These photographs are from a series I took back in 2007. They are photographs I kept going back to, but never feeling they were just right. In late 2017, ten years after my visit, I decided to revisit the photographs and take a different approach. After four months of processing work, the photographs are complete.
Both Antelope Canyons, Upper and Lower, have fascinated me as a photographic target for over 30 years. To me, they represent a challenge not just from the technical point of view with the huge range in brightness and tone, but also from the artistic standpoint. My struggle was in how I wanted to see the subject matter.
I have seen many photographs over the years that were in colour, and showed the canyon floors. While beautiful, the photos to me felt like someone documenting the canyons themselves. I wanted something different. While I wanted to photograph in the Canyons...I did not want the photographs to be of the canyons.
While I know that in itself sounds odd, I see the interior of the canyons more as abstract shapes... Light painting across a black canvas. This change in my interpretation of what I saw allowed me to approach the photographs in a different manner. Now, I see the results as light almost floating in a black void. These photographs now better portray how I felt while venturing through both canyons. While some may find them too dark, for me, they convey what I felt better than any previous attempts at viewing the work...and it only took me ten years to figure it out.
