After getting a snowstorm the following morning we were due some clear skies and sun so I went on a walk before work. It was nowhere fancy just a local park in my area – but the conditions were nice and I had fun photographing it regardless. This shot of the lake feeding into the run-off and the uniformity of the monochromatic sky and lake contrasts the rather noisy and chaotic mid-ground in a way I quite like.

This image was shocking to me. I feel like it’s a far-cry from the type of images I usually capture and I think what makes it one I like so much. As I was leaving the park I noticed this might tree beginning to catch the light and the way that it illuminated only a patch of the branches is just a killer composition and one I can’t help but enjoy admiring.

The warmth that comes from the combination of the early morning sun and the dying leaves being illuminated and reflecting light outwards combats the otherwise uniformly cool tones throughout the rest of the image masterfully.

I.

This evening was delightful. It was cold, ~10º with 50 MPH wind gusts (the front was dropping) but mother of God did the light decide to show up. I was photographing this sunset for probably an hour. When I first arrived my primary subject was this hill on the west side of the valley but soon the light was illuminating the broader valley and I began photographing that instead.

The conditions were exquisite with the setting sun’s light slowly making it’s way up the valley walls to the peaks for the stunning Alpenglow you only can get in the high country.

I used my telephoto lens to snag this magnificent capture of the far off mountain ranges (you can actually see this peak in the above capture), and it’s just marvelous. Such warm and vibrant tones with a phenomenal transition across the scene from the dark and shadowy rolling hills in the bottom right to the prominent and vibrant snow-fields of the distant mountain-tops.

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II.

Now I typically wouldn’t include this image on the left. Honestly, it doesn’t work at all and I’m frustrated with myself for it.

When I got to this location – I was snowshoeing through fresh snow out to this vista – and it was slow going.

From the time I arrived to when I had shot this image the colors had been absolutely mental and I was cautiously optimistic that I’d be getting these nice colors all morning. After shooting this image – I decided “let me take a video of this gorgeous view”. By the time the video was done, the light had been completely snuffed out. I was immensely frustrated with myself.

I should have prioritized taking the photos instead of a video but I was too confident in the conditions. It’s a tough lesson to learn but the “miss” of the light is just as much a part of the landscape photography pursuit as the “achievement” of it is.

The rest of the hike was slow-going. The wind was furious and looking to fight and that combined with deep snow which was always buffeting me and having to trail-blaze through it meant it took me almost 30 minutes to just go half a mile.

Eventually I decided that it wasn’t going to be worth going on (something I rarely do when hiking) and decided to turn back around. I had only done a fifth of the elevation gain and a quarter of the distance and I just knew it was going to get worse and worse condition wise. As I was heading back I did get this image which I thought was quite neat. The shutter speed (I believe 1/400th of a second) allowed me to completely freeze the snow as it was being whipped past me.

After getting back to the hotel – the wind was furious and we realized that Sophie’s car window had shattered. We shop-vacced out the shards of glass and then threw a garbage bag over the window to prevent more debris from making it into the car.

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III.

After a quiet morning spent resting – and at the local library killing time between leaving my first hotel and checking in at the next one I began to hit the road towards where I’d be spending the next two days. As I was doing that I decided, what the hell let’s go check up a pass nearby that I know of and see if anything jumps out at me. Boy did it.

This photos so alarmingly calm (helluva an oxymoron). It’s easily my favorite photo from the pass I was in (though there were some killer shots there). It just works so well in doing so little! this image I don’t think would have worked had the clouds not had the faintest part to them allowing the horizon to accentuate and separate with dark gray clouds higher up standing out against the lower lighter clouds swirling past.

That evening I wanted to go photograph some of the nearby mountains but I wasn’t sure what the clouds were going to do.

I had gone far deeper into the pass up towards Vail earlier on in the evening but eventually could tell that light was not going to happen there so I went back to a lake-front I had seen earlier that day.

When I got there I was frankly frustrated again – I was putting so much pressure on myself, I had a specific vision in mind for what I wanted to photograph that I was missing the forest for the trees (so to speak).

After taking that pressure off – and just looking at what I had and thinking “how can I work with this” I began getting images I actually really enjoyed.

After capturing the more “obvious” shot above – I began walking around and exploring the lake-front more where I found these patches of ice which resemble the methane bubbles of Abraham Lake in Alberta.

After photographing this scene for some time I had had my fill of photography and I went back to the hotel to rest and recharge before the following day’s photography.

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IV.

The following morning I went higher up to get a better vantage point on the mountains surrounding this lake front. The light started good but unfortunately it faded rather fast. I had learned from day two of the trip though, I was there so early that I managed to photograph the light when it was good before it had been snubbed out.

After that I did a ~3.5 mile hike! The snowshoes helped a lot and the snow-pack was far more forgiving at the beginning of the trail this go around. It wasn’t until I was about a mile or so in when I began having to break trail again (that’s when I dramatically slowed down). But I really had nowhere to go and the weather was far better than the prior day so I just kept trucking.

Eventually I reached my destination for the hike, this lake. It was a beautiful view but I got there too late in the day for any dramatic light to be present on the mountain.

One final picture. Back home with family in New England, one morning we got this view. Fog and cloud was rolling through the valley we were overlooking. It’s a simple one and I think could be even stronger if the bottom right corner was solid fog as well – however as it stands I still like the image quite a bit.

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