One of the best things about being able to shoot near one’s campsite, is not having to get up really early, since not much time is required to get to a shooting location.
I immediately headed to the area along the rail fence that I had scouted the previous day and I had two or three compositions already in mind.
I set up at my highest rated composition first and began making a few test shots as I waited in anticipation of good sunrise light.
Fence Line, Teal Campground, Colorado. Nikon D850, 1s, f/16, ISO 200, 24-70mm at 29mm. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.
It was still cloudy with heavy clouds in the east, which limited the early morning light that would already be partially blocked by the mountains to the east.
View the above photo on Flickr by clicking on it, then click on it again on Flickr and a deer can be seen just to the right of the post with the loops of barb wire hanging on it. The deer is warily watching me. Soon after taking this photo, the deer crossed the fence line and began to eye me again from the far right. I made a few photos of it with my iPhone, but those were of poor quality, especially when zoomed in enough to get a good view of the deer.
I made a series of shots at this location as the light slowly changed. The morning light was disappointing and I think would not even have been very good here even without the clouds on the eastern horizon.
Fence Line, Teal Campground, Colorado. Nikon D850, 1/.5s, f/11, ISO 200, 24-70mm at 29mm. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.
The photo above is the best that I got here. There is just a little weak golden hour light on the mountain side in the upper left.
I moved to my secondary composition along the fence line, near that tree in the distance, where the fence line dipped across a low point.
The morning light was essentially totally blocked by clouds now.
As I stood here, I heard something like a thumping on the fence and observed a chipmunk scampering along on the lower rails. I nicknamed this the “Chipmunk Highway”.
Fence Line, Teal Campground, Colorado. Nikon D850, 1/125s, f/8, ISO 3200, 24-70mm at 29mm. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.
There were many wildflowers in the area just to the east of this fence line, so I decided to go have coffee and breakfast and return with another lens to shoot wildflowers. That will be the subject of the next post.
In the late afternoon of September 17, as I lounged around a picnic table near my campsite in Ridgway State Park, Colorado, a park attendant stopped by, checking the occupancy of the sites and made a comment about my only staying one night. I struck up a conversation with him and asked if he had gotten any information about fall colors along Owl Creek Pass Road. He said no, but he knew the colors were good along Dallas Divide (Colorado Route 62, aka San Juan Skyway) between Ridgway and Telluride. I immediately changed my plans for early the next morning. I had planned to drive up Owl Creek Pass road the next morning, but I knew to do so would cost me one morning of photography, since I had no specific destination on that road for an early morning shoot and I thought it unlikely that I would be able to find a good spot on that route before late in the morning. So I decided to get up early and drive the San Juan Skyway route, taking a chance that I would find some place to pull off to shoot fall color scenes as the sun was rising, then drive the Owl Creek Pass road afterwards.
I’m not sure that I found the best place to shoot near the Dallas Divide, but I began to see the fall colors appearing as the darkness gave way to the early morning light as I drove along San Juan Skyway early on the morning of September 18 and I found a pull out near what I thought might be a suitable place just a few minutes before sunrise.
A ranch scene along the San Juan Skyway, Colorado. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 24mm, f/11, 1/13s, ISO 64, edits in Lightroom and some sky polarization brushed in via Luminar software.
I used the fence line in this composition to lead into the Aspens in the background. I like the side lighting on the grasses, the fence and the shadows cast by the low angle, early morning light.
A ranch scene along the San Juan Skyway, Colorado. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 24mm, f/11, 1/20s, edits in Lightroom.
I used the side light on the foreground grasses as a lead in to the large gate framing the Aspens in the background. I suppose one could say that the ranch road leads into the photo, but it is subdued in shadows. I especially liked the side light highlighting the fence line and gate.
A roadside fall scene along the San Juan Skyway. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 24mm, f/11, 1/30s, ISO 64, edits in Lightroom.
In the composition above, I liked the early morning highlights on the foreground grasses, the fence and gate and the way the fence line and tree line seem to converge near the gate.
A fall scene along a national forest access road off of the San Juan Skyway, Colorado. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 24mm, f/16, 1/15s, Lightroom edits.
Continuing along San Juan Skyway, I saw a number of national forest access roads and decided to explore one of them. I eventually stopped at one interesting looking spot and walked down an embankment into the edge of the forest. I could not go very far without trespassing, since there was a fence line that appeared to be electrified just a short distance from the roadway. I shot along and over that fence line. My main goal was to capture the backlit Aspens, which resulted in dark foregrounds that I had to bring out in Lightroom, but I did not want to overdo that adjustment, preferring to keep the shadows as a contrast to the bright background.
A fall scene along a national forest access road off of the San Juan Skyway, Colorado. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 24mm, f/16, 1/40s, ISO 64, Sunday enhanced via Luminar software.
I’m always drawn to other photographers starburst effects, but I never have gotten a such an effect that I liked in my attempts. In these two shots I used Luminar software to add an artificial starburst effect over the real one.
A fall scene along a national forest access road off of the San Juan Skyway, Colorado. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 14mm, f/16, 1/100s, ISO 64, starburst enhanced via Luminar software.
As a point of self criticism of these shots (and others, to be posted later), I might have gotten sharper images by raising the ISO and/or increasing the aperture to get a faster shutter speed to ensure that the foliage motion was frozen; but most of my attempts at that yielded otherwise poor results. I attempted to overcome this limitation by waiting for calm, prior to shooting, but there is nearly always some light breeze or residual motion in the foliage.
