damn tourists...

[pippin]

ok, so I was one in this particluar case, but this is a rather pathetic community service announcement.

I know you guys would be no way like this (or if you are - I apologise in advance).

On wednesday I went to the Upper Antelope canyon for a photo tour. Paid $90 for both me and my husband for the privelidge. Now, thinking, oh, its november, there won't be any tourists, and if there are some there won't be as many...

I was wrong.

Tour was at 10:30am. Tour lasted 2 1/2 hours. For a while - about an hour - it was quiet. Peaceful. Serene. Then all heck breaks loose. 12:00 rolls around and the canyon was filled with noise. Not in a good way.

I was heading back into the canyon after going to the end, and was going to slowly work my way back. Noise. Hearing all this chatter

"ooh, look at the color!"

"i'm getting blinkies"

"stop! I'm taking a photo!"

"don't bump my tripod!"

"get out of my way, I PAID to be here" (this one was a good one, as the only way you can get into antelope now is with a navajo tour guide - after all it IS on Navajo Nation lands - and you NEED to pay to get on there)

"4 seconds at f22 right? - thats what I've got so you should all have the same"

Yes, there was an off-season photo tour with some 'professional' photographer. Ok, so if you're a pro, at least give a LITTLE respect for the other photographers there dangit! The pro was probably the loudest person there, as well as the two old retired ladies from new york (although they said they were from new jersey, but they sound the same to me - probably live part time in NY and part time in FL).

If you've never been there, it sure is purty, but jeez people, there's other people there, so don't take up the entire part of the NARROW part of the canyon. There are parts of the slot where you can only go single file. Thats just the way it is.

Couple more examples.

I wanted to come through on my way back (running out of time) - and was trying to make it past the group (see photo below), and just as I was passing one, she decided that that was the appropriate time to compose and take her multiple second photo. So I was stuck. I couldn't move without knocking the tripod, so I just stood waiting. Once she was done, she said "oh, you were trying to get through?"

Another one : A woman stuck her BFA out in front of me so I couldn't pass, then she moved (after she fired the shutter for a 5 second exposure), and proceeds to KNOCK HER OWN TRIPOD. "Oh crap, I bumped my tripod. Thanks alot." Like it was MY FAULT!!!

My favourite comment : "All I've done today is wait for people to pass - I've not taken a damn shot yet".

Sorry lady - you paid to go peak time - lunch time. And sorry to say, the light shafts cannot be seen during november because of the position of the sun - something that the 'professional' obviously forgot to mention.


Although I'm curious as to what ISO most of these people were using. I was at ISO 100, 200 or 400 at times, and my exposures were usually around the 15-30 second mark at f11, f9 or f16.

4 seconds at f22? They musta been really shooting into the sun (which would explain why all of the cameras were pointed to the top - EVERY ONE. Apparently us walking past causes movement. Nope, not unless you were shooting really wide angle...



anyway, thanks for reading my rant, and I do hope if you ever go to antelope, you are quiet as stuff ECHOES in a canyon.....

[Daniel Bates]

Yikes... sorry you had to go through that. I still want to go out there, but hopefully I'll avoid peak season.

[ShutteredEye]

ugh.

[pippin]

This is already not peak season. Go during summer to see the light shafts and deal with a butt load of photograpers of all shapes, sizes and egos. Or go during the off season and deal with the same and more subdued lighting (which I actually like)

[JamesB]

some tourist are worse than others, looks like you bumped into the ones on the bad side of the scale.

James

[pippin]

james - Oh, I know that - the other people in my group were the best around. Really nice, worked well with us all so we could all get the shot or whatever.

But then some other groups come around thinking they own the place.

Very similar stuff in Bryce Canyon too. Some people all rude, loud and whatever, thankfully when its 25 degrees out and at 6am, most people there are quite nice. The lazy (and loud ones) stay at the top of the canyon, and us hardcore ones hike down the canyon to get other shots ;)

[Steelsun]

Next time you go, eat a few bean burritos first and make them run out.

[pippin]

Roflmao!

