Wildlife, landscape and weather photography
If you want gorgeous sunsets, you will get a lot of bang for your buck out on Colorado’s eastern plains in the summer. More so than the higher elevations of the Centennial State, you will find yourself treated with a show. Such was the case on this evening back at the end of June at North Sterling State Park. A brief walk from our campsite gave us a clear view of the setting sun as the rays of light shined across the clouds. Just gorgeous!
I keep saying I need to fly my drone more often and with some spare time last night I finally did. Mother Nature put on a nice view from up there too. 😉
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.
You would be hard-pressed to find more consistently beautiful sunrises and sunsets than you do in eastern Colorado. The terrain may be a bit flat but it is beautiful in its own right, particularly at the start and end of the day.
This view unfolded before us last week at North Sterling State Park. The golden orb bathed the water of the lake and the landscape in orange and those crepuscular rays shooting into the cloud cover were amazing to see.
If you’re interested, this image is available here.
Winter sunsets and sunrises here in Colorado are oftentimes pretty darned amazing. For the late day shows, we oftentimes have wave clouds and lenticular clouds above. These almost alien looking clouds look cool any time but throw in the colored rays of the setting sun and the view is jaw-dropping. Such was the case this past Friday evening. From my home I don’t have a clear view to the west so instead I zoomed in and focused on some of the more interesting shapes.
From high altitude mountain scenes to the relatively flat Great Plains, my travels this year allowed me to view and capture a wide variety of scenery.
For the most part I stuck relatively close to home in Colorado other than a late spring trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. Nevertheless, I was able to take in the splendor of a wide variety of scenes, each one of which I am extremely grateful for having been able to witness.
I hope you enjoy the views as much as I did. If you like these, be sure to check out my 2018 calendars and photo book.
I was expecting a typically gorgeous Colorado sunset on this day not long ago but it was the pre-show about a half hour before that was the best part. Iridescent clouds appeared and turned the sky into a rainbow of colors. It was an awesome one seen from my backyard.
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.
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Beautiful sunrises and sunsets are a pretty common occurrence on the Colorado Front Range. Every now and then though, Mother Nature gives the scene an extra ‘kick’ to make it that much more awesome. Such was the case on this evening last week when not only were the colors and formation stunning, there was a hint of iridescence at the edges. I do wish I had a clear view of the horizon but pics above look awesome anyway. Taken in Thornton, Colorado.
Winter in Colorado brings some amazing sunsets and last night proved to be a case in point. Fast moving jet stream winds this time of year create mountain wave clouds and lenticular clouds that are in and of themselves fun to see. Throw in unearthly colors as the day comes to a close and you have the makeup for spectacular scenes.
Unfortunately, living in suburbia, I don’t have a good, clear shot of the western horizon and didn’t have time to run somewhere that provided a better view of the overall scene. However, tightly zoomed in pictures show the intricate details and the amazing forms and colors of the clouds.
To say the show in the sky yesterday evening was amazing doesn’t do it justice. While a beautiful sunset unfolded to the west, my eye was drawn to the north where these fantastic lenticular clouds had formed. The glow from the sunset bathed them in orange and when set against the brilliant, blue Colorado sky… Well, it was magical!
Also known by their scientific name of altocumulus standing lenticularis, these clouds are not entirely unusual in Colorado on the Front Range during the winter. Strong jet winds force moist air to be pushed up by the rugged terrain of the adjacent Rocky Mountains. This creates a wave-like pattern of air flow that condenses at high altitudes (usually around 20,000 feet).
