Wildlife, landscape and weather photography
This is an easily recognizable geographic feature for anyone living along the Colorado Front Range and a good one for #MountainMonday. Truly a beautiful scene thanks to some recent snowfall and the rising sun lighting up the rocks. Clean, crystal clear conditions allowed for a crazy detailed image even though I was 25 miles away!
I’ve been burning the candle at both ends pretty heavily lately and just needed a quick break to recharge so I took today off as a “me day.” That of course meant a morning of photography and while I got some cool critter pics to share in the coming days, there was also this.
As I waited for some action, looking to the east the clouds to the south of the sun were a veritable rainbow of colors. The iridescence coupled with the way cool shapes in the clouds was pretty darned awesome to see (but kind of hard to capture in pictures).
Cloud iridescence is caused by clouds (usually cirrus) that have small water droplets or ice crystals in them causing the light to be diffracted, or spread out. The phenomena is much like the rainbow colors seen with oil in water.
I stepped out the door this morning and this is the scene that greeted me. I didn’t have time to make it to a better spot so just snapped the image from the street. Just gorgeous and pretty neat to have seen it today of all days. He is risen! Happy Easter, everyone!
A beautiful spring morning is the shadows of the mountains photographing wildlife and just enjoying being outdoors.
Sunday found me in my element but I did train my camera on a different flying “creature” than what I normally photograph. This beautiful balloon was among a half dozen taking advantage of the calm weather along the northern Front Range that morning.
Years ago I flew in a hot air balloon at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and if you ever get the chance, I would highly recommend going for a flight. It was an experience that still resounds with me today. The quiet aloft was just amazing.
Absolutely ridiculously thick fog yesterday morning as I ventured out on my morning photo walk. At times visibility was less than 100 feet and while the sun was rising, the fog rendered everything nearly colorless. It definitely made for some moody scenes and a conversion of this image to black and white creates a cool, mystical scene. I loved the silhouetted trees and fishing platform.
Well, I don’t have any pics of leprechauns or any images that are overly green and I have never been to Ireland so here is the next best thing.
Taken back in August in Arapaho National Forest, I have actually shared a similar shot of this scene previously. This one, in portrait orientation, does a nice job showing off the sky above.
We were hanging out at camp and after the evening thunderstorms passed, they put on a beautiful show to the east. The sky was dramatic, lit up nicely by the sun behind us. The double rainbow, well, that was over the top awesome just absolutely fantastic to watch.
I am a sucker for a good reflection and this was one I couldn’t pass up.
I do have to preface my narrative by saying it is a bit of a “copycat image” in that the weekend before this was taken, my friend, Shaun, captured a similar image from the same spot. We were both out at this location on Colorado’s northeastern plains when I saw him crouched down capturing this same scene. After seeing his shot, I decided I needed one of my own. 😉
So, this past Sunday I was there again and took the opportunity to capture it. Certainly, I would have loved to have had some more color in the skies but as is, it was pretty darned nice. The bursting sun provides a focal point and the near-perfect reflection of the silhouetted trees on the dark water shows just how quiet this location on the plains can be.
Taken a couple weeks ago after a light snowfall. This isn’t the best example of a sundog I have gotten but it is still pretty cool – notice the two “rainbow” like colorings on each side. These are caused by the refraction and scattering of light by hexagon shaped ice crystals in the air.
Denver got nailed by a heck of a snowstorm last night. Unfortunately, I had to work so I couldn’t go out and play with pictures. Instead, here is one from this past Sunday morning after we had just a bit of a dusting. It definitely made for some pretty scenes, including this one.
A pretty long photo drive to a spot out on Colorado’s northeastern plains yesterday. While overall it was a bit of a dud trip, at least it started out with a fantastic view.
The lake was entirely frozen over and my truck was showing a “balmy” 12 degrees as I sat and waited for the sun to pop over the horizon. There weren’t many clouds so I wasn’t expecting much of a show but it turned out pretty darned neat, no so much because of the sky, but because of the ice.
Two masses of ice had come together, pushing up against each other and allowing the lake water to flow on top. The snaking path of the re-frozen water and ice that had been pushed above made for a way cool scene.
