Portrait oriented image so click for full, best view. Taken a couple weekends ago when thick fog had descended on the Colorado Front Range. At times, visibility was down to 10 yards making it pretty much impossible to get quality pics of critters. As such, I switched to landscape mode and tried to capture the moody, eerie scenes. This particular spot at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge is a fun one to photograph in almost any season. The trees that line and overhang the road provide for a cool scene.
Disappearing into the fog
This past Sunday morning, we saw some crazy fog in the wake of a snowstorm. It created some cool scenes, like this capture. At its thickest, visibility was down to 20 yards or so and when you did see something, it was little more than a silhouette. The fresh snow and the fog blended together in the distance, with no discernable horizon. I took a ton of pics but this is probably my favorite.
The fog did have a downside in that decent pictures of critters were almost impossible to be had. This was very frustrating because I was seeing all sorts of cool stuff that on a normal day would have made for great pics. But, because of the fog, the pictures were rather poor. At least scenes like this helped make up for it.
Sundog lights up the sky on a bitterly cold morning
The thermometer on my truck was reading -11 degrees when this picture was taken. As much as it pained me to leave the warmth of my truck, I simply had to venture into the cold (multiple times) to capture this scene in the sky.
This sundog was the most persistent I have ever seen. I initially got pictures of it at 7:40am. My last one was at 9:46am. It would wane and sometimes disappear briefly but then reappear so I got tons of pics of it from different spots. This was my favorite as it was well-defined and the icy pond with steam coming off below provides some interest in the foreground.
Sun dogs are caused by the refraction of light by ice crystals and appear 22 degrees to each side of the sun. I have had a few chances to grab pics of one, always on the coldest of mornings.
The storm cometh
Well, it cometh for the mountains and foothills, not for those of us at lower elevations along the Front Range. We did have a chilly, blustery day but at least the sun was out more than expected.
As I looked to the west, the storm clouds over the high country got my attention. This spot, in particular, I thought was way cool with a snow squall seeming to dump on part of the foothills.
Double-rainbow in the wake of a thunderstorm
A very brief rain shower this evening at home but it made for a beautiful double rainbow to the east of me. Too wide to get it all in one shot. Wish there had been more rain but I’ll take this as a consolation. 😉
High country thunderstorm yields cool clouds and a rainbow
Let’s call it Thunderstorm Thursday!
Saturday afternoon we were hanging out at the campsite and the usual PM thunderstorm rolled through. It was nothing too dramatic with a little bit of small hail and a pretty good rain shower. As the storm moved to the east, I was closely watching, expecting it could be something cool to photograph and indeed it was.
The rain was still falling pretty heavily so I waited and once it eased, I grabbed my camera and raced to a spot about 100 yards away where I could get a clear view. Dark, dramatic mammatus-like clouds were overhead and coming from them, a beautiful rainbow. A fine show put on by Mother Nature!
Kaboom!
Way cool storm cell northeast of where I live in the burbs north of Denver. This is a five image stitched together panorama. Lots to see in this capture. Crazy details and notice the near ground-level rainbow below the towering thunderhead. Awesome stuff! Almost makes me want to go back to storm chasing. 😉
Rainbow, rain shafts and mammatus clouds southeast of Thornton, Colorado
Taken with my new DJI Air 2S drone. Fun shot and a cool test of this new asset.
Snow and fog on the Colorado plains
You have seen pictures from me of this spot many times before. No matter the season, it virtually always looks cool and this morning was no different. A light snowfall overnight coated the landscape in white and fog settled in with sunrise. With virtually no color to work with, I went with a black and white conversion and that seemed to work well on what a cold and somewhat dreary scene.
Sun dog amid record-setting cold in Denver
Oops! Somehow I forgot to share this one.
Late last month, Colorado saw itself experiencing a deep freeze. On the morning of the 22nd, temperatures dipped to 15 degrees below zero with wind chills far below that – absolutely brutal cold. As the sun rose over the horizon that morning, a very cool sun dog appeared to the east. I missed the best of the show but was able to catch the tail end of it before it disappeared.
Sun dogs are caused by the refraction of light by ice crystals and appear 22 degrees to each side of the sun. I have had a few chances to grab pics of one, always on the coldest of mornings.