add anoth­er 2¹⁄₂ or even 3 stops of expos­ure. It helps to accen­tu­ate the detail, and it is the only “trick” I used for some of my pho­to­graphs.
• Lenses. As you are pho­to­graph­ing in a tight­er space, you have a cool oppor­tun­ity to actu­ally use many of those prime lenses you col­lec­ted over the years. Many focal lengths come use­ful in the canyon, but you are unlikely to need any­thing too long. On my 4 × 5″ I used, in the order of fre­quency, a 150 mm (about nor­mal), 110 mm (bit wide), 210 mm (nor­mal), and an 80 mm (wide).
• Support. Make sure your tri­pod is happy hold­ing the cam­era in odd pos­i­tions. In quite a few shots my LF cam­era was point­ing upwards. I only have a rather under­sized ball-head on a smallish (and light) car­bon fibre tri­pod, but with a good tight­en­ing (carry that spare allen key, or be thank­ful to Charly) it all stayed in pos­i­tion for even the longest expos­ures. There is none, or very little wind there, which helps to keep things steady.
• Notes. Make notes. My “metadata” is a note­pad and a pen. I figured a while ago, that a great aid in learn­ing and improv­ing my skills is hav­ing notes to go back to. Here is a little prob­lem, per­haps spe­cif­ic to sheet film: as you may be shoot­ing very strange and abstract images, you may find it dif­fi­cult to relate the fin­ished images to your notes. Make a rough sketch in your note­pad, it helps immensely in recon­cil­ing things when you are print­ing.
• Dust. Finally, take the usu­al sand-and-dust pre­cau­tions: zip­lock bags for the neg­at­ive hold­ers etc. No mat­ter what you do, there will be an odd speck here and there, but I think it adds to the char­ac­ter of tra­di­tion­al pho­to­graphy, and gives you a chance to have a go at spot­ting your fin­ished prints. Just to be on the safe side, I shoot each image twice, so I have a backup. My second shot is usu­ally a 1 f‑stop brack­et (usu­ally +1), and it also gives me a fall­back option in case the neg­at­ive has a speck in a light­er sec­tion of the image. I wish I did that with my earli­est images, for which I only have a single neg­at­ive!

Above all, enjoy the exper­i­ence. The images will make a con­nec­tion to the spir­it of the place whenev­er you look at them in the future. I wish you an exper­i­ence that fills you with awe and joy. I hope to return to Canyon X to exper­i­ence it again. I might even take more pho­tos.

Canon 5DS R w/ EF16-35mm f/4.0 @24mm f/16 3.2s ISO 100

Slot canyons of the American Southwest are famous for their otherworldly beauty. As such, they are high on many nature photographers’ bucket list. The best known and most visited are Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons near Page, Arizona.

With countless discussions in the gallery and my Navajo Nation Journey Workshop about 60 days from now, I thought it would be useful to compile a list of tips for slot canyon photography to share with others.

Ten tips for slot canyon photography

Challenges for slot canyon photographers seem endless. They include extreme dynamic range, low light focusing, long exposures, small spaces, and lots of dust. Although slot canyons present many challenges to photographers, the well-prepared and properly equipped photographer will not be disappointed. Here are ten tips for slot canyon photography success:

Two-shot pano: Canon 5DS R w/ TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II f/16 10.0s ISO 100

1. To the uninitiated, the insane circus that is Upper and Lower Antelope canyon can be very frustrating. Hundreds, if not thousands of tourists walk through these canyons each day during the summer season. If you go, prepare yourself mentally for fast pace, tight quarters, pushing, shoving, people in your frame, and guides barking out orders. However, there are many slot canyons that are not visited by the tour bus operators. These are the canyons where solitude, along with fantastic photo opportunities, can still be found.

2. Travel light. Even a small backpack will make it difficult to move around in narrow slot canyons.

3. Use a tripod. Although very colorful, these are low light environments. Shutter speeds of 20 to 30 seconds are not uncommon at ISO 100. Shutter speeds up to 120 seconds are sometimes necessary. Most cameras have a maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds. For anything longer you will need to use blub mode with a timing device, such as an intervalometer, to trip the shutter.

4. Stop down for maximum depth of field. Slot canyons twist and turn with layer upon layer of textures and colors. Don’t lose detail to shallow depth of field. Hyper focal distance can be an effective technique to maximize depth of field.

5. If you use auto focus, use single point mode with back-button focus. Multi-point modes will frequently lock onto surfaces other than which you intend. With back-button focus, you can choose your focus area and recompose for best results. Live-view manual focus also works well in this regard.

6. Learn to adjust your camera settings in the dark. Although you can bring a flashlight, it is one more thing to keep track of and carry. Preset as many settings as possible before you enter the canyon. My preferences include single point focus mode, evaluative metering, ISO 100, f/16, mirror lock-up, and Auto White Balance. Many photographers recommend white balance of 6500 to 7500K to achieve warmer tones. However, I prefer to make such adjustments in post.

7. Use your RGB histogram (rather than luminosity) and highlight warning (blinkies) to verify exposure. Colors in these canyons can over expose the red channel. Much detail will be lost if the red channel is blown out.

8. Dust is everywhere. Avoid changing lenses while in a slot canyon. Zoom lenses, rather than primes, are best due to their inherent flexibility. Although a medium telephoto lens can be useful for detail shots, I prefer to use a 16-35 or 24-70mm. If you have to change lenses, turn your camera off, keep the body pointed downwards and make it fast. Bring along a rocket blower for cleanup during and after your shoot. You might even want to bring a plastic bag to cover your camera while not in use or while changing lenses.

9. Wear sturdy boots, a wide brimmed hat, and dress in layers. The temperature at the bottom of a slot canyon can be 10 degrees F lower than topside. Also a surprising amount of sand and debris can blow in from above.

10. Don’t forget to look up. Sometimes the best compositions and light are overhead.

Canon 5DS R w/ EF16-35mm f/4.0L @ 21mm f/14 1.3s ISO 100

Slot canyons are some of the most challenging environments for the landscape photographer. But also they are some of the most rewarding. These tips for slot canyon photography will help you manage the technical aspects of photography while exploring the artistic opportunities around every curve. Whether you are looking for floor-to-ceiling compositions or abstract details, the options are endless.

Tips For Photographing Slot Canyons