[Stephen H]

Just take a positive approach. The canyon is already overphotographed, everyone's seen all these purty pictures of it, so it's not like you gain a lot by making more- you could just buy postcards instead. BUT, that shot of the people in the canyon up there, that is not overdone- so the moral is, photograph the people and not the canyon. And once you make that decision, you can use 3200 speed or so and get rid of the tripod.

[Michelle Allmon]

Hey, that's an awesome story/rant, made me think of one of my friends I go out with sometimes to take pictures. We are pretty loud... not on purpose, we just get into our bubble and forget people can hear us. But WE are not rude and don't have BFA's. :)

[HOUSCOUS]

Yeah, just take the picture of the people. How amazingly you will find when you are shooting people, they walk away or turn their back to you automatically.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Solution if you are paying that much is to go to LOWER ANTELOPE and shoot. Now I have not been into Antelop for several years but the last time I went I was able to park by the highway and pay an entry fee and the Navajo ran a pick up taking people up to the entrance and back out on a regular basis and even though it was peak season I had periods of time that the canyon was all to my own because it was past the "prime" time and to be honest you don't need hard shafts of light to capture the beauty of the scene. So I arrived around 10 am and left after 2 pm and I did get some shots during the "prime" time because I was further up the canyon when the busses of tourists arrived who tended to mill around in the first couple of chambers to shoot and left me pretty much alone further up. I was shooting slide that was either 50, 64 or 100 asa and I had exposures in the minutes ranges (actually did one for over 15 minutes) and they came out extremely rich in colors. (I need a slide scanner to get them on line).

I also went one year in a workshop with 2 pro photographers and a group of around 15 people, it was spring time and we pretty much had the canyon to ourselves for several hours.

I've heard that they have restricted people to 2 1/2 hour max segments but that amount of time should be fine to get many great shots in.
http://www.fatali.com/index-frame.php look at peek a boo under stone cathedrals for an example of one of the workshops photographers work, Mike usually shoots large format and on occasion medium format.

Most likely the guy doing the workshop was in from Phoenix or elsewhere in Arizona and he was dragging these people around to various locals to shoot.

Also there are some amazing locations all around the area if you get off the road a bit (some areas that you need to get permission to enter while others are just off the roadway and still on public land.) There are also other "slot" canyons and narrow canyons in that part of the state, some that you have to hike a ways into the canyon before it turns magical for the photographic experience. To be honest you can easily spend a week in the Page area exploring the topography and looking for things both big and small to shoot.

Next time I go into antelope I will be taking a medium format camera in along with the 35mm and I really would like to go to Lower Antelope.

[Gordon]

I suspect it is awesome portrait light in there anyway. Next time you go, take an 85 prime and ask each photographer if you can make their portrait ;)

[Gordon]

it almost looks like there is carpet on the ground in there, with the swirly patterns going on in the sand

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Gordon it is deep but firm sand that is washed down through the canyon after each rain. This particular canyon is basically a small mesa that runs for miles and this is the breach in the mesa type stucture that then drains several thousand square miles of land and since that desert area is actually pretty hard pack heavy but infrequent rains will drain off of the land fast. You can have a downpour up the basin 10-20 miles away and it will come flowing through the canyon in a matter of an hour or less. There are dead tree branches/logs that are lodged up in the canyon walls 25-30 ft above the floor and after one of these floods they can be gone/shifted or added too. At least on this canyon if there is a threat of flood you can run out to the entrance of the canyon and then go up the sloping banked hills that drop into the valley while in Lower Antelope there is no escape out except by ladder or trying to outrun rising flood waters and getting to the Lake Powell exit point over a mile away in a twisting maze of rocks. Several people died in Lower Antelope about a dozen years ago because they didn't heed warnings of impending rain in the upper basin.
Wikpedia has a good shot of the entrance to Upper Antelope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antelope_Canyon while if you go to the other end it just kind of slopes up onto the land while in Lower you have to climb down into the canyon.

http://climb-utah.com/Powell/flash_antelope.htm