Colorado landscapes: Last call ;-)

 

We did not see the peak of the fall colors in the Rocky Mountains during the first half of the month but with every day during our journey in September we saw the winter coming closer. The first snow on the summits, and finally on our little tent, left no doubt about that winter approaches earlier in the higher altitudes than here in Iowa. Colorado is a very pretty state and I’m certain you can’t go wrong at any time of the year to create some photos or just enjoy the wonderful nature there.

I like to conclude my little photo series about landscape and wildlife in southern and central Colorado with today’s images. I hope you enjoyed it and if someone picked up a tip or two about how to shoot and where to shoot, I will be more than happy. :-) Thank you to all of you, especially my friends on Facebook, who always encouraged me to keep going and publishing a new blog post during the last two months. I really appreciate your support.

Colorado landscapes: Maroon Bells

 

One of the most photographed locations in the Rocky Mountains is the view across Maroon Lake to the peaks of the Maroon Bells. And if the sky is blue and a few clouds are in the air you can’t go wrong with this picture. It is a simple click, even with the camera in your phone. If after a day of rain in the valleys the first snow of the season has fallen at higher altitudes and the aspens start turning yellow, you even have a bonus for your image. The wind made a few ripples on the surface of the lake but that didn’t bother me a bit while making this photo. We hiked up to Crater Lake, just below the Maroon Bells, after this photo opportunity. The air was really clear after the rain in the morning, but it got a lot hazier and I didn’t like any of my shots I made up at Crater Lake later in the day…

Colorado wildlife: A favorite critter - the American Pika

 

I have written and presented photos of one of my favorite animals, the American Pika, here in the blog several times during the last few years. If you type ‘pika’ into the search field in the left side bar you can see the older photos and blog posts about this cute and highly interesting critter.

We saw them again this year during a hiking tour in the Maroon Bells- Snowmass Wilderness in the Rocky Mountains. If you cross a boulder-covered hillside above an altitude of 8,000 feet you may have a good chance to hear and eventually see them. The pikas were busy gathering grass and other plants as food for the upcoming winter. I guess they know that there is more than just work in life and sometimes they stop for a few minutes and take a sun bath or just watch what’s going on in their rocky neighborhood.

I have quite a few images of the American Pika on my hard drive already but still missed “the” shot that tells the story about their preparation for the winter. It is not so difficult to make the click while the pika takes a break and looks down from a rock, but if they have the mouth full of plants and grass they move darn fast between the boulders. Because of the rocks it is not so easy to follow them with the lens and track focus. Peak of action, the short stops the pika makes sometime on its way to the den was again the key for success.

I got the shot I went after this time but I know there is still room for improvement. Sharpness is not 100 percent nailed and the photo is slightly cropped. I was closer with the Nikon D300s / Sigma 150, f2.8 combo for the second image and it is definitely a tad sharper. The question is always, which photo tells the better story? For me it’s the first one despite the little technical flaws…

Colorado landscapes: Maroon Creek

 

It is sometimes easy to get carried away by the great views the Rocky Mountains have to offer. Nevertheless it is always worth to have the eyes on the ground and search for the smaller spots that can make for a good photo. This is in particular true when clouds hide the “classic views” most people are looking for. Maroon Creek, just below Maroon Lake, has a lot of interesting places that are often ignored by visitors but that are just great during these days with heavy overcast.

I learned over time to approach scenes like this with some deliberation and some time at hands. In the past I have rushed through quite often in similar situations and later at home, in front of the computer, much time was spent to correct the perspective by cropping the image and by removing unwanted branches and sticks that stuck into the frame from all sides. Don’t take me wrong, I still do small cosmetic corrections on my landscape photos, like “border police” around the edges, but I reach my goal to do it right in camera a lot more often with this slower approach.

Colorado landscapes: Maroon Lake - after the rain

 

Back to the Colorado stories. I read somewhere that Maroon Bells are the most photographed mountains in the US. I have no idea if this is true or not, but they are definitely worth a look or two, even if the sky is not blue and the fall colors of the leaves just start turning.

As you probably have figured out I’m not so much a fan of the “postcard views” and rather make photos that use subtle light and clouds to tell a story. The purists under the landscape photographers may also not like that the water of Maroon Lake has some ripples but for me this is part of the story telling. Everybody who has been more than a couple times in alpine mountains knows by looking at this photo that there is some dynamic up in the sky, that the clouds moved fast, and that some wind played a role in this game. Yep, the editor who has to select the next postcard for print will refuse this photo, but have you seen many postcards that tell stories beyond a great vista? …. ;-)