How appropriate: The Beatles - "Magical Mystical Tour" applied to the Slot Canyons.

For the past couple of days I have had the pleasure to explore Lower Antelope Canyon, Page, Arizona, with Jack Graham (http://www.jackgrahamphoto.com/), and his assistant Greg Duncan (http://www.grdphotos.com/).

Jack runs a significant number of landscape workshops around the World; my first workshop with Jack was when I started photography in 2009. Recently there was a thread (http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ight=Workshops) regarding workshops.

While, yes, I am a workshop junkie, as far as I am concerned, if you want to increase your knowledge exponentially there is simply no substitute for the ability to extract enormous amounts of information from knowledgeable experts in the shortest amount of time. And, when you are with the right professional, not only do they share their knowledge, they run their workshops in the best locations, they - not you - are responsible for all of the logistical arrangements.

Of course you can visit slot canyons on your own; of course you can hire a knowledgeable local guide. However, when you go with someone who returns to the same area year after year, that professional, like Jack, develops a relationship with the guides and those that manage the area and you get a level of treatment that you would not otherwise receive if you were on your own.

On the knowledge side, to prepare for this shoot, I looked at a lot of images of various slot canyons on the net. None of the images brought home to me two very important rules Jack stressed about shooting in the canyons - perhaps I am too new at photography; these might be obvious to you: 1) do not include any sky in your images - you are shooting the magic inside the slots; and 2) absolutely minimize including any area where the sun is directly lighting the walls - try to only capture reflected light. The exception to #2 is when you are shooting a shaft of sunlight, as depicted in the attached image; in this circumstance you simply try to minimize the blown areas. Thanks Jack! I have had a ball and the workshop doesn't even start until tomorrow.

Why "Magical Mystical Tour"? Well, when you go down into the bowels of the earth through a very very narrow opening, and after navigating down and around numerous sharp turns, you find yourself in a narrow area with - for the most part - very bland colors in the tans and browns. There is definitely a hint of color in the sandstone; you know/have the feeling that there are reds and yellows and purples to be found.

Then, at least I do, you setup your tripod and holding your camera you walk around looking for your chosen composition. I turn on live view assist me. My LCD on the 5D3 is set to Neutral/Contrast -4 as I was advised during a incredible 4-day private session with Chas Glatzer. Basically, I am trying to tone done the jpg as much as possible so that it represents what the RAW is going to look like.


WOW!! In the slots the first time I turned on Live View I was blown away! The colors are amazing; the potential strength of the palette for someone who wants to play with saturation knows no bounds.

I first processed this image in a very strong saturated manner ; then I again processed holding back the colors as much as I would allow myself to hold back colors!

I am going to do this with each of the slot images and post each over time. Looking forward to taking you on my Magical Mystical Tour of the slot canyons.

Camera: 5D3
Capture date/time: 17 Apr 2012
Light condition: Filtered Sun
Lens: 24-105
Focal length: 65
Distance:
Flash/Comp: no
ISO: 200
Exp Prog: Manual
Speed: 3.2, 8, 15 sec sec
Aperture: f/22
Exp Comp:
Metering: Evaluative
WB: Auto
AF Drive: One shot
Tripod: yes
Filter: SR Color Intensifier
Crop: minimal
Images Changes: stuff I didn't like removed!

Processed in LR4.1, CS5, NIK CEP4

All C&Cs gratefully appreciated!


PS: Sorry to be away so long; medical issues finally under control. The jpg colors are definitely stronger than how the images appears on my monitor in CS5 with a ProPhoto RGB color space.