In Search of Rock Faces

August-September 2002

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

A Photographic Journey Down Utah's Green River

by Vadim Kin

 

Navajo Sorrow Photo: Vadim Kin

"Vadim, where do you think this is?" asked my friend, George, as I was aimlessly flipping through an issue of Sunset Magazine. In it was a special feature on wilderness paddling, and the picture he was referring to showed a canoe gliding on the placid waters of the Green River in Labyrinth Canyon, Utah.

Seeing the magnificent red rock wall some hundreds of feet high, lit by the gentle warm evening sun and reflected in the water, I was immediately envisioning my sea kayak in that picture instead of the canoe, and imagining what the wall would look like through the viewfinder of my Nikon... Well, the idea was certainly worthy of further exploration.

I've been photographing the alien, unearthly Utah desert landscape for a number of years now. At first it was the breathtaking vistas, the rock formations and the sunsets that everyone photographs there, but after a while, moving on to find a vision of my own, I sought a true intimacy with what was around me. That's when I became aware of the shapes in the sandstone, and the "Living Stone" photography project was born. Beautiful and unusual naturallysculpted faces would show themselves in the rock - some gazing into the distance, some staring directly at me, some smiling, others looking serious, even angry. Before too long, I was not just stumbling across "these shapes, but instead began seeking them out during my photography trips to this place we so unimaginatively call "the desert".

Indian Warrior Photo: Vadim kin

By the time I was gazing at the magazine's picture of the Green River, I had already made many trips in search of these rock faces. I had photographed them from famous overlooks, roadside pullouts, backcountry trails, but never from the water.water. Most of the rivers in that region are technical, and even if I had the skills to paddle them, I would hardly be able to combine navigating through class III - IV rapids while carefully composing my sandstone portraits. But the lower Green is different. The stretch is comprised of the Labyrinth and Stillwater Canyons, and is 120 miles long, with a few lively riffles along the way, butnothing truly technical. The river enters the Labyrinth Canyon about 10 miles after the put-in, and there, the magic begins. From that point on, there are almost no roads, few trails, no bridges, power lines, telephone lines, marinas, docks, or houses. In fact, the landscape has changed little since John Wesley Powell led the first documented trip down the Green River, more than 130 years ago.

I quickly discovered that there are a number of photographic challenges while river paddling. For one, the river moves, sometimes as fast as 5 - 6 knots, which means that the camera has to be ready for use at all times, with the correct lens attached. If you pack it securely in a watertight Pelican case, it will take you too long to get it out. You will miss the shot, and will not be able to return against the strong current. I discovered that my photographic success on the river largely depended on how fast I could work. Therefore, not usingthe sprayskirt, I typically kept one or two camera bodies in my lap, and even kept the lens caps off. Yes, I have missed shots because it takes too long to take a lens cap off! The front elements of the lenses were, of course, protected with hoods and skylight filters. Autofocus cameras and zoom lenses further helped me speed up my work.

Another problem with paddling photography -one that I became aware of during a trial run before the river trip-is camera shake. The usual rule is to use the shutter speed at least as fast as the reciprocal of the lens focal length. For example, if one is shooting with a 50mm lens, the slowest shutter speed would be 1/50 sec (your camera probably has a 1/60 sec setting), 105mm lens at 1/125 sec, and so forth. This rule works reasonably well on land, but not on water. The water moves, the kayak moves, you are not holding the camera with the same degree of comfort you do while on land, and all that results in a greater degree of camera shake. As a result, you will discover that you have to set your shutter speed 1 to 2 stops faster when you are on water. Thus, with a 50mm lens you will be shooting at 1/125 to 1/250 sec (or faster).

Vadim at work on the Green River. Photo: Vadim kin

Camera shake can be alleviated, to a certain extent, by using cameras and lenses that incorporate mechanisms to reduce the effects of camera shake. Currently, Nikon makes one VR (Vibration Reduction) lens,and Canon makes several IS (Image Stabilizer) lenses. IS and VR are just proprietary names that mean essentially the same thing. The manufacturers claim that these lenses allow one to use a shutter speed 4-8 times (2-3 stops) slower than one would normally use, and still obtain sharp images. In my experience, these claims are too optimistic for paddling photography. My Nikon VR lens has consistently been able to give me a 1-stop advantage, of which I am very appreciative.

Then there is the problem of dust. Dust can NOT be escaped on the river-it is in your tent, sleeping bag, ears, eyes, hair, food, and, if you are not careful, in yourcamera. Whenever I picked up the camera from my lap, it was covered with a layer of dust which varied in thickness from day to day. There was no way to avoid it. This became a huge problem when I had to open the camera to change film. The dust would get inside the camera, plant itself on the pressure plate, and starting with the second roll, every shot thereafter would have horizontal streaks scratched by the fine dust particles. The simple solution to this problem? A can of compressed air was always kept within reach. Each time I needed to change film, I first reached for the can and blew out all the red-brown dust that had settled inside the camera.

The Dollhouse Photo: Vadim kin

Finally, the amount of equipment has to be limited - you only have so much room on your lap, and whatever gadgets do not fit there, will probably not get used. My kit was and still is, very basic. It consists of one Nikon N80 body, a 80-400mm Nikkor VR lens, a 20mm F/2.8 Nikkor lens, and a Fuji GA 645i rangefinder autofocus medium format camera. The Fuji has a 60mm lens, which is equivalent to a 38mm lens on a 35mm camera. Do I have a gaping hole between the 38mm of the Fuji, and 80mm where the Nikkor begins? Not really, because the larger medium format negative can be cropped more forgivingly than 35mm, so the Fuji for me is almost like having another body with a zoom lens. I do have to confess that I do not use the 20mm Nikkor very much due to the hassle of swapping lenses. (I do not have room on my lap for another Nikon body!)

I highly recommend a trip down the lower Green River. In addition to photographing from the kayak, one should not overlook the opportunities allowed by hiking the riverbanks and side canyons. There are many tributary canyons worthy of exploration, and some suitable for overnight hikes. Having gone down the Green River twice now, I know that there are more rock faces there than I will be able to photograph in a lifetime. Most of the faces I saw on the second trip, I had missed on the first. The river will always have new photographic gifts for me every time I paddle it. The only disappointment is that it takes too short a period of time to paddle the 120 miles.

The trip ends on the Colorado River, three miles downstream from the confluence of the Colorado and Green. There, when Igazed from our final campsite, at the rock formations called "The Dollhouse", thinking that no place could be more perfect, the clouds proved me wrong and arranged themselves in a beautiful pattern above the Dollhouse spires. As I took my last photograph of the trip, I told them goodbye once again. I already knew that I would return.

© Text and photos by Vadim Kin, a fine art photographer based in Seattle. When not paddling Pacific Northwest coastal waters or one of the rivers of the Southwest, or off photographing somewhere in the desert, he can be found at www.pursuitofbeauty.com.