Cool Cave Photography

Among the top ten words that are most fun to say out loud : spelunking

When I worked in Lava Beds National Monument, I had the opportunity to do quite a bit of spelunking -- cave exploring. The experience is so different from exploring any other terrestrial environment. It is totally dark, it is rocky, there aren't many plants, there aren't many animals, there is no horizon or any other traditional markers for finding your way, and it is really fun! There are, of course, many great cave systems within our parks, among them, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and Carlsbad in New Mexico. If you've never been in a big cave before, I'd suggest you take a visit at least once in your life. Finding yourself surrounded by complete darkness is really worth the experience.

I found this website called "Darklight Imagery" while surfing around recently, and really enjoyed the cave photography on display. As you can imagine, taking a photo in a cave is tough because it is so dark. As described on his site, this fellow is using some really big flashbulbs to get his photos. The massive flash really lights up the rooms and delivers good color for the shots. Looks like most of the photos are taken in Kentucky, including some in the Mammoth system. Besides having a great set of photos, the photographer includes good details about how he captured the shots. Click on the thumbnails for details.