Again, mostly photographs and few words.
Just one comment to wrap up this post. Viewers will note that I’ve include color versions of a few images that were then converted to black and white with selective colorization to add emphasis.
Stay tuned for the wrap up for my September 2020 Rio Grande National Forest visit.
Ken
For our late day shoot, we decided to drive back into a higher elevation portion of the forest. I’ll refrain from using too many words to wrap up the final shoot of my last day here, so these last several posts will consist of mostly photographs.
To be continued,
Ken
Looking for small details in a vast forest, sometimes one finds natural abstracts.
This weathered tree stump with map like contours caught my eye. Here is a black and white conversion:
The Aspen leaf in this photo had not quite completed its color transformation, before it fell to rest upon a mossy bed.
I prefer to photograph these little details as I find them; but sometimes I’m tempted to move things around. I did not move anything in the photo above; but I can’t help but wonder, if I should have. Should I have removed the blade of grass pointing at the Aspen leaf in the middle? Or does that blade of grass serve as a useful pointer in this photograph? Would this image be better, if I had cleared away some of the debris around the edges or the scattered leaves, leaving just the single leaf in the center? What about that little twig resting on the stump to the left of the center leaf?
I have no objection to “posing” a natural scene for artistic purpose and I have removed man made items from natural scenes and I’m quite ok with this. I’ve occasionally removed a twig, a fallen tree limb or a blade of grass, if I thought those were distracting in a scene. But nature is not perfect, so will “cleaning” a scene make it unreal? Is unreal ok in this sense? No one would know the scene has been modified, if not so informed by the photographer. Is it acceptable to “manufacture” a natural scene?
And I will wrap up this portion of this morning’s photos with one final forest image, which I just noted this morning was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page.
Stay tuned for the rest of today’s story,
Ken
This post is a continuation of photography in the Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado during the final morning of photography this September.
Many of my photos from today are of more of the small details seen in a forest.
Stay tuned for mid-day and afternoon of our final day in the Rio Grande National Forest,
Ken
September 24, 2020, AM, continuing my wandering around in the Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado:
For landscape images it is best to make simple images with no distracting clutter. In a forest it is virtually impossible to avoid clutter. Trees and grasses grow in a mass of seeming disorder. Limbs and twigs stick out everywhere, the forest floor is covered with all kinds of natural debris, grasses and low growing plants, fallen trees and limbs. Still, I try to carefully consider what is in my composition. Sometimes I can exclude something that I consider particularly distracting, many times I just have to accept what is there and try to compose so that a viewer can get the intended message.
Sometimes, isolating details, either via zooming in or cropping in post processing, works to eliminate clutter, but context may be lacking, if that matters.
The chaotic nature of a forest may be the message.
Sometimes there appears to be a natural geometry within the chaos or just a simple highlight that catches the eye.
I do not claim to be an expert or accomplished photographer, so maybe I need to move on now.
Until next time stay well and safe,
Ken
Continued from part 4:
In an opening in the forest on a steep slope, I photographed the distant mountainsides below clouds that provided shadows and moving spotlights on the massive forest.
Much of the mountainsides were covered with beetle killed evergreens. A scattering of color within the mass of dead, grey trees caught my eye as they were highlighted by light breaking through the cloud cover.
There are a few green evergreens and a scattering of Aspens within the mass of dead trees. I wonder how this will evolve with time. Will Aspens replace the evergreens or will the evergreens somehow evolve to resist the beetles?
It was getting late in the day, there would be no golden hour light here due to mountains blocking the late day light and in any case I did not want to try to find my way through the forest in the dark, hiking back to my campsite. So I began to work my way back up the slope. Taking my time and stopping whenever I thought I might get an interest photo.
The late day sunlight filtered through the forest creating narrow, subtle, streaks of highlights in the grassy floor of the forest.
Many fallen trees, partially supported by living trees, created mazes that might have proven dangerous to navigate through after dark.
Near the top of the grassy, forested slope, I stopped to get this shot through the mass of Aspen trunks.
That’s all for now,
Ken
As I walked towards a valley overview for early morning photography, I went past my neighbor campers, a middle age couple, that I had correctly assumed to be hunters, as they prepared to head out on their morning hunt. We chatted briefly, before I continued on my short hike over the open, frosty, grassy area.
It was also a little breezy, so I had to use higher ISO than desirable (noise increases with increasing ISO) to get a sufficiently fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the grass and/or other vegetation in the images.
After the golden morning light was gone from the distant mountain tops, I continued to shoot as the shadows retreated from the broad meadow.
I began working my way down into the meadow towards the sinuous drainages running running across it, with the intent of using the drainage as leading lines, stopping along the way to shoot a few images of the sunlight sparkling in the morning frost. I was largely unsuccessful at capturing the sparkle with my lens of choice this morning, although I did not try to get really up close with the lens, so maybe I should not put the failure on the lens.
I found thin ice on small pools of water in the drainage, so it apparently got below freezing last night, at least in the low areas in the valley.
The beetle killed evergreens on the mountainsides made for much unattractiveness in the scenes here and I’ve tried to minimize that impact in my images.
Eventually satisfied that I had achieved as much as I could this morning, I headed back to my vehicle for coffee and a light breakfast, before heading on along FSR 380 looking for my next campsite.
Thanks for following,
Ken
After the creek and waterfall trek, I drove along FSR 243 towards FSR 380. There are several places that I had noted, via Google Earth, along FSR 243 as places of possible interest and possible campsites. When passing these locations previously, I was not impressed by the view that I had from the roadway. There had always been a number of campers in these areas and I had seen fly fishermen in the creek. As I passed by the primary location of interest today, there were no others anywhere around, so I decided to check it out.
