CraigBILL

Blasted naturally out of Navajo sandstone, these slot canyons are made by thunderstorms. It may seem strange that such a dry and beautiful place in the North Arizona desert was created this way. In fact, the rushing flash flood waters from these thunderstorms can start many miles away before they carve through these canyons up to seventy miles per hour. Meanwhile, the sky is totally cloud free and blue above, like this image, “Earthly Embrace”.

Slot canyons like these were one of my top choices for creating images. Because the light plays on the sandstone in ways that change wildly from hour to hour, it is easy to believe why the Navajo regarded these unusual natural areas to have great spiritual significance.

If you ever notice, images of these slot canyons rarely shows the sky. This is due to the inevitable bright white exposure wash that is hard to control. This image fuses three frames of different exposures and two different time slices to get the final hand blended photograph.