Antelope: A Measure of Time

Series note

Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon on Navajo land near Page, Arizona, cut through sandstone by flash floods over a very long time. Inside, the walls close in overhead and the only light comes from a narrow gap at the top, bouncing down from one curved surface to the next.

I photographed it in black and white. In colour the canyon is famous for its orange and violet, and that tends to become the whole picture. In monochrome you see the layers in the rock, the seams where water has worn it smooth, and the way a single shaft of light picks out one wall and leaves the next in shadow.

The seven photographs follow the canyon roughly the way you walk it, from narrow passages to the places where the light opens up. The layers in these walls took an unimaginable amount of time to lay down, and the floods are still carving them.