Looking Elsewhere

May 28, 2022

Popular photography locations and tourist traps are always a bit of a conundrum for me. They are typically popular for a good reason, especially when it comes to scenic landscapes. But of course they are also filled with people all looking in that same direction, and many of the photographs taken there tend to look the same - irrespective of technical mastery. As photographers we revel in finding that great image that no one has made before. So how do we break out of that sameness? Look in the other direction. 

Like many photographers before me, I visited Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona. This canyon is famous for its red sandstone and beams of light penetrating the canyon. You probably have seen many images like this one, with a beam reaching the loose sand at the bottom of the canyon, illuminating the curved, bright red canyon walls. 

Beam II - Upper Antelope Canyon, Arizona

When I took that photograph, around me there were probably a good ten to fifteen tripods attached to photographers who were all looking at exactly the same thing. I never saw the images they created, but it’s a good bet those didn’t look all that different from mine. Once I realized that after taking that image, the rebel in me awoke, and I wandered away from the crowd a bit and ended up looking exactly in the opposite direction of the slot canyon. No one was even paying attention to that area as it didn’t have any of those famous light beams. But what I found ended up being more interesting: a deadwood branch catching the diffuse light coming from above. 

Sunlit III - Upper Antelope Canyon, Arizona

To me this was a more successful image than the previous one, in a storytelling sense. Because of the softer illumination without the bright beam, there was more subtlety visible in the subject matter. Behind the branch some sand was coming down from the top of the canyon, resulting in more scattered light. It also tells a story: that of a tree being swept into the canyon during a flash flood, and of the forces of nature always having the upper hand in the end.

In this particular experience, it truly paid off to look in the opposite direction and stay aware of the scene in its entirety - not just where everyone else was already looking.