Tag: Rocks

Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, September 18, 2020, Part 2

Continuing to drive farther along FSR 250, checking out the scenery and possible campsites, I pulled off the road, when I saw this view of a red top mountain.

A Red Top Mountain. iPhone photograph.

I made a mental note of this location, hoping to return here again, when I had more time to shoot with my DSLR.

Shortly after taking this photo, I came to Stunner Campground at the intersection of FSR 250 and FSR 380.  I was surprised to find that it was not only open, but free and no one else was there.

I pulled into the first campsite that just happened to be a  level, pull through site that would be perfect for my son and DIL’s small camper trailer.  This campsite came with a pair of hiking boots (image below).  I then staked out the next campsite just a bit more down the loop for my vehicle.

Abandoned or Forgotten Boots. iPhone photograph.

 

Stunner Campground Campsite. iPhone photograph.

Just up the hillside, on one side of my campsite, were tailings from an old mine or exploratory mine.

A few other campers began to arrive in the campground a little later with a few staying and a few driving on.

Since I had plenty of time before my son arrived, I did a lot of walking in and around the campground, scouting for potential photographic opportunities.

Stunner Campground, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado. iPhone photograph.

There were many large rocks and boulders scattered around the campground.  The rocks usually had splotches of lichen growing on them in interesting patterns.

Lichen on Rock. iPhone photograph.
Lichen on Rock. iPhone photograph.
Lichen on Rock. iPhone photograph.

I worked my down towards the Alamosa River that ran beside the campground.

Mine Tailings and the Alamosa River at Stunner Campground. iPhone photograph.

The photo above was taken from atop mine tailings, looking down towards the river and across to a mountainside.  Notice that there are patches of good fall color, but most of the trees are still green or just showing signs of changing.

The beetle killed evergreen trees really spoil the scenery now all around the Rocky Mountains, but there are trees that either are resistant or maybe just not yet attacked by the beetles.

The soil in this area is mineral rich, resulting in an orange-red color in the water, staining the rocks and anything else in the water.  The water is acidic from the naturally occurring minerals and the mine tailing contribute even more to the natural elements in the water.

Mine Tailings above the Alamosa River. iPhone photograph.

There were numerous other indications of old mining operations around the campground and I even saw newish claim stakes in one location.

Stunner Campground View. iPhone photograph.

That little Aspen tree in the photo above really caught my eye, so I had to photograph it with a green evergreen tree as background.  I tried other compositions and close up views, but this one is most pleasing to me.

Mineral stained driftwood along the Alamosa River. iPhone photograph.
Alamosa River at Stunner Campground. iPhone photograph.

When my son arrived, he said the fall color in this area was the best he had seen on his trip from the Denver area and that there was much smoke from forest fires visible during most of the drive.  There seemed to be little, if any indication of smoke in this area.

We drove around a little after they arrived to decide where to go for a morning shoot the next day.

This is open range country, so there were cows wandering around the forest.  A small herd of cattle moved into the campground during the night, sleeping in the open, grassy meadow of the campground.

Early morning frost and curious cattle in Stunner Campground. iPhone photograph.

The darker spots in the grass of the photo above are places where the frost did not form, because an animal was laying there during the night.

Much more on this trip to follow,

Ken

 

Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, September 18, 2020, Part 1

At sometime during my second day in Colorado, my son and his wife decided that due to the smoke from numerous large forest fires in Colorado, it would be best to come south to meet me in the Rio Grande National Forest.  So I needed to find a suitable campsite for all of us and scout the forest roads for potential photographic opportunities.

Thus Friday morning I continued to drive along Forest Service Road 250 and spurs off of FSR 250, looking for good campsites, stopping above Platoro Reservoir to shoot a few DSLR photos.

Platoro Reservoir. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/8s, f/11, ISO 64.

Much snow fell in this area during the early fall storm with much remaining on the mountain peaks and a few patches in shady, lower elevations.

Fall Rocks. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, 1/15s, f/16, ISO 64.

