Trees – 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 23

This is a continuation of sunset photography at Dead Horse Point SP, Utah.

This concludes the photography series from Utah in March of 2026.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 23

This is a continuation of sunset photography at Dead Horse Point, Utah.

There is more to shoot at Dead Horse Point than the grand scenic.

To be continued,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 22

In an earlier post I revealed that I had gotten my posts out of chronological order. Now I’m stepping back a day to the evening prior to the overcast sky shoot at sunset at Dead Horse Point, Utah. The evening prior was much different.

To be continued,

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 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 3

More Utah desert images made via my iPhone.

Thanks for following,

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

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Tag: Trees

Colorado Fall – Sep 2026 – Part 1

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 23

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 23

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 22

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 20

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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 3

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Utah – March 2026 – Part 2

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