Autumn Landscape Photography in the Colorado Mountainst

autumn reflections

black & white almost looks like infrared

tilt-shift autumn landscape

Driving home one morning, I pulled off the road near one of my favorite places, and spent an hour walking around and photographing the autumn colors. 

Very dry conditions for most of the summer has left us with near-record low flows in the Crystal River, and rather subdued colors in the aspen trees, and yet things are pretty spectacular. 

One reason I love this area is the fields of sagebrush in the foreground.  Just for the heck of it, and to show you different ways of looking at autumn landscape photography, I've included a black & white image and a tilt-shift image.

Foggy Summer Morning

I just love the chance to photograph fog.  The spring and fall are usually the times when such opportunities present themselves, but we've had two days of heavy rain showers (after a very dry couple of months), and the increased humidity, coupled with a slightly cooler evening, created some outstanding fog in the valley this morning.

Colorado winter landscape with river and mountain

Snowfall this year has been rather sparse, which makes walking easier, but also deprives me of the fantastic winterscapes (or winter snowscapes) I love to take. 

That doesn't mean I stop trying.  The warm sunny days make it great to be outside, and I usually bring my camera along with me.

Autumn Mountain Landscapes

In most of the years I've lived in Colorado, the leaves are well-off the trees before any decent snow falls.  The late-changing colors this year, however, afforded a rare opportunity when we got a good snowfall the other day.  It cleared overnight, and I waited until the sun was high in the sky, illuminating the west slope of the mountains across the river from me before driving up to the pass to capture this scene of autumn leaves and snow-covered peaks.

Frying Pan Lakes

Spending two nights at Frying Pan Lakes, in the Hunter-Frying Pan Wilderness Area of Colorado, allowed me to photograph them at sunrise, sunset, and all times in between.

As usual with landscape photographs, some of my favorites were those taken with the polarizing filter.  I particularly liked the ice formations on the lower lake my last morning, and the polarizer cut through the reflection to see the rocks beneath the surface.

Colorado National Monument in Grand Junction

Bordering Grand Junction, Colorado to the west is the Colorado National Monument.  This year, it celebrates its 100th anniversary.  The canyons, mesas, and outcrops are most photogenic early in the morning, when the rising sun lights up their east-facing features.  This area is high desert, and the cactus blooms in late May bring lots of color to the landscape.

Disappearing Mountains

An infected bug bite has kept me from doing what I like doing for a couple of weeks, but it's healing now, and I look forward to many photo hikes.

This photo was shot on my way to work this morning.  Overnight rain and high humidity (for us) is making fog and low clouds that are great for landscape photography.

That's Chair Mountain shrouded in clouds, as seen from Highway 133.

Mt. Sopris, Carbondale, Colorado

Mt. Sopris is just a few dozen feet shy of 13,000 feet.  It can be seen from much of the Roaring Fork valley, and is admired for it's beautiful shape and the way it stands alone, almost like a sentinel guarding the Crystal River valley.

Depending on the season, weather, and time of day, Sopris can have many moods.  It's almost always very photogenic.  On this particular afternoon, the humidity of monsoon season was creating some very dramatic clouds.  With just enough sunlight hitting the northwest slope of the mountain, I had to pull over and take a few shots.

Glenwood Canyon's Hanging Lake

I posted both stills and videos to my Colorado Wilderness blog, but since Hanging Lake is such a popular destination, I thought I should put up a few here too.

Putting the polarizing filter on the camera for the first time this year, I hiked up to Hanging Lake to shoot both stills and videos (see the videos here).

It was bright enough that I handheld the camera for all of these shots, using the aperture priority setting and choosing "cloudy" for the white balance (a setting I like because it gives such a warm tone to the images).  Later, in Photoshop, I needed only small adjustments to levels and the unsharp mask.  The black & white image was created (as most of mine are) using the channel mixer (boosting the green and lowering the red channels).

I really wish I had a wider angle lens for situations like this.  The entire scene, from the lake at my feet to the top of the canyon walls around me, is worth capturing.

