Located just South of Page, AZ is Horseshoe Bend Slot Canyon! Click here for the website.

You will definitely avoid the crowds and if you’re a photographer (like me), you’ll really, REALLY appreciate the quite time and overall, the TIME to slow down to take a photograph! (I’ve posted some DSLR and smartphone photo tips at the end of this page. Don’t miss them.)

Some of the other slot canyons in the area will have a lot of people and sometimes you’ll be waiting behind bus groups or very large tour companies.

The great thing about this slot canyon is not only is it great to photograph, NO OTHER tour company goes there but one outfit. Talk about unique!

Horseshoe Bend Slot Canyon is narrow and you really get to experience a slot canyon that is also very photogenic! I was able to bring our tripods and had PLENTY of time to run around and take our time creating photographs. We drove for about 15-20 minutes to the slot canyon and then walked on decent flat ground for about 10-15 minutes. THEN boom, we were there! (You can see our walk to the slot canyon and adventure in the video below.)

As a father, paying for kids to experience something is often costly… especially if they don’t have time to run around and burn some energy. We were able to do just that on our tour.

Denali played with some bugs and his usual sticks. Bubblegum kept looking up and playing in the dirt. The kids got to play and feel the beauty of the slot canyon.

We were THE ONLY ONE’S in the entire slot canyon with our guide Tim. Watch our highlight video below:

We had an incredible time and I recommend contacting Horseshoe Bend Slot Canyon Tours for your trip. It’s worth the time!
For more tour info and availability, you can click here.

In all, our tour took the right amount of time and we had plenty of fun! Here are some of the image I was able to create from the slot canyon.

The incredible thing was staying in one spot for about 10 minutes and seeing the light beams change in that time. The first light beam dropped into the canyon and then a second began to appear.

Again, about 10 minutes later, sitting in the same place, I took this image!
The light changed dramatically and we were amazed.

Denali really enjoyed playing in the light beams. He thought they were a message from Heaven. He felt like he got superpowers from it. It was really cool to see him use his imagination. To him, some of the rock formations looked like sharks, waves, mountains and eagles. We could say Denali definitly enjoyed being in the spotlight.

Bubblegum loved feeling the dirt and the striations. She would run every now and then. Gummy also enjoyed the quite time.

While we were on our way out of the tour, Tim showed us this great spot where the water had pooled up after a rain storm. We were able to spend a couple minutes hiking around to see the remains of a recent storm.

On our exit, we felt great and a hawk flew over us a few times. It was a great experience! That’s what it is all about – the experience!

DSLR TIP’s:

  • Tripod! I use this one from Gitzo and this Manfrotto ball head. (If you don’t have a huge DSLR but a smaller digital camera, this tripod and head combo works really good.) Luckily on the photo tour, tripods are welcomed and highly recommended!
  • Use low ISO. I used ISO 100 and 200 at times. If you feel like you need to take more photo’s, depending on your camera’s capability, bumping up to ISO 400 should be ok.
  • Wide Angle Lens will help! I used my 14-24mm lens on my Nikon D810 quite often. My 24-70mm also worked well. If you have a cropped sensor, a 10-24mm will do wonders.
  • Some of your shutter speeds may be 4 to 15 seconds long depending on ISO and your aperture. Most times, I used f/11 and f/18. For the images with kids, I used f/4 and bumped up my ISO.
  • Filters won’t be needed and I don’t think you’ll need to use a cable release. Most times I just used my 2 second delay from the camera.
  • Avoid the sky as best as possible. There were times where I would move to have an overhanging rock block the sky or bright direct sunlight.
  • If you are photographing with JPEG files, adjust your white balance to daylight. Cloudy will make your images look really, really warm or over doing the orange.
  • If you want a starburst, get a little bit of sunlight if possible and use f/16 or f/22 and have a longer shutter speed.

SMARTPHONE TIP’s:

  • IF you have an iPhone or an Android, you may want to look into using these AWESOME wide angle lenses from OlloClip. I have a set for my iPhone 6s Plus. Also, if you visit Horseshoe Bend (or any place where you want one solid photo rather than always fidgeting with your panoramic mode), your regular iPhone camera lens or Android lens won’t cover the entire Colorado River turn. Getting a wide angle lens for your smartphone will help in the slot canyons and around Northern Arizona – especially at the Grand Canyon.
  • Manfrotto makes this great clip which will attach to your smart phone to any tripod for non-shaky images. IF you use the tripod mount, I recommend using your 2 second timer delay on your smart phone. When you touch your screen, you’ll wiggle it a bit and 2 seconds should be plenty of time to have your smart phone stop moving.
  • Since you will more than likely be taking quite a few photo’s throughout the day, it will be a good idea to have some small and light portable power on hand. This is a little odd but we just got back from Paris and while we were at Versailles, a lady’s iPhone died while we were all checking in with our tour tickets. Her visit DIDN’T even start and her phone was already DEAD! So I whipped out my Goal Zero Venture 30. This baby is light and packs a good charge!

If you would like more information about Horseshoe Bend Slot Canyon, click here.
So far, quite a few of my (photography) friends have gone through the tour and they have all had great experiences.

You can see some of their images on the website.