Shutting Down Tours due to Overcrowding and Negative Reviews

Antelope Canyon is Shutting Down

Antelope Canyon is Shutting Down Its Photo Tours Due to Overcrowding and Negative Reviews

The photography tours to Upper Antelope Canyon, one of the most popular and controversial photographic attractions in the United States, will be closed in 2020. To confirm this news and find out the reasons, we decided to call the Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation.

According to Navajo National Parks, they decided to stop doing photo tours in Upper Antelope Canyon as a result of negative reviews and comments from many participants. The last official photography tour will take place on December 20, 2019. After that, people will still be able to take photos during regular visits, but these groups are larger and you are not allowed to bring tripods or monopods.

Why have they decided to stop a seemingly very profitable tour?

Antelope Canyon has been a hotspot in the American southwest for a long time, but the location has grown considerably in popularity in recent years thanks to the rise of social media, as well as the wide media coverage of stories like the photo of Peter Lik of the canyon. Who allegedly sold $ 6.5 million?

Navajo's national parks and recreation have so far responded to increased demand by offering more and more canyon tours, running multiple groups at the same time over ever-smaller time slots.

At the same time, they started to organize more expensive photography tours, but allow participants to bring a tripod and give them more time inside the canyon in a small group. During photo tours, the guide will also prevent crowds from entering your frame for a few seconds at a time, and throw ashes and sand into the air to create the famous light beams.

Unfortunately, this surge in popularity coincided with a worse experience for photographers. There have been many negative reviews of photographers about what it's really like to take pictures at Antelope Canyon, generating intense debate about whether it's really worth paying nearly $ 200 for a photoshoot. Agonizing and scary photographs, with the most likely result being some pictures that look identical to all the other shots.

All of this has generated the most significant change in the slot canyon, where tourism has gone from a few groups of visitors a day to herds of people crowding between the narrow walls of the canyon, with photographers "interrupting" the rhythmic flow of standard circuits.

With the decision to stop photography tours in the canyon, Navajo National Parks are eager to free up space and make the experience more enjoyable for all visitors, with the ultimate goal of reversing any negative reviews that 'they have received since the canyon explosion in popularity.

Will this decision be effective?

Standard "guided tours" will still be available, but will become the only way to visit Upper Antelope Canyon. These tours allow visitors to take cell phones and cameras, but no tripods or monopods.

This makes the reasoning behind the closure of photography tours questionable, especially if the park decides to fill the time slots occupied by photo tours with more standard tours, which allows even more people to make the tours more profitable. Navajo National Parks did not confirm this information and insisted that their goal was to create a better experience for everyone.

In my case, I decided to take the photo tour of Upper Antelope Canyon in the summer of 2017, and I had no bad experience, mainly because I was photographing with only two other photographers (the other five photographers of the tour were refused because they did not carry a tripod).

I was happy with my images and the place looked like a real natural wonder, but at the same time, there is a contradictory feeling when you think of the "created" scenes and the circus in which we just participated. I do not regret my visit, but I do not think I would do it again.

In any case, for better or worse, December 20 will be the last photography tour in Upper Antelope Canyon.

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