Wishing all of my followers and readers a very Merry Christmas!
Ken
Author: Ken
BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, Sunrise, July 31, 2020
Retrieving our cameras in the early morning from the volcanic ridge adjacent to our campsite, where we had left them the night prior, shooting programmed shots of the night sky, we drove a short distance to another location that we had scouted previously for sunrise photography.
I had to hike across a wide area and up a slope to get to a good place for my first composition, after which there was not much time to set up prior to the sun rising over the hills to the east of our location. Just as I set up at my first location, the sun suddenly came over the horizon, before I was completely ready, not giving me enough time to test my compositions and I was not happy with the initial results.
I moved on to other locations hoping to salvage something from this morning’s efforts. When I first reviewed the images from this morning, I passed over them, thinking none were good enough to bother editing. Later I revisited those images and decided that some had merit.
Our location was below another volcanic dike on a steep slope covered with boulders.
The boulders and clumps of grass worked well as foreground; but I was still disappointed in many of my compositions.
I missed the best of the light this morning, due to not arriving early enough.
Maybe just the fact that I knew I had missed the best morning light biased me against these images in my initial review.
The problem with this location is that the very first early morning light looks good on that volcanic ridge, but then the sun is already fairly high in the sky, so the golden light is very fleeting. By the time the sunlight begins to move down the slope the best light is gone.
After shooting looking up the slope towards the ridge, I turned to the south and shot across the wide flat valley with the hills in the background, using boulders as foreground.
I was not really pleased with any of my images from this shoot and even considered not bothering to process some, including the last image in this post. However, after getting that last image selected for Flickr’s explore page, I’m glad that I took the time to process and share it. Be sure to click on the photos to view higher resolution ones on Flickr.
Having missed the best light this morning, we decided to return here again the next, and our final, morning here to try again.
Thanks for following,
Ken
BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, Night Photography, July 30, 2020
After dinner my son and I hiked back up the volcanic ridge to the south of our campsite to set up for night photography.
I picked my view point, looking easterly from the ridge, making a few late day images and picking a final composition for the star photographs.
The moon was up and would not set until sometime after midnight. We did not want the moonlight to interfere with the dark sky photos, so we set our remote timers to begin shooting for sometime after the moonset.
After getting our final compositions, making sure our tripods were stable, securing our focus rings with gaffer tape, programing remotes, installing rain covers (there was a slight possibility of rain), we started the remote timers and retired to our vehicles for the night, returning in the early morning prior to sunrise to retrieve our cameras, hoping we had suitable images for star trails.
Here is my final product from all of this effort:
Much better images can be seen on Flickr by clicking on the images.
Thanks for following, stay well and safe,
Ken
Scouting Photographs, BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, July 30, 2020
After driving around sightseeing and scouting in an extended area in Southeastern Colorado, we returned to our campsite on BLM land north of Del Norte to prepare for sunset and/or night time photography.
Readers will recall seeing this photograph of the end of a volcanic peak north of the road that we were camped along:
I kept wondering what the view was like in the saddle behind that peak. The steep slope had made me reluctant to hike up there, but today I decided I had to check out the view from that saddle. So I attacked the slope, trying to take the easiest route, but still I had to climb steep portions.
Here is an iPhone panorama from the saddle.
I think this view would be good for star trails, but there is infrastructure (not visible in this small image) in the far distance that would have lights showing up in night shots.
The image below is looking more to the southwest. Again not too bad a view. One can see my son, pondering the photographic possibilities from here, in the orange shirt just to the lower right of the main ridge peak, .
Another view to the west to northwest is below.
This last image shows how steep the slope is that one has to climb to get up here. Our vehicles are just barely visible in the right center of this image.
After some discussion, we decided it was not worth the effort to make the trek back up here for night shots, then have to trudge up early in the morning to retrieve our cameras, hike back down and get to another location for sunrise photos.
On the way back to our vehicles I paused to check out the roadway for use in additional leading line photographs from a location more to the west of the other photos taken the day before, which used this roadway as a leading line.
Stay tuned to see how the night photography worked out.
Ken
Sunrise, BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, July 30, 2020
We arose early on the morning of July 30 to get out and into position before the sunrise. I again went to the south side of the volcanic ridge, but this time just a little below the crest to await the sunrise.
My first composition here included a little too much of the scrubby vegetation in the lower right corner of the image. So I changed the composition a little and then cropped the image more to get this out of the photograph.
One can see the light moving down the south slope and beginning to highlighting some of the rocks and vegetation in the lower left of this image.
