CraigBILL

The Big Room of Carlsbad Caverns National Park is the single largest room also called The Hall of the Giants. This chamber’s floor space alone equals about 14 football fields.

The geologic formation of these Caverns began 250 million years ago with the creation of a 400 mile long reef in an inland sea that covered this region. Few people know that through the Chihuahuan Desert and Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico and west Texas there are more than 300 known caves beneath the surface including the newly famous Lechuguilla Cave.

Carlsbad Caverns is also a great place for the camera to capture amazing details that normal sight misses. There are no colored lights in Carlsbad Caverns, but the camera is much more sensitive to different types of light bulbs that are used to creatively illuminate. because of this, subtle colors are revealed - just one of photography’s unique attributes.

 

Update: Carlsbad Caverns updated to a new lighting system that uses all the same natural color LED fixtures.  Due to this, the subtle effects of varied color lighting is gone.  I personally enjoyed the old lighting.  The National Park Service explains that the change was to enhance viewing (not), save money and reduce algae growth.  Because of this, this photograph and others in my portfolio are especially valuable to me because they showcase the effects of the old lighting system.

“Realm” is my long time desire to photograph The Big Room in a challenging panoramic format. After searching for a suitable location over many years in Carlsbad Caverns, I was excited to see this image turn out as well as I had imagined.