Grand Canyon Photo Essay by Roberto Johnson

Today, we’re featuring a wonderful photo essay from writer and photographer Roberto Johnson. Roberto hiked the Grand Canyon’s South Rim and captured his adventure on 35mm film.

Scroll below to view the images and read more from Roberto about his time at the Grand Canyon…

Analog cameras and films used: Olympus OM-10 (Find at KEH Camera or on eBay) | Kodak Ultramax 400 (Find on Amazon)

Connect with Roberto: Website | Instagram

The Grand Canyon

A Photo Essay by Roberto Johnson

It’s estimated the Grand Canyon is somewhere between six and 70 million years old. Bright Angel Trail, now one of the park’s most popular hikes, has been around since roughly 1902. The first time I ever hiked Bright Angel was in 2002 when I was seven years old. My dad and I completed the 12-mile route from the South Rim to Plateau Point and back in half a day or so. It’s one of the more significant memories from that part of my childhood that involves something beyond school or home.

This past April, twenty years after we first hiked Bright Angel together, my dad and I returned to the Grand Canyon to repeat the feat. In canyon time, two decades is hardly a smidge on the timeline of existence, but for us mere humans, it is substantial.

Yet when considering the time elapsed between these two trips, many things still remain the same. At 27, I’m as infatuated with the outdoors as I was when I was a kid, I’m more eager to move and explore, and hungrier than ever for immersion in the natural world. All of which made me excited to revisit the Grand Canyon and descend on Bright Angel once again.

One of the foremost pleasures of any trip I take now is bringing a camera to document the occasion on film. Well before we set out for Arizona, I was giddy about the chance to capture the South Rim’s purple-red hues and sun-stained cliffsides in the morning light.

I view film photography mostly as a way of documenting, or “eternalizing the now,” but also as a means of honoring my environment. Capturing scenes, whether it be nature, cities, or people, is a tangible way of connecting with the beauty that colors each moment of our lives. It goes without saying that the Grand Canyon’s vibrant landscape and awe-inspiring vistas make for a sublime subject.

We hit the trailhead at 6:30 a.m. as the first rays of sunlight seeped into the canyon below. It was brisk out, around 30 degrees, but walking at a stern pace, the air felt comfortable.

Gazing out into the Grand Canyon from the South Rim is unquestionably one of the great views I’ve encountered in my lifetime. Trying to comprehend the vastness and geological wonder of the canyon itself is mind-numbingly ineffective, yet you do it anyway, because the scope of the landscape before you is breathtaking in every sense of the word. As we inched our way down the first leg of the trail, I found myself looking up often, making sure I was soaking in the sight of that great ravine as much as I could.

For a couple of reasons, most of the photos I wound up taking were on the way down into the canyon. At the start of the hike, filled with the excitement that stems from seeing something so profoundly beautiful, I instantly grew trigger happy and felt compelled to fire my shutter as often as possible. Having previously blown through many rolls of film due to this overwhelming sensation, I managed to temper my elation and thus salvaged some of my roll for later in the day.

However, I also knew hiking out of the canyon would be far more strenuous physically, and the tediousness of stopping every short while to take pictures would grow increasingly unappealing as we climbed. And so, I shot.

While the Grand Canyon’s size and stature command most of your initial attention, the smaller features of its makeup present an equally fascinating study. On the horizon, miles and miles of towering red rock make for dark, skyscraper-sized shadows. Deeper within each crevice, dense slopes of sage, oaks, and cottonwoods gleam against the rocky terrain, appearing strikingly verdant amid the arid landscape. The further down we hiked, the more apparent and vivid the details in the rocks became — etchings of nature’s continuous shapeshifting throughout earth’s history.

The Kodak Ultramax that I was shooting with for this occasion lended these colors a warm, saturated look. The shadows and far-away cliff faces appear blue and distant; the trail, both sandy and boulderous, materialized with a steady orange glow; and the canyon rim looks worn and ancient, shaped and withered by the heat of several million sunrises.

In observing these photos, I’m reminded of my fondness for photographing trails and pathways, not only because they often present a picture-worthy view in their background, but for the way that yielding yourself to their course of direction conjures the possibility for great discovery beyond them.

After a brief rest stop at Indian Garden, the back country camp site near the base of canyon (tribe officials are seeking a name change to reflect history), we set out on the lone flat portion of the trail to conquer the last mile-and-a-half stretch to Plateau Point, a scenic overlook that provides sweeping views of the Colorado River and large chunks of the South Rim. No longer was the great gulch from that morning’s trailhead view so far away. Now, we were in it.

Out on the point, the sun was inescapable, as was the view. Temperatures were 15 to 20 degrees warmer down inside the canyon, though it was nowhere near hot enough to keep us from marveling at the magnitude of our surroundings.

The rockfaces across the river were noticeably more jagged and sunburnt, lending the panorama from Plateau Point an especially archaic grandeur. Vast fields of prickly pears lined the outskirts of the trail. Though we found several other hikers taking in the view at trail’s end, I couldn’t shake the unsettling nature of it all. Bright Angel Trail is descended upon by thousands of hikers each year but beyond its carefully manicured fringes exists desolate beauty in its purest form.

Our ascent back up the trail was slowed by a few more rest stops, untimely leg cramps, and the increase in altitude. Still, the physical challenge didn’t deter us from reveling in the canyon’s ageless embrace. We climbed slowly but satisfied, admiring the cliffsides in the same manner as we had on the way down, noting flocks of ravens, turkey vultures, and scouting the walls for big horn sheep.

We made it back to the trailhead shortly before 7 p.m. — a solid half-day’s trek. Gazing back out into the canyon, light was now beginning to fade and soon the skies of Northern Arizona would shade the great gulch’s glory again until next day’s dawn.

As the light dimmed and we headed back to the car to leave the park for good, a portrait of the South Rim stenciled itself onto the canvas of my mind, adjacent to the mental frame I had registered twenty years prior.

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