John Chapple, Photographer, Los Angeles

In The Spotlight

Hasselblad were kind enough to allow me to test drive their H3D-50 in the summer of 2010. I took a road trip up the west coast of the States to Canada and back down through Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and Nevada. I was really excited to get to Page, Arizona to photograph Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon, and really use the Hasselblad as it was intended.

The canyons are on Navajo land, and after a flash flood that killed 11 tourists in August of 1997, visitors are only permitted to enter the canyon with a Navajo guide. I joined a guided tour group, and we were shown the best spots to photograph. When we got to the place I’d wanted to photograph in Antelope Canyon, I got caught up in what I was doing, and didn’t notice that the group had moved on. While I was waiting for a shaft of direct sunlight to filter into the canyon, the guide came back to get me to keep me with the group. I knew I only had seconds to capture the much-anticipated shot. I got ready to take one last shot. There was dust in the air that was illuminated by the shaft of light, looking incredible. During the long exposure, another visitor decided to jump in front of my tripod mounted camera and dance in the beam of light. I’m ashamed to admit at the time I wanted to throttle him, and shared a few choice words with other photographers there. But when I previewed the image on the back of the camera, I knew I’d captured a magical shot and it was a 50 megapixel file!

‘In The Spotlight‘,  was the first image I entered into a competition, and I was delighted when I found out that it was a semi-finalist in the 2010 Hasselblad Masters. It also picked up a Bronze Award in the 2010 International Aperture Awards.

TAGS: 50 Megapixel, Antelope Canyon, Arizona, Blad, Canyon, H3D, H4D, H5D, Hasselblad, International Aperture Awards, John Chapple, Landscape Photography, masters, Medium Format, Navajo, Page, photography