Adam Schallau: Capturing the Canyon

Behind the Scenery

Adam Schallau never imagined what he thought was his one and only visit to Grand Canyon would lead to a decade of photographing the canyon, rim to river. Asking "How much more could there be?" he was surprised by the wonderful perspective Grand Canyon reveals when you looking behind the lens. Join a professional photographer to learn pro tips about photographing Grand Canyon

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Adam: My name is Adam Schallau and I am a full-time professional photographer, and I actually specialize in landscape photography which seems to be pretty rare nowadays. I’m a guy that came to Grand Canyon 20 years ago, thought that would be my only visit, I spent one night. I came back 10 years later and absolutely fell in love and for about the past 10 years now, my passion and my specialty has been Grand Canyon from rim to river. (Sounds of thunder and rain) Kate: My name is Kate, and you're listening to an episode of Behind the Scenery, Canyon Cuts. How did you get into photography? Adam: I grew up being really into art in general not really photography, probably like a lot of people, I didn't necessarily see photography as an art form perhaps. I saw something, as a tool for documenting, you know, what was happening. But I started out with an interest, just like a lot of kids, in drawing. That morphed into painting, mostly working in oils, but I continued experimenting with different types of art, and when I was in high school I was into working with clay on the wheel, still painting as well. Eventually, it was like “okay I got to start thinking about a real career” and art kind of got pushed to the side. So there were several years where I just didn't have a creative outlet and, uh, after High School I was invited to work at a high altitude field research station in Colorado. A place called the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, I actually spent two summers working up there. And while I was there, one of the things I did on the side, I assisted a guy who was a wildlife biologist by trade, I guess he'd say. But he was also a landscape photographer. He was in his mid-to-late fifties and had bad knees, bad back and he said “Hey, do you want to carry my gear?” This is cool, I get to climb mountains, ride mountain bikes. So I started doing that, and I honestly thought initially it was the stupidest things possible. I couldn't understand why we’d get up at 4 O’Clock in the morning to climb a mountain and photograph sunrise, set up this massive large format view camera. It was just this bizarre world to me but that was my introduction to photography. And again, initially it did not take with me. Many years later I started going on trips myself across the American West. And of course, you take your camera with you, and this is back in the film era still. I took the camera to document the trip. And after my first trip, I realized when I got my film back you can do more than document … you can actually put your own interpretive slant into what you're doing in terms of how you build your composition and what kind of film you use to record the light and color. That was kind of the start. I didn't have a clue what I was doing but I could see that there was a real possibility there to share my own vision of what I was seeing. Kate: So, you mentioned your first time at Grand Canyon was just a one-night stay … Adam: That was South Rim, and to the best of my recollections, right around, it was like September 1999 and I was with my wife, Sally. We had actually planned to spend, I believe, three nights and we were camping at Mather Campground, and we hadn’t done a lot of research to be honest, but we did have reservations, so we had a campsite, and we showed up … and had no idea where to go, and I was so very, very new to photography. We followed the crowds ended up at Mather Point, with half the other visitors in the park, heh heh. I was awestruck by what was in front of me. I was just awestruck and intimidated … I had no idea how do you start putting a composition together and the light began to happen and I think I took about three photographs put the camera down and I just enjoyed the show that nature was putting on that evening and it was kind of an end of monsoon type evening some nice clouds in the sky. No real theatrics it wasn't raining, there were no rainbows. It was just very soft, pleasant and a real moment of peace and tranquility. That was fantastic. We went back Mather that evening, we camped add Froze! Heh heh! I had no idea how cold it could get in Arizona. I think a lot of us have heard that story over and over and over again. I had no idea how cold it could get in the desert in the middle of the night and not considered the elevation and long story short we spent the one night before moving on. And, I honestly thought well we've been here, and we've seen Grand Canyon was kind of my thought about the experience. How much more could there be? And again, I had no clue. (Sounds of thunder and rain) My first river trip down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon was an 18-day oar trip in September into October of 2015, so, only 5 years ago and still fairy new in my career in photography and to be honest struggling with the business aspect of it, trying to make a living. But the first person I had met in Flagstaff was David Edwards. And Dave, for those who don't know him, is a National Geographic published photographer, river guide with hundreds of trips under his belt as well. And Dave in September of that year, 2015, was getting ready to run an art trip through the Canyon and my wife said if you have to put the cost of that trip on every credit card we have you need to do it because you need to go down the river with Dave. And we made it work and I signed up for this 18 day trip. It was really an incredible experience because it ended up being a very small trip there only five participants, we had five 18-foot oar boats, we actually had six crew members. We had five people rowing, five river guides plus a swamper. So, the passengers were outnumbered by guides, that was neat in itself, but we had Dave leading, and we had some other big names on the trip. And not to name drop, but just to share what a special experience it was, we had a woman who most people know by the name of Martha Clark she's now Martha Stewart … Martha is one of those Grand Canyon Legends. We had Andy Martin rowing a boat as well, a former park ranger, photographer, river guide, just an incredible individual. Joseph Bennion who is a potter from Spring City Utah was also rowing. Peter Nisbet, who is a credible painter of Grand Canyon and the American West. Here I am, this relatively new guy, surrounded by all these incredibly talented people who really know the canyon, who have incredible passion for the canyon and the river and I can't think of a better way to have been introduced to the world below the rim along the river corridor. To see the world through their eyes and to hear their stories.

