The first week was filled with sunset hikes. I went to a nearby park on the evening of the 3^rd, where I got the following set of images. I loved the colors and landscape and hope to go back again once the foliage has come to life more.

Compositionally, I think this (above) is the strongest of the evening. The boulder and the trees around it are perfectly balanced in the scene and furthermore the light as it hits the last of the top of the far wave of stone leads the eye through the scene.

The landscapes around this area were so unique, and this is part of what I absolutely love about Colorado. It feels as if you’re always just a car ride away from a wholly different landscape than what you’re currently getting exposure to.

The image of the trail to the top right shows how varied and unique the landscape of this area was. The trees were far more knobby and branching than I typically see in trees from this area.

This last image (below) is one I tried hard to get right but feel like I still didn’t nail. I like the growth and life on display with the yucca, however the death in the grass surrounding it and the trees behind don’t give much for the plants to work alongside.

I think coming back here and trying to capture this image again as the light fades off of this scene would be good and could produce better results, especially if the trees on the top right had leaves on them also catching the light.

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The following day was Easter Sunday! We went for a nice walk in Golden before grabbing lunch at Golden Mills. After that we went home and made some dinner! The potatoes were from a local farmer who’d given them to us. Sophie made the biscuits from scratch. They came out perfectly, and the meal was a wonderful way to end the day.

I have a version of the image on the left at a higher aperture (ƒ/11) but this one shot at ƒ/2 does more for me. I think the way that the branches blur in the foreground works better than when the entire image is pin sharp.

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On Monday, the light was nice in the evening and clouds were rolling in and I decided I wanted to go take a walk. I went to a park nearby (just over 20 minutes away) and began hiking with no real idea of what I’d see.

When I first arrived the clouds were dark, stormy and I didn’t think that anything was going to manifest. As I climbed higher and higher the wind intensified and I was certain a storm was about to unfold.

How wrong I was. The clouds moved fast enough and were high enough in the sky that when the sun was beginning to get really low on the horizon we were gifted some truly gorgeous light and sky conditions.

As I was walking back down I saw this tree which I’d photographed earlier in the evening and the color behind it and on it was perfect. I snapped this shot – and I couldn’t be happier with it. I think the scene is well balanced and the subject is unique.

As I was nearing the end of the hike, the bison herd had migrated closer towards the trailhead, and there was one bison all alone. I got this picture – and I think the distribution of the bison as well as the way the lone bison is facing is perfect. An absolutely wonderful image to end the night on.

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Note: The following two trips were both shot exclusively on my Fujifilm X100VI. I just brought that camera so did all my work with it’s 23mm f/2 lens (~35mm full-frame equivalent).

The trips were not photography trips. They were social calls which just so happened to have pictures taken on the trips. Therefore expect a lot of snapshots and fewer landscapes than I typically shoot (though I tried to photograph these cities how I would a landscape). Enjoy!

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I was so excited to be visiting New Orleans. When Sophie originally asked me what I thought would be more interesting to visit Nola or Nashville, the answer was immediate. New Orleans! I think Nashville would be incredible but the architecture and jazz of New Orleans has always been such a fascinating subject in my mind. I was right, and the visit we had was incredible.

There was so much life and color in the city. Whether that be in the architecture of the houses of the French Quarter or the quainter neighborhoods of the Garden District and the live oaks which dominated the scenes we found in that neck of the woods.

Even on the flight out of New Orleans, the views were still great! That final image of the sun rising over the mighty and winding Mississippi was a wonderful capstone for that trip. My time away from home wasn’t over yet though, because next I was going to Charleston.

And this is where things got crazy.

This Charleston trip was completely spontaneous. I was fully intending to go back home after New Orleans, but then my cousin got engaged ahead of a family trip to Charleston they were going on so I decided to surprise them.

I booked a flight, and on the day I’d intended to go home, I went to Charleston.

The trip was primarily filled with visiting family and enjoying the weather down there. However I managed to get a bit of photography in along the way.

This image (and the one at the end of the article) were both taken at the Charleston Airport waiting for my flight back home to Denver. I was tired and ready to relax – and I think the clouds knew that. They floated on by without a care in the world, and offered a great complement to the sky-way.

When I got home, Denver had a snowstorm and then stayed cold for quite some time. We went for a sunrise hike again visiting the park where I saw the bison earlier that month, the views were great as the sun rose up illuminating the herd out to pasture.

As of late I’ve noticed that I’m photographing more and more somewhat subdued scenes and really enjoying those. I still love to shoot those high contrast incredible light scenes however in terms of the work I’ve been doing with landscapes as of late I’ve been photographing far more calm scenes with serenity.

I think it reflects the way I’m feeling about my time in nature and the landscapes I’m seeing there. I love going out and now more than ever I think when I go I’m just happy to be outside and seeing something regardless of the intensity of the light or cloud cover.

That feeling of joy and serenity comes through in the work I find myself producing.

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On Friday the 24th, I was busy! It began with a lovely hike nearby which was a well and proper hike and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. It was just shy of five miles long, and had just over 1,000 feet of elevation gain. The hike took me a little under two hours to complete.

The light honestly burnt off pretty quickly – it’s just the nature of the season when there are no clouds in the sky but as I was beginning to go back down the trail again I got this below image which I quite fancy.

I like the way the light streaks through the image, bringing the viewer down to the center illuminated tree. I also adore the showing of the “spring-time new growth green” all over the scene.

That evening, Sophie and I went to photograph a “nearby” pass, and frankly the evening was a challenge.

That afternoon, the clouds had been sporadic and high up in the atmosphere, and they were the kind that I knew would catch the light, however by the time we were driving up to the mountains a solid layer of cloud had moved in.

While I’m happy for what this means in terms of a cooler environment, and hopefully some more humidity being kept around (for the sake of maintaining the little moisture we have), it presented a challenge for me to photograph.

There was no real break in the cloud to allow light in – and while I did walk over to the lake in the above photo, the best of the light had already happened (above) and we were just left with a cool and dreary evening flat as a pancake.