Open Spaces in the Deep

(Wildflowers in amphitheater above Deer Creek, Canon 7D, 17-40f4L @17mm, ISO100, f8.0, 1/80th second, handheld)

The Grand Canyon is spectacular. Make no doubt about that. And you’d think, with nearly 3 weeks spent down in that maze of canyons, creeks, and soaring red walls that the photography opportunities would be limitless. You’d be wrong. The fact of the matter is that the Grand Canyon is so deep that sunlight often doesn’t reach the bottom until late in the day when the light is blistering hot (at least to a camera). During the sweet light of morning and evening, those beautiful long shadows seen in photos from the canyon’s rim, are entirely covering the depths in dark, flat, light. As one of my trip-mates said on this trip, “When I want to photograph the landscape I go into the alpine, not to the bottom of the deepest ditch in the country.”

What all of this means is that photographing the landscape was done opportunistically when the canyon opened up or when we climbed above the inner gorge into the open amphitheaters above. The rarity of those opportunities, to leave the almost-claustrophobic walls of the inner gorge, made them all the more valuable, and treasured.