(Sounds of thunder and rain) Kate: Do you think there's any like big challenges or misconceptions about photography that a lot of people might not be aware of? Adam: Oh, hah hah, huh. Oh boy, where to start. Oh yeah, because I had my own … that it wasn’t or couldn’t be an art form. The challenges…there’s this belief that the product has to be finished in the camera. And I just I don't believe that's true. It’s easy to drop Ansel Adams name into these conversations. For those people are familiar with his work, or how he worked. The negatives, the film, was just the beginning of the process, and once he got into the dark room he was doing things called dodging and burning for example, which is darkening and brightening parts of the image so that we can kind of control the viewer’s journey through the photograph, you know, drawing attention to certain areas and trying to not draw attention to other areas and we still do that today, digitally. So of course we still end up being asked the question “Do you photoshop your images?” and the reality is it's not fair to say we all do but most of us that are into photography are doing something to our photographs. It's really open to that artist how much they do to the image. Myself, I have a lot of rules or restrictions that I place upon myself. My Photoshop work for example, is limited to contrast and tonal balance. It is really difficult to set it up in the canyon and represent it in a way that resembles something like what we saw. The camera has difficulties recording the brightness of the sky and balancing that with the darkness of the canyon. In my postproduction work I photoshop, I’m working on adjusting those balances. But I find a lot of people who perhaps don't really know the world of photography as an art form don't understand perhaps what goes into creating the final photograph that gets printed and hung on the wall. And the world wants to place a lot of restrictions on how we achieve the final result. My goal is always to be true to the landscape and true to my experience. And what I mean by that is I’m not there to add a sky for example, if it was a blue-sky day and I wanted clouds, I’m not adding clouds. I’m not adding lightning. I’m not, what I consider, faking the image. Another challenge is that a lot of people may not understand or appreciate how much effort goes into making one photograph. I may visit a particular location three, four, five times, maybe even more, before I get the photograph I really want. Kate: Do you have a particular process that helps you, like capturing the light here, do you look for certain like cloud formations or anything like that? Adam: A lot of it is an emotional response for me, on that particular day, where I am at in my life. I spend a lot of time watching the weather forecast here at home and if it looks like the weather is going to be conducive to the kind of work I want to create then I come running up to the canyon and I’m almost always starts with a stop at Yavapai Point. Not that intend to photograph there, but Yavapai has that 180° panoramic view of the canyon and so I run up to the viewpoint and I study the weather conditions. So, I’m watching where are the clouds. Where they were, where are they at now, where does it look like they are moving towards. And then that kind of drives my decision towards where I want to go in the park. And, I do the same thing if I’m up on the North Rim. If I'm up at the North Rim it may be quick stop at the lodge, to try to see what's going on with the weather. The North Rim’s a bit more challenging in that regard because, for example, from the lodge you can't see back around to the northeast real well back towards point imperial. My process always starts with just observing what Mother Nature is giving us to work with. Kate: Do you think being a photographer has changed the way you view landscapes? Adam: Oh yes, oh definitely. I see so much more than I did before I was a photographer. Little details that maybe just get easily overlooked for example noticing how the light plays across the inner canyon. Those basement rocks become so reflective, that’s something I may have just overlooked on my first visit 20 years ago. Now, I’m just noticing all those crazy little details, how the light scatters through dust how it creates a soft painterly effect … just little details like that. Definitely photography has changed how I view the world. Also, with regard to relationships. Relationship between foreground, mid-ground, background … how shapes can play off of each other how they can help one shape highlight another shape within the canyon or frame that shape. Kate: So I see that you teach a lot of different types of workshops. Is there any specific like type of lesson or type of interaction you have with your guests that, like, stick out to your mind and brighten your day? Adam: When I teach workshops one of my goals for my students is that they grow or mature as a photographer or as an artist if that's how they want to see themselves. And what I mean by that is, when we’re learning, we tend to copy the work of others. In my line of work we call it chasing tripod holds. We try to figure out where someone else set up their tripod and place our tripod there but it's easy to get stuck in rut of making everyone else's photographs. So when I work with someone I hope to break them out of that habit. I hope to help them realize or discover their own creative vision. And that’s something we should all be doing, forever, up until our last day clicking the shutter. We’re always maturing and chasing our own vision and defining that vision. But that’s what gives me the greatest satisfaction. I can show someone how to make the kind of photos I like to make, but I want to see what they want to make, what they want to share, and when they can do that that makes me smile. (Sound of thunder and rain) Kate: What do you want for the future of Grand Canyon? Adam: Oh wow. I'd like to see people really respect it. I think it to respect it, you have to have a deep appreciation for it, and I think that's the challenge. You know what’s the average length of a visit for the typical visitor, like three and 1/2 hours, something like that. It's hard to really appreciate the place. I have seen a lot changes in the last 10 years in terms of how people interact with the park when they’re here. There’s the selfie generation now, people seem to be all that just getting the shot of themselves. I'd love to see people slow down and really appreciate the canyon. I just hope we can protect it from ourselves and protect it from being loved to death because I can definitely seeing the signs of that when I’m out at the different viewpoints. I wish people can make more than just the one trip. I was just very lucky. The luxury of time allowed me to begin seeing the canyon in a new way. I learned about the parks artist-in-residence program and ended up applying and being accepted for the next year, and it again it was that luxury of time that helped me develop that deeper appreciation for the canyon, being able to see it in different light, different weather. (Sound of thunder and rain) Kate: Thank you for listening to this episode of Canyon Cuts, a Behind the Scenery micro episode. Brought to you by the North Rim and Canyon District interpretation teams at Grand Canyon National Park Rich: Hey Holly, uh, don’t know if she’ll listen to this.

This episode was produced by Kate Hensel with assistance from Wayne Hartlerode for the National Park Service. This episode was recorded in September 2020 on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Thank you, Adam Schallau for your time spent being interviewed.