Image of the Week: Hikers in Coyote Gulch I, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah

How ready are you?

Honestly, if you turn a corner and suddenly find yourself staring at three elephants standing on their heads in beautiful light, are you prepared to photograph the scene? Is your camera accessible, or is it buried deep in your backpack? Do you even know where it is?

Yeah, me neither...at least while backpacking. On the street, I usually have a camera or two stashed in a fanny pack or shoulder bag. But on the trail, it's better to carry the weight on your back. For a long time I buried my camera kit in tons of foam padding and shoved it in my frame pack. If I wanted to take a picture, I had to shed the pack and dig out the camera. As the day (and my legs) wore on, I became less and less inclined to take the pack off for possible photo opportunities. I couldn't work like that. Something had to be done.

Photo by Todd Sirmans

I settled on a front-mounted camera holster made by Kinesis Photo Gear. Kinesis makes a range of modular camera bags, including a top-loading holster bag that accepts a large SLR camera with long a lens attached, or two lenses if they are medium-to-short lengths. Using two carabiners to clip the sides of the holster to my frame pack's shoulder straps, and a small ABS clip on the frame pack's waist belt to prevent the holster from bouncing while I walk, I can easily grab my camera and shoot while walking. In fact, it's so easy to use while hiking that I've injured myself several times by looking through the viewfinder instead of watching where I step. Hazards of the business, I guess.

Without the holster, this week's image would have never happened. On the second day of hiking through Glen Canyon's beautiful Coyote Gulch, I turned a corner and saw the morning sunlight vibrantly light up the canyon's red sandstone, silhouetting my hiking partners. The stream we were hiking in reflected the canyon walls brilliantly, and I had only moments before my friends rounded the bend and the moment was over.

Technical Data

Hikers in Coyote Gulch I, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah was photographed with a Nikon D300 and 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens. The exposure was 1/125 sec at ƒ/8.

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