A dirt road departed FSR 243 at a sharp angle and moderately downhill into a broad, open flat area with plenty of space for multiple unrestricted campsites. I drove to the end of the dirt road and got out to have a look around. Walking to the creek, I immediately saw a number of trout in the shallow water. The bank along the creek was mostly steep with loose soil, but I found a place to safely get down to the edge of the creek and then stepped over to the other side at a narrow place in the creek.
I shot a number of iPhone photos and made a couple of videos of the flowing creek.
One can see in the photo above that it is getting very cloudy again.
After awkwardly stepping back across the creek and making my way back to my vehicle, I continued on to FSR 380 and headed westerly.
I stopped along FSR 380 at a place that I had previously spotted and near where I had shot another late day image, when returning from Del Norte.
It had sprinkled light rain sporadically and began again as I was shooting here. It was apparent from the heavy clouds that a storm was brewing over the mountains.
I continued along FSR 380 and it began to rain more heavily. The rain soon turned to slushy ice, then to pellet like snow. I was close to several campsites that I had been keeping an eye on. My coveted location had always had a truck camper in it, whenever I had previously passed by. Today I got lucky. The spot I liked was empty. There was an RV trailer nearby in the same camping area in a spot, which had always been available previously, and I had resolved myself to maybe having to use that space, if it was available today and the truck camper was still here.
After parking in the campsite, I got out to take a photo with the snow coming down. I then waited, hoping that the snow would end and I would be able to shoot photos from this location.
The snow continued long enough for the ground to be thinly covered, but it mostly melted away soon after the snow stopped. As sunset time approached, I walked into an open area with a good view of the valley and the mountains to the southwest.
With the cloud cover, I knew there was little chance of a golden hour sunset today.
The storm clouds made up for the lack of a golden hour sunset.
When I first saw this location, I thought it would be best for a sunset shoot; but as I looked around today, consulting my photo app on my iPhone, I realized that this location was better for sunrise than sunset.
I hung out here shooting until just after sunset.
I’m now looking forward to a sunrise shoot here.
More on that later,
Ken
I arose early in the morning, still not sure that I wanted to tackle the creek hike with my heavy camera gear. I peeked outside to see what the weather and sky looked like, before deciding to prepare for the day.
The sky appeared to be mostly clear, so I had an herbal tea and a light snack, then gathered my gear for a morning shoot, having decided to have a go at getting to those two waterfalls.
I knew that I would need to be careful with the gear and with my footing and balance during this trek, so I brought along my hiking stick as an aid in balance and control. I usually do not use the hiking stick, since it is just another item to keep up with and easily left somewhere. I also tend to use my tripod as a hiking stick, whenever I carry it in my hands.
I also wanted to have both hands free when walking, so I fastened the tripod to the back of my Camelbak, slung a filter pouch over my head and shoulder and clipped the DSLR to the front of the Camelbak via carabiners and an old camera strap that I had cut and sewn to the pack years ago. The camera can still swing away from my body, when I have to stoop over, so I still have to hold onto it sometimes to prevent it from bumping into something.
Thus I began the hike up the steep slope along the ridge above the creek. I knew that I should have gotten out a little earlier, but my hesitation to even try this, resulted in a late start this morning. I also did not want to start this hike in the dark and I knew that the mountain to the south would shield the very early morning light until later, so the sun would already be fairly high in the sky before I saw it.
I was glad to have the hiking stick this morning as it was a safety aid in going down and across steep slopes and helping my balance, when crossing the stream.
The photo set up procedure was a bit slow and awkward, whenever I stopped for a photograph. I first released the carabiners holding the DSLR onto my backpack and put the camera in a secure place, then I removed the filter case from around my neck, then I removed the Camelbak, then I unstrapped the tripod from the Camelbak. After shooting at a location, I reversed this procedure to put all items back into place before moving on to the next location.
To get the shot above, I had to get into a tight place and crouch on my knees, being very careful not to drop something into the creek. As I was preparing to get out of this uncomfortable position, I could not find the metal plate lens cover for the Progrey filter holder and I was afraid that it might have slide behind me into the creek. I looked into the creek and did not see the cover from my vantage point. A closer examination of the filter holder case revealed the cover hidden between the individual filter cases, where I tend to habitually put it, when it is not in use.
When I arrived at the second waterfall, I stood below an undercut cliff on the south side of the creek, where the 24-70mm lens let me isolate the waterfall, excluding all the unattractive and distracting clutter around it.
The last image here was selected for Flickr’s Explore page, where as of the date of this writing, it has received 4,213 views and 103 favorites. This is not a record for me and far short of the number of views and favorites that others on Flickr have, but still nice for my level of activity on Flickr. I’m pleased with these photos and glad that I made the effort to get them. I might never have such an opportunity again.
Thanks for following,
Ken
Porphyry Basin, Colorado is accessed via a narrow, steep 4WD road off of US550 between Ouray and Silverton.
My oldest son drove us up the road to the basin in July, 2020. On the way up the mountainside, we passed a canvas tent with a stove pipe jutting from the top. It was obvious that someone had set up that tent for a long term camp. Upon arriving at the end of the 4WD road at an old mine site, it became apparent who was living in that heavy duty tent. First we saw a large flock of sheep spread across the high mountain meadow, then a horse staked out nearby the roadway, two sheep dogs, and a lone shepherd watching over the sheep.
We wandered around the old mine site with its collapsed wooden structure and other scattered debris, being careful to not step on old rusty nails or other potentially harmful items lying around on the ground.
The basin is beautiful with an abundance of wildflowers, a mountain stream and a waterfall. It was bright daylight so I hand held my Nikon D850, shooting with a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the flowers. It was too bright to get a long exposure of the waterfall for that silky, flowing water effect.
Higher resolution images can be viewed on my Flickr page by clicking on the images in this post.
Thanks for following,
Ken
