Clouds – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Colorado Fall – Sep 2026 – Part 1

It had been years since I visited Colorado in the fall. Not because I didn’t want to be there in the fall, but because the timing never worked out. This year I had a narrow window of opportunity to visit Colorado and I took advantage of it.

I knew in advance that this year might not be a great year for fall color in Colorado, due to a wide spread drought; but I knew that if I passed up this opportunity, I might not get another for years. So I went.

On the second day of travel, as I neared my destination in Southern Colorado, it began to rain. Mostly, light, intermittent showers, but sometimes heavy downpours. It rained and was overcast most of the time I was there with only the last couple of days partly sunny with occasional light rain.

I’ve driven past these peaks numerous times in my trips to and from this part of Colorado. Today those heavy clouds above the peaks inspired me to stop and shoot this image.

I arrived at the south end of Forest Service Road 250 in the late afternoon and I stopped a few time along the road to shoot a few images, while looking for a place to overnight in my vehicle.

This time of the year is not only leaf peeping season in Colorado, but hunting season as well. So there were many hunters in the Rio Grande National Forest, taking up many of the open campsites. I was also surprised to see that a number of forest campgrounds that were closed the last time I was in this area were still closed. I don’t know why, but I suspect budget cuts by the current Washington regime is responsible.

And the rains made some dispersed camping areas difficult or impossible to use. Fortunately, I found a suitable place to stay overnight, although I did walk into the area first to make sure I could navigate the muddy dirt roads and puddles.

This is an iPhone photo with the wide angle lense distortion making it look like those evergreens are leaning in to protect my vehicle from the inclement weather.

I found it interesting that this group of small aspens near my campsite are all bent in the same manner. Perhaps these were deformed when very small by a snow load and maintained that shape as they have grown.

More Colorado fall photos to come. Thanks for following,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 21

This is a continuation of photography at Dead Horse Point, Utah on an overcast evening in March, 2026.

Ah, at last a little muted sunset light on those distant cliffs.

This final image shows that we were not alone at this popular view point.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 20

After driving Potash Road and the Shafer Trail, we returned to Dead Horse Point for sunset photography. It was a heavily overcast evening, so prospects for a golden sunset hour did not look promising.

This tree creature seems to be relishing the sunshine on its shoulder.

Twisting through the desert dust, a strong anchor holding its life form firmly to the earth.

A portion of a nearby coppery cliff edge glows in late day sunlight, thick desert clouds envelope the landscape below in deep shadow.

Desert plants sink their roots into the thin soil and hard rock, where scant moisture hides from the harsh sun. The V shape of the niche in the rock is reminiscent of similar shapes seen in Georgia O’Keefe’s artwork.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 19

Followers probably noted the winding road through the landscape as seen from Dead Horse Point in previously posted images. After shooting sunrise at Dead Horse Point, we traveled that road. This post contains a few of the photographys made along that road.

I think this road might be refered to by different names and I’ve mostly heard folks talk about this route as Shafer Trail, but my map shows this portion as Potash Road, to the best that I can decipher the map labels

This pond is a part of a potash production facility. Potash (potasium chloride) is disolved from underground rock with water pumped from the Colorado River and put into evaporation ponds. Blue dye is added to the water to increase solar energy absorption that heats the water speeding up the evaporation process. These ponds can be seen from the Dead Horse Point overlook and are in some of my photos made at that overlook.

I always stand in awe of the natural power of water, wind, weather and time to carve such amazing landscapes.

The road we traveled changes its name to Shafer Trail somewhere along the route, I think at the point where it enters Canyonland National Park. This photo was made at an overlook near where Shafer Trail exits onto a paved road near Canyonlands NP Visitors Center.

Sunset Teaser – March 21, 2026 Dead Horse SP, Utah

Late in the day, we returned to Dead Horse Point for sunset photography. Stay tuned for more,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 13

This is the second part of Golden Hour Sunset photography at Utah’s Little Grand Canyon.

I used this old tree skeleton as a foreground in a number of compositions as the sun set and light moved up the tree leaving the base in shadow.