Walking up a hillside, I found large boulders with colorful lichen interspersed with the Aspens.

Scared. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/3s, f/16, ISO 64.

Aspen tree trunks often have interesting features, but this one, adjacent to one group of boulders, had a major scar.

Forest Boulders. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/3s, f/16, ISO 64.

Another view of two large, lichen covered boulders in the Aspen grove is above.

My main task today was to find another campsite, so I soon moved on to continue that search.

More later,

Ken

 

 

English Valley, Colorado, Aug 1, 2020

After retrieving our cameras from the night shoot location, we drove back to the previous mornings location, hoping to be there a little earlier this morning to take advantage of the golden hour sunrise light.

Boulders and Volcanic Dike. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 20mm, f/11, 1/3s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

I hiked back up the slope to the same place I had initially set up the previous morning, using large boulders as foreground for my first composition.  This morning I was here before the sunrise light illuminated the volcanic ridge at the crest of the slope.

As the light moved down the slope, I moved around seeking other compositions.

Morning Shadow. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 19mm, f/11, 1/8s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe LR and DxO Nik modules.

This morning I was able to get good light on the boulders and across the slope below the ridge and across the valley with long, early morning shadows.

English Valley Sunrise Scene. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 20mm, f/11, 1/6s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe LR and DxO Nik modules.

These three shots were the best of the morning and I was much more satisfied with this mornings final shoot in this location, before getting on the road for the long drive home.

This wraps up the highlights of my July 2020 visit to Colorado.  Stay tuned for my September visit to the Rio Grande National Forest for fall photography.

Stay well and safe,

Ken

Sunset and Star Trails, Southeastern Colorado, July 31, 2020

I made a few sunset shots as the late day storm clouds blew past, as I was setting up for night shooting.

Dramatic Sky. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/80s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Color Efex Pro 4.

The clouds in the sky were moving and changing quickly as they blew from northwest to southeast.

English Valley Sunset Sky. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/10s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Color Efex Pro 4.

Just as the sun was setting, the sky to the northwest was clearing rapidly and we hoped that the clouds would clear out completely, as the weather forecast predicted, for our night images.

I used a few of my images to make a very short time-lapse movie, which can be seen here SE Colorado Sunset Sky.

We made final checks of our cameras, remote shutter release programs and put rain covers in place (there was still a slight chance of overnight rain), then hiked back to our vehicles.

Early the next morning we retrieved our cameras, then went to another location for sunrise photographs.  Upon returning home, I processed the night images and this is the final product.

Star trails with moonlight landscape. A composite of 45 4 minute night exposures with the foreground illuminated by moonlight. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/5.6, ISO 400. Edited in Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop and DxO Nik modules.

Normally, a dark sky is preferred for star photography, but there was a bright moon this night.  Our cameras were programed for 4 minute exposures, during the interval when the landscape would be illuminated by moonlight.  The light on the landscape and shadows changed throughout the shooting interval, with some images looking dull and other images looking almost like they were lighted by golden hour sunlight.  I chose one of the images with what I considered the most attractive foreground light to make make this final composite of 45 images.

Thanks for following, stay safe and well,

Ken

Pre-Sunset and Night Photo Preparation, Southeastern Colorado, July 31, 2020

We returned to our vehicles, after our hike up to a saddle in a volcanic dike, to have dinner and prepare for sunset and set up for night photography.  The weather was threatening with heavy clouds being blown in by strong winds from the northwest.

Late Day Storm iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

I’ve always liked the way the light changes just before a storm.  We were a little concerned about the prospects for sunset and night photography, but the weather report showed decreasing chances of rain as the evening progressed and only a slight chance of overnight rain.

English Valley Campsite iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

The sky was mostly covered with thick clouds in all directions.

English Valley Campsite iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

After a modest dinner, we gathered our gear and hiked up onto the volcanic ridge to the south and picked our spots for sunset and night images.  We used applications on our iPhones to determine when the moon would rise and set, so we that we could program our remote shutter releases to shoot in that time interval.  We also knew where the moon would be in the sky, so we could decide which direction we wanted to shoot to take best advantage of the moon for lighting the landscape.

