It's all in the eye

Navin Sakhuja travels around the world, photographing landscapes and built structures off the beaten track.

Navin Sakhuja was looking up “antelope” on the Internet — “I forget why; it must have been for some school project,” he says — when he came across Antelope Canyon. And was hooked. Located in Arizona, USA, Antelope Canyon is a spectacular geological wonder. It’s a slot canyon, a kind of underground canyon formed over many millennia by the action of flash floods scouring through rocks. It is eight kilometres long, only a few feet wide in places, with rock walls rising hundreds of feet on either side. The Navajos, the Native American tribe which once lived in large numbers in the area, considered Antelope Canyon sacred. (It is located within Navajo Nation, the semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory).

With photographers especially, Antelope Canyon is a major draw because of the magical, often surreal effects created by the sun’s rays which enter through the thin cracks on the canyon’s roof and illuminate the flowing shapes carved into the Navajo Sandstone.

That was around four years ago, and it was only last October that Sakhuja, a well-known ophthalmologist in New Delhi who photographs as a hobby, got around to visiting Page, Arizona. He was there for four days, spending 10 to 11 hours each day photographing the two upper and lower Antelope canyons with his Canon 5D Mark II. The expedition was preceded by over a month of research into the weather, especially sunlight conditions so important to photography. In the case of Antelope Canyon, such research is essential because of the ever-present danger of flash floods. In 1997, 11 photographers were caught in one and died.

The results are poetry of light and colour — especially gold, yellow and every shade of red, from crimson and vermillion, to orange, peach and pink. Is it for real, I can’t help asking. “Yes it is, mostly. Some of it is also overexposure and underexposure,” says Sakhuja, pointing to the images of rainbow arches streaking through the dark. “It wasn’t easy,” he continues. “It was very dusty down there. To get around the problem of mirror flap with exposures as long as two minutes, I had to set the mirror lock, and always use the tripod so that the slight shake of the hand when clicking did not distort the picture. I would use a remote to shoot just to be safe.”

Does Sakhuja see a connection between his hobby and his profession? “Yes, both are about perceiving light and attention to detail,” he answers easily.

Sakhuja’s photographs were displayed at a short exhibition at the India Habitat Centre last week. It was his third solo, the last being “In Search of a Greater God” two years ago, where he showcased the fruits of another photographic expedition to an exotic land — Bagan in Burma where more than 2,200 pagodas are crammed within a 16 sq km area, and the Angkor Wat ruins in Cambodia. “Landscapes and architecture are what excite me,” says Sakhuja. The evidence is for all to see.