I'm now in Moab, Utah. I have been shooting in a bunch of different spots in the area, including but not limited to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. It has snowed the last couple days, and I've been out from sunup to sundown photographing. I'll have photographs from here ready in my next post.
A few days ago, before arriving in Moab, I shot for a few days in the Grand-Staircase/Escalante National Monument. Among my favorite spots in the Monument is Spooky Gulch, a long and narrow slot canyon. If you didn't know, A slot canyon is a deep and narrow canyon that is formed by the erosion of rushing water. There are dozens, if not hundreds, peppered throughout the desert southwest. Most of them are fairly difficult to get to, requiring advanced skills in rappeling and climbing.
Spooky Gulch is a favorite of mine, because it is more easily accessed than others. It requires a round-trip hike of under 4 miles, and only has a few obstacles once inside the slot. Spooky is one of the more deep and narrow slots in the area. In some sections, it was so narrow that I could barely fit through.
The reason many photographers want to shoot in slot canyons is because of the beautiful reflected light. The best part is that they are well photographed in the middle of the day, when the sun is high in the sky. Direct light hits the top of the canyon walls, and then reflects back and forth off the sandstone, eventually reaching bottom. When there is a good amount of reflected light, the walls seem to glow with red and orange light.
Here is a photograph that shows just how narrow and colorful Spooky Gulch can be. At this point, the canyon was about a foot wide at the bottom.
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