A very thin crack of sky extended across the top of the hollow, and I decided to make an attempt to be there at the right time of day when light might filter through this crack (similar to the photographs one sees from Antelope Canyon). So I came back a few days later early in the morning, to capture the moment (if it occurred) when the light streamed through the crack above. As I was taking photographs in this marvelous location late in the morning I noticed sunlight creeping down the side of the western wall of this cave, and hurried to try to capture some unique photographs. But at first it only proved to be a frustration as the light did nothing but give me some overexposed patches of walls in the photographs. Then, it what seemed an instant, this ray of light jumped from the wall, down to the bottom of the cleft where I was standing and became much more intense. The ground burned with this intense light in the dark cave, illuminating the walls in a comforting, magical, warm glow – amazing! I quickly composed and snapped a few photographs (on a tripod – for exposures were all over ˝ second in this dark cave). Immediately after I snapped this image, my CF card filled, and had to be changed. In the moment it took me to slip in another card, the light was completely gone – the beam never even reached the middle of the cleft before it evaporated. In all, the light was on the ground for no more than 20 seconds – it was a very fleeting moment.

This image is a composite of two images; one exposed for the highlights, and one exposed for the shadows. Because the dynamic range of my camera is inadequate to fully capture the range of light in scenes such as this, I often take multiple exposures in case the original image can’t ‘hold’ all of the detail.