The first full day of the Utah Photo Workshop with Drake Busath and Randy Collier included Lower Antelope Canyon. The next day we headed to the more trafficked Upper Antelope Canyon, which many of us later described as combat photography. After riding for 20 minutes in the back of a truck and up a sand road, we unloaded and geared up. With the sand in the air, we picked one lens and left all others in the car. In order to give myself a better range of focal length, I went with my stock 18-135mm lens as opposed to me 10-22mm.
As we first got into the slot canyon, we could tell there were going to be A LOT more people filling the narrow hallway. Sure enough, we had to shoot high often to avoid people. With the low light, we also had to keep our shutter open for as long as one minute at times at ISO 100, so we had to hope a passerby didn’t knock the tripod and make you take the shot all over again – because there probably wouldn’t be any time for that.
The tour guide was good and would help direct traffic, but we had to be quick – which meant getting everything setup for a shot in a matter of seconds before starting the bracketing sequence for options.
I would have loved to have hung out in Upper Antelope Canyon longer, at a time when there weren’t so many other tourists checking out the canyon, but I was grateful for the chance to be there and capture what I could. Although I didn’t think many of my photos were as dramatic as Lower Antelope Canyon, I did have some “Best Of” photos from this trip.
~signed, Carltonaut
Carltonaut 