Night shooting setup iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

One can see that the cloud cover is still heavy, but it seems to be clearing, with the clouds blowing to the southeast.

Cloudy sky. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

The image above is to the south of my selected location.

Sunset sky view. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

Looking back to the northwest from my position, the clouds are much thinner now.  Our vehicles are just visible in the center left of this image.

Anchored leg of tripod for extended night shooting. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

After a few sunset images, I finalized my night composition and made sure the tripod was stable and added a few rocks around one leg for additional security.  One can see that the standing room is tight and requires care in moving around here.

That’s all for now.  I will have the sunset and night image results in the next post.

Ken

 

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

 

 

 

Scouting Photographs, BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, July 30, 2020

After driving around sightseeing and scouting in an extended area in Southeastern Colorado, we returned to our campsite on BLM land north of Del Norte to prepare for sunset and/or night time photography.

Readers will recall seeing this photograph of the end of a volcanic peak north of the road that we were camped along:

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

I kept wondering what the view was like in the saddle behind that peak.  The steep slope had made me reluctant to hike up there, but today I decided I had to check out the view from that saddle.  So I attacked the slope, trying to take the easiest route, but still I had to climb steep portions.

Here is an iPhone panorama from the saddle.

English Valley Panoramic View iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

I think this view would be good for star trails, but there is infrastructure (not visible in this small image) in the far distance that would have lights showing up in night shots.

The image below is looking more to the southwest.  Again not too bad a view.  One can see my son, pondering the photographic possibilities from here, in the orange shirt just to the lower right of the main ridge peak, .

Scouting for night shots. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

Another view to the west to northwest is below.

Scouting for night shots. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

This last image shows how steep the slope is that one has to climb to get up here.  Our vehicles are just barely visible in the right center of this image.

After some discussion, we decided it was not worth the effort to make the trek back up here for night shots, then have to trudge up early in the morning to retrieve our cameras, hike back down and get to another location for sunrise photos.

On the way back to our vehicles I paused to check out the roadway for use in additional leading line photographs from a location more to the west of the other photos taken the day before, which used this roadway as a leading line.

Roadway. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.

Stay tuned to see how the night photography worked out.

Ken

 

 

Sunrise, BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, July 30, 2020

We arose early on the morning of July 30 to get out and into position before the sunrise.  I again went to the south side of the volcanic ridge, but this time just a little below the crest to await the sunrise.

Sunrise Ridge, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm (before crop), f/11, 1/4s, ISO 64

My first composition here included a little too much of the scrubby vegetation in the lower right corner of the image.  So I changed the composition a little and then cropped the image more to get this out of the photograph.

Sunrise Ridge, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm (before crop), f/11, 1/8s, ISO 64

One can see the light moving down the south slope and beginning to highlighting some of the rocks and vegetation in the lower left of this image.

I moved more towards the most prominent portion of the ridge to get this image.

Sunrise Ridge, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/15s, ISO 64

The shot above is the best image of the morning, in my opinion.

Stay tuned for sunset and night images,

Ken

Sunset Photography, BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, July 29, 2020

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.

Sunset Road, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 640

The road along which we parked made a good leading line, so I made several images here.

Sunset Road. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 22mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 1600

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

Stay tuned for sunrise photos,

Ken

 

Sunrise Photography, BLM Land, Southeastern Colorado, July 29, 2020

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.

Sunrise Ridge, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/4s, ISO 64

This early image was made as the sunrise light just began to illuminate a portion of the ridge, with all of the foreground still in shadow.

Sunrise Ridge, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 20mm, f/11, 1/4s, ISO 64

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.

Sunrise Ridge, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 19mm, f/11, 1/13s, ISO 64

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.

Sunrise Ridge, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/10s, ISO 64

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.

Until then, stay safe,

Ken