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.
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.
English Valley Sunset, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 19mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 3200
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.
English Valley Sunset, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/250s, ISO 4000
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.
English Valley Sunset, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 1/320s, ISO 4000
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.
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.
