the page arizona area
A very valued workshop participant once mentioned how much I must enjoy the experience of showing my favorite photographic locations to people that have longed to see and photograph them for themselves. I share that sentiment; it is one aspect of my workshops that pleases me the most.
Seeing these places through "new eyes" is truly at the heart of the workshop experience for me. It brings life full circle to share with others. The focus, both through the lens and what another valued participant explained as, "filling the memory card between the ears" is nothing short of seeing a place for the first time ... again.
While introducing photographers to areas that I know and have been successful in, I'm also looking deeper and harder so as to vocalize thoughts and feeling that may be buried in the subconscious. The process of creation is one of miles and miles for me. It's a process that has taken years and hopefully will never be at an end. It's all part of the thrill of chase and the excitement of the hunt.
A scouting ( or seeing again) trip to the Page Arizona area (Landmarks of the Southwest workshop) with my friend and photographer Kenneth Young, resulted in a new series of images and another chance here to revisit them.
I think that to understand an area you must first know that area, and I've become familiar with a few of the slot canyons as well as some of the other formations in the this land of wind, rain, sand and sun. A canyon not often seen by many, especially photographers, has become a favorite. Not as big and not as sensational as some of the better known slots, this one, called Secret Canyon, has some very different textures. While the light is low in most of this comparatively short canyon (don't forget that while the slots look like caves they are not) there is a lot of appeal photographically, but I seem to have to look harder.
In the top image you'll notice the feature that attracts me most. One side of the canyon is smooth sandstone and the other rough. The light is a major contributor to this fact. Reflective light and the intensity give different luminance at different angles.
In the second image, working in the same place (we spent a couple of hours in a working a hundred feet of light) with a different intensity of light and exposure, the images becomes something quite different. The reflective light gives detail in the foreground shadow and creates intrigue even though most of the mystery has been revealed.
Taking advantage of the subtlety of the light between passage way, the thought was to convey rooms. Like most, I think I tend to put landscape in terms of hand of man. For better or worse I want to make the visual situation manageable so as to identify and then I suppose, be comfortable with. Perhaps you can relate some here. The rock on the canyon floor is the couch and was what attracted me to the "living room." The smooth darkened desert varnish on the wall is that prized tapestry we all have seen somewhere. The standing lamp that is on the left gives pale reflective shadow into what I perceived would be the den and I wanted to leave enough room to get there! :-)
What I thought I needed was the front door! Something inviting. Something that might want to give you pause before entering, but not so much as to be foreboding or seem dangerous. Trying to find a setting that had both reflective light but not much contrast was not easy here in the dark canyon and this image was the result of a lot of looking.
Back above ground the context changes but not the elements. What we photograph is light, and what is in that light in the area is more sandstone and canyons. From slots to gorges, the Colorado Plateau is a series of passages of water making its way to the major rivers. In the case of the image to the right, it's the Colorado River making the bend that has been named Horseshoe. Toward the end of the day the clouds added drama and I was able to compensate for the vastness of the scene before me by showing the detail of the sandstone. The cloud shadow added the contrast needed to set off the canyon below.
This will not be my last visit here. This magical location will be featured on a future issue of Steve Kossack: Photographing the Great American Landscape, and hopefully there are many images to come. I can honestly say that the more I see of this great area, the more I see!
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