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.

Volcanic Dike Ridge and Boulders. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 17mm, f/11, 1/10s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Viveza and Color Efex Pro 4.

Our location was below another volcanic dike on a steep slope covered with boulders.

Volcanic Dike Ridge and Boulders. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 17mm, f/11, 1/13s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Viveza and Color Efex Pro 4.

The boulders and clumps of grass worked well as foreground; but I was still disappointed in many of my compositions.

Volcanic Dike Ridge and Boulder Strewn Slope. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 20mm, f/11, 1/15s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Viveza and Color Efex Pro 4.

I missed the best of the light this morning, due to not arriving early enough.

Volcanic Dike Ridge and Rocky Slope. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/15s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Viveza and Color Efex Pro 4.

Maybe just the fact that I knew I had missed the best morning light biased me against these images in my initial review.

Rocky Slope and Volcanic Dike Ridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 20mm, f/11, 1/15s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Viveza and Color Efex Pro 4.

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.

Rocky Slope and Valley View. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Viveza and Color Efex Pro 4.

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.

Valley View. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm (before crop), f/11, 1/30s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Viveza and Color Efex Pro 4.

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