Continuing to sort through pics from the past year and found this one. In color, it was, quite frankly, unimpressive. A change to black and white gives it some interest I think. Kind of like it. Taken in Arapaho National Forest, Colorado.
Subdued Colorado high country sunrise
Quite a beautiful scene at Rocky Mountain National Park’s Sprague lake this past Saturday morning. I loved the silhouetted mountains and trees with the beautiful sky above reflected on the water’s surface below.
The heck of it, this image could have been much nicer – had a arrived 10 minutes earlier. I could see the morning show was going to be amazing and I was trying my best to hurry up and get in position. Unfortunately, slow moving vehicles in the park delayed me along the entire route. I was going nuts watching what I was missing while I was driving but it was not to be.
Nevertheless, the later part of the sunrise was still pretty good.
Brilliant yellow sunflower and the blue Colorado skies
Just kind of a pretty scene I came across a few weeks ago on the Great Plains. These wild sunflowers were in full bloom and putting one solo against those gorgeous skies worked well.
Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and a Centennial State balloon
Kind of a fun image I captured this past weekend. I was wrapping up my photo drive when I saw a number of hot air balloons descending in the north Denver metro area. Unfortunately this guy was coming down pretty quickly so I couldn’t get myself closer and in a better position. Nevertheless, it makes for a cool capture even if not the best quality.
Tower of gold
The leaves in Rocky Mountain National Park were a bit of a hit and miss affair this past weekend. While there were spots of gold, they were often interspersed with some trees that hadn’t changed at all. That kept me from capturing the sweeping landscapes of fall foliage that I was hoping for however, closer looks were quite nice.
Such was the case with this little grove of trees that had changed. Looking straight up the trunk of this tree you can see the canopy of yellow and of course those gorgeous, blue Colorado skies.
Dramatic mountain sunset in black and white
One of the benefits in camping at this spot is that stunning scenery is only a short walk away and when Mother Nature does her thing, the show is awesome. On this evening, the clouds just above the mountains were lit up brilliant orange giving the sunset a nice color. However, I actually came away liking my black and white presentations of the show better. Taken at Brainard Lake in Colorado.
I think this image would look awesome on your wall! 😉 Image available here.
Turn around!
I am back from a fantastic weekend of camping in Colorado’s high country and have lots of pics to share. First of them is one I took this morning. I was almost entirely focused on some wildlife to my west. Thankfully I turned around and saw the gorgeous light show at sunrise that was happening to the east.
Wild sunflowers greet the sunrise
I’ve been seeing tons of these beautiful flowers across the Great Plains lately and last weekend made sure to capture some pics of them. This image is probably my favorite of the bunch. As the sun rose it illuminated the petals of the flowers making them seem to glow. Image available here.
Ring around the sunrise
Colorado has had a good number of wildfires this season but nothing as bad as what areas to our west have seen. As fires rage in California, Montana, British Columbia and Alberta, their smoke has been a near constant presence this summer.
This makes for some crazy, gorgeous sunrises and sunsets but of course I would prefer not to have them as a result of the fires. Nevertheless, it does make some good photo ops such as this rising sun taken yesterday morning in Weld County. The ring was caused by the polarizer filter on my lens.
Big flower, little bee
The sunflowers are in bloom on the Colorado plains and I of course had to head out and check them out this past Sunday. There didn’t seem to be quite as many fields of them in the usual areas this year and a couple fields looked really anemic. This one though was gorgeous and ablaze in bright yellow beneath our blue skies. A closer look at this one saw a busy pollinator at work. The bee was well-camouflaged with its color scheme closely matching the flower’s.
