Robert H Clark Photography Blog

Ghost Beam, Upper Antelope Canyon, Navajo Lands, Arizona. Shot with a Sony α900 and a Sony SAL 20mm lens. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 1.5 seconds.

Hi everyone. Just back from some needed time off away from photography and the office. I am continuing to work through some of the light beam shots from my last trip and so todays post, entitled Ghost Beam, is a continuation of this work. This image was shot in Upper Antelope Canyon and features one massive beam of light and a more subtle beam just visible in the back chamber on the left. As with all my light beam shots I captured multiple exposures but settled on this image because I liked the wavy ghost like character of the light. In order to resolve a couple of exposure issues typical with these shots the RAW file was processed twice in Lightroom to open up the shadows through an increase in fill and another file to reclaim some of the highlights in the beam and the canyon roof at the top of the image. The two files were blended in PS. I like to open up my shadows in slot canyon shots because it helps to define the forms. Too many shots like this suffer because the shadows are clipped and over power the resulting shot. This of course is a personal preference in the way I process images but I simply want open shadows. I also do not want my highlights clipped but in this type of shot it is inevitable as the hot light is far beyond what the sensor can capture. This is one of the reasons that a shot like this is best composed from a lower angle as it tends to flatten out the hot highlight areas where the beam hits the floor and allows you to capture the upper sections of the canyon where the beam enters the chamber.

The file followed my usual workflow including curve adjustments through luminosity masks, contrast masks, color correction, and dodge and burn and color burn.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob