A 4:5 vertical photograph of a heart-shaped formation in the sandstone walls of Upper Antelope Canyon, Page, Arizona, United States, available as a limited edition print in four sizes.
Artist's Story
I knelt on the sand in Upper Antelope Canyon and shuffled forward and back until the curves overhead lined up with each other. That is the whole trick. A step either way and there is no heart, only rock.
Almost nothing down here has been touched by the sun.
A slot canyon is a crack, and from the floor of one the sky is a thin line a long way up. Direct sunlight reaches the bottom for a few minutes a day at most, and along much of the length it never arrives at all. What lights these walls is light that came in at the top, struck the upper walls, and was thrown downward. Sandstone absorbs the short wavelengths and returns the long ones, so each bounce removes more of the blue and leaves more of the red behind. Light reaching the floor has been through that two or three times.
So the walls are the light source here as much as the sky is. The rock is lit by rock, and the color of it is a record of how many times the light was handed along before it got to the camera.
Love's Embrace is a position rather than a place. The heart is there from one spot on that canyon floor and from nowhere else, and I found it on my knees.
This crop is 45 percent of the frame width, about 18 inches across on the 40 inch print. The lit chamber beyond the opening shows its own flutes rather than reading as a glow, and the broken ridge in front of it holds its chipped edges against the light behind. The fine striations resolve into individual lines, and in several places two sets cross at different angles where the sandstone was laid down in more than one direction. Click to view at full size.
About This Photograph
Upper Antelope Canyon, near Page, Arizona. Single photograph. The canyon is cut into Navajo Sandstone and is a true slot, narrow enough in places that the walls come within reach of one another while the rim stands many times a person's height overhead.
The flutes were cut by sand rather than by water. A flash flood entering a slot carries a heavy suspended load, and it is that load doing the abrading while the water simply carries it along. Clean water moving at the same speed would take far longer to do the same work. The curved grooves running through these walls record loaded water forced through a narrow gap at speed, and their shape follows the flow rather than the bedding it was cut through.
Love's Embrace
Steve Austinhttps://www.steveaustinphotography.com/
Location
Upper Antelope Canyon, Page, Arizona, United States
This photograph darkens toward every edge and brightens toward its middle, which means it comes with its own vignette and needs nothing from the wall. Its perimeter averages twenty-one out of two hundred and fifty-five and never rises above fifty-eight anywhere around the frame. Most of the work in this collection has a boundary problem of some kind: a bright edge that a dark wall cuts off, a dark edge that a pale wall stops dead, an edge that changes value halfway along and cannot be matched. This one falls away to near black on all four sides before it reaches the frame, so the transition from picture to moulding to wall happens in the dark and is invisible whichever wall it happens on. It is the freest piece here to place against a wall color you have already committed to.
Its grain runs diagonally and that has to be respected. The flutes sweep across the frame at an angle, and there is not a true vertical or a true horizontal anywhere in the picture. Set that beside a strong architectural line, a door jamb, a wall corner, a shelf, a stair stringer, and the eye compares the two and reads the diagonals as a tilt. Give it a plain wall with nothing straight running near it and the flutes read as flow. This is the reverse of a photograph with a horizon, which borrows stability from the lines around it. This one is destabilized by them.
It also has no horizon, no sky, and no object of known size, which frees the hanging height. A picture containing a horizon establishes where the viewer's eye is supposed to sit, and hanging it too high or too low makes the viewer feel wrongly placed in the scene. Nothing here does that. There is no ground plane to stand on and no sightline to match, so the piece can be hung to suit the wall and the furniture rather than to suit the image. On a vertical of this height, where clearance is usually the constraint, that flexibility is worth having.
Not sure which size the room calls for, or want dimensions not listed here? Sizes beyond 40 × 50 are available on request and ship crated by freight. That conversation is welcome before an order is placed. Start that conversation and I will answer within one business day.
How small is too small for a photograph like this?
At the Intimate size the picture is sixteen inches across and twenty tall, and the shape holds. The heart holds, the large sweeping curves hold, and the bright core holds. What goes is the stone. The fine parallel striations running through every wall in this frame are the finest detail in the picture and the first thing reduction takes, and once they are gone the walls read as smooth colored forms rather than as sandstone. That matters more here than on most pictures, because those lines are the only evidence of what the material is. The Collected at twenty-four by thirty returns them as lines. The Expansive at thirty-two by forty is where the surface starts reading as grain. If you are weighing a size against a specific wall, choosing the right print size covers the measurements and the viewing distances in more detail.
What changes at the largest size?
At forty by fifty, working through the frame: the fine parallel striations across the upper walls resolve into individual lines with space between them, and where two sets cross at different angles the cross-bedding reads as separate layers laid down in different directions. The vertical fracture running through the upper middle becomes a crack with depth in it rather than a dark mark. The bright chamber beyond the opening shows its own flutes instead of reading as a glow. On the lower left the wall picks up granular texture at close to the scale of the sand it is made of. The dark inclusions along the left edge resolve as distinct objects with their own surface. And along the ridge that forms the heart's left lobe, the chipped and broken edges become visible against the light behind them. Why scale matters covers what happens perceptually when a photograph reaches the size where the eye has to cross it.
What kind of room does this photograph suit?
A tall narrow wall with nothing else on it. A study, an entry, a hall end, a pier between openings, a bedroom above a low headboard. Hang it to suit the wall rather than to a fixed eye level, since nothing in the picture sets one. On materials it is accommodating: mid-toned matte plaster, stone, and concrete all work, and it will sit with a warm or a cool scheme without arguing. Three things to avoid. Do not hang it in a dim room, since half the picture is already dark and low ambient light collapses the shadow detail that the other half depends on for contrast. Keep strong architectural lines away from it for the reason above. And do not hang it above heavily figured stone or timber, because the flutes are already a flowing linear grain and a figured surface beneath repeats that pattern at a similar scale. When your mind needs to rest takes the question further.
Every work ships insured and arrives with a signed certificate of authenticity.
If a piece is damaged in transit, the choice of replacement is always yours, and your edition number stays with you.
Production time runs 2 to 3 weeks for metal, 3 to 4 weeks for acrylic and paper, and 5 to 6 weeks for framed work.
Each print is made to order and takes its place in a numbered edition, so sales are final. Before you choose, I am glad to help: send a photo of your wall and I will show you this work in your room at true scale, at no charge. Start a conversation
Collector's Choice · TruLife ® Acrylic in Italian Frame
Collector Edition of 25· Lumachrome TruLife Acrylic · Handcrafted Italian Frame
TruLife acrylic in a handcrafted Italian frame with a linen liner chosen for the image. Frame series, finish, and liner are settled with you after the order, and production begins from there. The frame and liner add about fourteen inches to the finished dimensions, worth allowing for when planning placement.
Signature Acrylic Edition of 50· Lumachrome TruLife · Gallery Float Mount
Face-mounted to TruLife acrylic and floated approximately one inch from the wall, with no frame to mediate between the image and the room. UV-resistant, anti-reflective, and scratch-resistant, with a lifetime guarantee against fading.
Signature Metal Edition of 50· ChromaLuxe Print · Gallery Float Mount
Color infused into the aluminum panel itself, floated from the wall on a concealed system. Where acrylic produces luminosity, metal produces clarity. Exceptional fade resistance with no glazing or coating required.
Fine Art Edition of 100· Hahnemühle Baryta Fine Art Paper
Printed without acrylic, so light meets the paper surface directly. Highlights stay luminous, shadows keep their nuance, and the surface has a tactile quality the other presentations approach differently. The understated choice, and the traditional one.
Complimentary shipping within the continental United States. International collector shipping available upon request.
Still deciding
Designing for Stillness
A guide to choosing art for restorative spaces
How to tell whether an image will still hold you in a year, how scale changes what a photograph does in a room, and how to match a piece to the work a room actually performs. It cites the research it draws on, and it is equally clear about where that research stops. About ten minutes to read.
