Upper Antelope Canyon

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Upper Antelope Canyon, originally uploaded by djhinrich, All Rights Reserved.

For our First Anniversary as a Flickr group, we ran a Special Challenge. Players were tasked to find 10 photos for a scavenger hunt within 15 days and to win gold or silvers medals on those photo from our group's competitions. We ended up with over 300 entries. We narrowed that field to 30 and came up with our champion, djhinrich, Dan, from Omaha, Nebraska, USA. We awarded him a free year of a Flickr Pro account. Thanks and congratulations, Dan!

What equipment do you use?

I have a Canon XT with the standard 18-55 lens. What's the story behind this shot? We went to Arizona over Memorial Day weekend, kind of on a whim. I have always wanted to go to Antelope Canyon, so that was on top of our list. I booked the light beam tour, but when we arrived the weather was rainy and overcast. I still wanted to go see the canyon so we went ahead with the tour. This shot was the hardest shot I have probably ever taken. For a brief moment the clouds parted and the lightbeams came in. The canyon was full of people so the guides had to hurry to get everyone out of the way so we could take pictures. When the view was clear the guides then threw sand into the air so we could photograph the beam. I was only able to get two shots before beam went away. I was lucky that the photo actually came out at all! What was it like gathering the photos for the special scavenger hunt? Very tough! I went into the scavanger hunt thinking this was going to be a piece of cake, after all it was only ten photos. I quickly learned how hard it was, especially to shoot in the themes I hardly ever shoot in, let alone play in PFO. Very few of my shots were winning gold in the regular challenges, and after seeing some of the other great photos being posted in the scavenger hunt it was a little discouraging. I continued to take more photos and play challenges until all ten categories were filled. Overall, I had a great time and hope to maybe do it again. This challenge really expanded my range in photography. You scored with 3 entries into the Finals -- how did that feel when you found that out? I was completely shocked. I wasn't expecting to win one let alone three! There were a lot of amazing photos in the different categories, I didn't think there was a chance for one of my photos to continue to the finals. Here is our 2nd place winner, from heritagefutures entitled "Willandra Drought" -- All Rights Reserved