Inner Light

Upper Antelope Canyon in Arizona is among the most beautiful slot canyons in the southwestern United States. It attracts thousands of visitors on guided tours each year. I visited there early on a winter morning as part of the first tour group that day. As our group approached the exit of the canyon, the far end of the canyon glowed in golden early morning highlight. The foreground interior of the canyon was still quite dark, so I exposed for the background highlights and underexposed the foreground. Because only hand-held cameras are allowed in the canyon, I used as slow a shutter speed as possible without blurring the image. During processing I pulled the foreground details and colors out of the underexposed shadows. In the narrow confines of the canyon, I used a Canon 24-105 mm lens set at 24 mm for this image.