Only the rocks on the distant horizon have golden hour light in ‘Golden Hour 16’, but the sky is gaining color.

When shooting at golden hour, it is rewarding to look around and towards the western sky, as the setting sun often creates wonderful colors in clouds, which might go unnoticed if one focuses too much on the eastern sky.

After sunset, we set our cameras up to shoot the night sky. As usual, I’m slow in processing those many, many images. So I’ll have to postpone the night sky blog and move onto sunrise images in the next post.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 12

The previous post contained a few of my pre-golden hour images at Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon”. This post has a few of the golden hour images.

That bush skeleton was mostly in shadow before golden hour, so only a tiny portion of it is illuminated and the same is true for the tree skeleton in the image below.

Sometimes it appears the best of golden hour is over, then it comes again, as clouds move on the horizon or the sun dips below clouds.

Stay tuned for part 2 of Golden Hour at Utah’s Little Grand Canyon,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 11

My son and I began shooting at Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon” ahead of sunset golden hour. This post contains images from that portion of time. The next post will contain golden hour photos.

I like the way the late day light highlights the grass growing in the cracks between the rocks in ‘Late Day Shadows 4’, but I like the bigger picture image ‘Late Day Shadows 5’, made just a little later, when the highlights were almost gone, more. That small tree and the grass anchor the image in ‘Late Day Shadows 4’,

but somehow getting more of the rocks into the foreground appeals more to me.

Note that ‘Late Day Shadows 6’ is composed very much like ‘Late Day Shadows 3’, but the shadows are deeper and the highlights look a little brighter in contrast to the shadows. Golden hour is close now. Stay tuned for golden hour images,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 2

While waiting for my son to join me, I could not resist walking around the desert area surrounding my Utah campsite, capturing desert scenes with my iPhone camera.

I regret that I can’t find the poetry to describe these desert scenes. I’ve noted a few of my photography contacts on Flickr suddenly waxing poetic in a manner that suggest AI generated text. I have to admit, I’ve thought about that, but I’ve not yet given in to that temptation.

Thanks for following and stay tuned for more Utah desert scenes,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 1 – Plan C

It is spring (or almost) and time for another spring trip with my oldest son. Traveling in the U.S. for outdoor activities in the spring, one always has to consider the weather at potential destinations.

The initial plan this year was to fly into Portland, Oregon, drive to Cannon Beach for photography along the Oregon coastline, knowing that the typical rainy weather along the coast might result in last minute changes, and it did. The forecast for the time interval available for this trip was for cool, rainy, overcast weather every day, which can offer some opportunities for photography, but might not be so pleasant every day. So cancel plan A. Move to Plan B.

Plan B was to go to the same area as last year, where there were still some possibilities to see and photograph in some locales not visited during previous trips. Then a few days before executing Plan B, Plan C came up. Plan C was to explore an area of Utah seen superficially and partially, when passing through on the way to other destinations. Plan C was executed.

I drove two long days to reach the first destination, a first come first serve, free camping area on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) public land not far off of I70 west of Green River, Utah. This area is said to be popular with off roaders and I wanted to be sure to get here to find a campsite before the weekend crowd arrived. As it turned out, while there were a few scattered campers, including those hauling their offroad vehicles, there was no large crowd and I easily found a suitable campsite, somewhat secluded from others.

I shot the sunset panorama standing on the roof rack of my vehicle. If one looks closely, the tops of a few other campers can be seen in this image.

My son met me here to begin our exploration, making this our initial home base. Before he arrived, I had some time to walk around this area, shooting desert scenes with my iPhone. So stay tuned for part 2 to see some of those images.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Impressions of Fall 2025 – Part 20

Photos from my final fall photo shoot of 2025.

And that’s a wrap for fall 2025,

Ken

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Tag: Clouds

Colorado Fall – Sep 2026 – Part 1

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 21

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 20

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 19

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 13

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 12

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 11

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 2

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 1 – Plan C

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Impressions of Fall 2025 – Part 20

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