I moved more towards the most prominent portion of the ridge to get this image.
The shot above is the best image of the morning, in my opinion.
Stay tuned for sunset and night images,
Ken
Sunset Photography, BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, July 29, 2020
After scouting around some of the BLM land and the Rio Grande National Forest in southeastern Colorado, we returned to our campsite near a large volcanic ridge for sunset photography.
The road along which we parked made a good leading line, so I made several images here.
It just happened that this road led directly towards a golden hour illuminated hill in the distance. There were nice clouds in the distance and thin, wispy clouds above those. Those wispy clouds added interest with the low angle sunset rays accentuating them.
To the north of the road there is another eroded portion of a volcanic dike. That feature did not get much late day light, since it was in the shadow of hills to the west well before the golden hour. From the view point above that outcrop looks like a pinnacle.
Walking to the east, this same outcrop looks completely different. Although, this feature did not get golden hour light, there were illuminated clouds in the sky behind it, making these last three images more interesting.
Stay tuned for sunrise photos,
Ken
Sunrise Photography, BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, July 29, 2020
My son and I camped on BLM land north of Del Norte in July, 2020. We chose a location adjacent to a volcanic ridge, where we would photograph at sunrise and sunset.
Arising early in the morning, we only had to hike a short distance to our first photo location. I initially chose to go to the south side of the ridge, looking for a good view of the large ridge with interesting foreground objects.
I first chose a tree as a foreground item, but I did not like that location, as it seemed too far from the ridge. I then moved up the slope towards the ridge, to a large boulder to use in the foreground.
This early image was made as the sunrise light just began to illuminate a portion of the ridge, with all of the foreground still in shadow.
As the sunlight progressed over the ridge, I changed my composition, moving to the left of the boulder. Note that sunlight is just beginning to highlight the small tree in front of the boulder and a little of the grass clumps in the foreground.
Eventually, the early morning light moved down the slope, highlighting more of the foreground. When I saw the light hitting the small clump of cacti on the boulder, I knew I had the shot that I wanted.
My son, who was shooting from the top of the lower portion of the ridge, called to me telling me that I should move up to the ridge crest. So I picked my way up the steep rock covered slope, where I made the image below.
I tested a few other compositions from this location on the ridge, but none of those worked out very well. There were some impressively long shadows in the valley to the south of this ridge. I made a few exposures with those shadows in the landscape image, but all of my compositions from this vantage point were disappointing.
We soon retreated to our campsite for breakfast, after which we will do a bit of scouting in the general area during the mid-day hours, then return here for a sunset shoot.
Until then, stay safe,
Ken
English Valley Sunset, Colorado, July 2020
From La Garita Arch we drove to an area called “English Valley”. We parked at a turn around at the end of a sometimes barely discernible road at a high area overlooking a valley to the south.
The sun was rapidly sinking in the sky, so we quickly found spots to try to capture the late day sunset sky above the valley.
We were fortunate to have good clouds to the south and we could see a little rain falling in the distance.
As the light changed, I moved to other locations and turned a little more to the east.
The moon had risen early and became visible as the clouds moved around.
One can see how the light in the clouds migrated as the clouds themselves blew across the scene.
The last image in this post was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page, but I like the first image in this post better, although the light on the valley is better in the last image.
We thought about staying the night at this location, but decided to go to another area, where my son said we would have better chances of good sunrise subjects to shoot.
More later,
Ken
Thanksgiving
Thank you all for reading and following my blog.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with family and friends.
Stay well and safe,
Ken
La Garita Arch, Colorado, July 2020
Leaving Cathedral Campground, we headed to an area to the north of Del Norte, Colorado that my son had explored sometime earlier this year. Our first stop was at La Garita Arch, a natural arch in an ancient volcanic dike on BLM land.
We were here well before sunset, so I made a few iPhone photographs, while awaiting the golden sunset hour.
Hiking up a hillside to the west of the arch, looking for a good place from which to shoot, I noted many cacti of various kinds scattered around, intermingled with some colorful, lichen covered rocks.
It required some attention to where one stepped to avoid putting a foot onto one of these.
The arch is not an easy one to photograph and the shadow of the hillside to the west of the arch moves quickly up the incline to the arch as the sun sinks into the sky, limiting the late day light on the arch.
Of the many shots I took, the one above is the best.
We had hoped to camp nearby the arch, but the only real campsite here was already taken. So we moved on to another area, where we hoped to get other late day images before the sun completely set.
More on that next,
Ken