INTRODUCTION
When visitors to Grand Canyon step to the rim for the first time, they often carry expectations with them, a reckoning of what this place should look like. The dramatic images lodged in memory come from photographs vividly reproduced in books and magazines, posters and postcards. For more than 125 years, photographers have shaped our expectations and our understanding of this place.

Professional photographers do what the average traveler cannot take the time to do. Most visitors will spend only minutes at the rim. Grand Canyon photographers commit to the place. They hike the rugged backcountry carrying enormous packs filled with photographic equipment (and little else) to places few people have gone. And then they wait. For hours, sometimes for days, they wait for a fleeting moment of magical light. When light and color and form coincide they have only seconds in which to capture what they see. At this juncture, years of prospecting for views, mastering their equipment, and patiently honing their craft finally pay off. Luck intersects with skill. Evanescent light becomes lasting light.

“Lasting Light” celebrates these photographers whose hard work and artistic way of seeing have given to the world durable works of art that pay homage to a unique and ever-changing landscape. Their photographs have the power to carry the viewer into the rapids in Lava Falls and to the brink of soul-stirring cliffs at Toroweap Point, in heat and storm, through the emotions, imaginations, and craft of camera-carrying men and women.
Introduction and photographer biographies by Stephen Trimble

PHOTOGRAPHERS