Rolleiflex, B/W films.
this place is run by Navajos. Good for them, except that we were not too impressed by their management, as opposed to the national or state parks…they try to rip visitors off by claiming a regular car can’t be used on the dirt roads inside. That’s huge bullshit since even a sport car could go in though carefully I agree. Karine and her parents missed such an easy visit on a previous trip…Of course, the local operators offer tourists their own expensive trips on “cattle” vehicles, a disgrace…
but let’s now enjoy the landscapes…
we had left the park for a quick lunch in the restaurant on a nearby hill still with a view on the park. Much to our surprise, a sudden sand storm kicked in. Weird feeling. We had planned to go down again for a better light orientation…tough luck.
so we left earlier to Antelope Canyon, Arizona. This tiny canyon was ranking high on my wish-to-do-list. In the same afternoon we had time to organise that visit for the next morning. Run again by Navajos, you have no choice but book a guided tour. Which is probably better considering how small the canyon is.
I recommend the “photographic tour” even if you don’t take pictures. The group is then smaller, the visit lasts longer and is somewhat better organised for shooting pictures at ease. I was far from convinced initially as we kept on bumping into other groups. But later on it got a bit better. I had planned to shoot with the Leica and Kodachrome films, and also the Rolleiflex with B/W films (as below). Well there were so many people initially that I preferred to focus with one camera and be ready for any picture without people in the frame. Quite a mission, trust me. So only a few shots with the Rolleiflex before I realised that anyway the flying sand was a bit too much for my precious film cameras, vintage or not. I then switched definitely on the Nikon D300s for the rest of the visit. I’d rather have this one get gritty.
I’ll post color pictures one day. No way to really figure out with the 2 pictures above what it looks like in there. Very narrow path, only one person at a time here and there, vertical winding cliffs. But the light gives these abstract patterns, equally beautiful in B/W or color.
then we left for Grand Canyon, still in Arizona. We had heard about really bad weather over there. It was on our way anyway…indeed it was bad. Snow had fallen a bit but was melting fast, it was freezing in the evening and low clouds were lingering. We wished we had listened to our moms and pack warm clothes.
snow had fallen in some places only.
Comments