Seasonal waterfall cascading into the Crystal River

I don't use my neutral density (ND) filter often, but this scene, especially on this day, called for it.  The ND filter and f25 aperture allowed a 1/3 second exposure, which softened the gushing falls and surging river.  On a cloudy day, the slow exposure seemed to work well with the muted colors.

More morning fog

There were just a few wisps of fog when I got up this morning, but the temperature and dewpoint (38 and 37, respectively) were very similar to those two days earlier, when a dense fog filled the valley. 

When I got to the top of McClure Pass, the fog was filling the Crystal River valley nicely, and there were some low clouds clinging to the peaks of the Ragged Mountains.

Foggy Mountain Panorama

Morning fog in the Crystal River valley.

This panorama was created from six images.  My friend stitched them together in Photoshop, then sent me the file which I cleaned up at Picnik.com.

Though it was relatively clear when I got up this morning, I noticed the temperature (38) and dewpoint (37) were very similar to what they were on Monday morning, when I got some great fog shots.  Waiting an hour or so allowed the fog to form and the sun to rise.  I was rewarded for both my patience and the drive up to McClure Pass to capture these images.

Click on the image to see it full-size (or at least your screen size).

Snow on the mountains; fog in the valley

Landscape with mountain and field of dandelions

Mt. Sopris is south of Carbondale, Colorado, in the Crystal River valley.  Spring clouds and fields of dandelions make this majestic mountain especially photogenic in both color and black & white.

Two very different landscapes in black & white

Frequent visitors to my blog or flickr pages know I love both color and black & white photography.  Images with sharp contrast differences, especially those with muted or few colors, lend themselves well to conversion to black & white.  The problem is choosing the best way to do it, and how.

McCloyd Canyon, Cedar Mesa, Utah

Seasonal Waterfal, Redstone, Colorado

For these two photos, I used my favorite method of conversion - the channel mixer in Photoshop.  However, the process is very different for the two shots. 

Most of my alpine shots require little more than clicking the "monochrome" box and making slight adjustments to each channel (usually pulling down the blue to darken the sky, while giving slighter boosts to red and green to keep the whites very white).  With desert photos, however, this method initially results in a shot that leaves much to be desired.  Acting on a hunch a couple weeks ago, I made some adjustments that had a tremendous impact.  I lowered the red and blue channels by 50 each, while boosting the green channel by 70 or 80.  In addition to darkening the sky and the rocks, it brightened the desert plants.  Previously the plants would be somewhat indistinguishable from the surrounding red dirt and rocks.  I'm quite pleased with the results, and look forward to creating some striking desert landscapes in black & white.

Desert Landscape Panoramas

Grand Gulch, Cedar Mesa, Utah

Valley of the Gods, Utah

Panoramas are sometimes the only way to capture the broad majesty of the expansive scenery.  Unfortunately, the limitations of computer monitors makes it difficult to appreciate the final product.  Click on each image to see it larger.

Valley of the Gods

In southeast Utah, Valley of the Gods is a large area of BLM land that has spires and other formations leftover from many thousands of years of erosion.

Spring snowstorm in black & white

Frequent visitors to this photo blog know how much I like shooting black and white landscapes from late fall through early spring, when the scenery is pretty monochromatic anyway.  This is never more true than right after a snowfall.  In between snow squalls today, I took my camera down to the river to see what I might find.  It's been several weeks since I've had the chance to take landscape photographs, and was keen on doing so if the weather would cooperate.  The sun poked through the clouds a few times, and it was bright enough that I had the sharp contrast I like to convert images to black and white.

Whether you use auto-levels, adjust the sliders in the levels window, or set your black and white points, make sure your images have the full range of contrast from dark blacks to bright whites before opening the channel mixer window and converting to black and white.  Today was perfect, and I was quite pleased with several images from my outing.

Colorado landscape in late winter/early spring

Mild weather is taking its toll on the snow, but the longer days afford more opportunities for taking photographs.  I'm spending more time at this spot in the river, as it reflects the sky and clouds well.  Once the run-off from spring melting starts, the surface will probably be too turbulent for shots like this one.

Winter landscape with river and mountains

The morning sky is reflected in the Crystal River in this winter landscape taken on my way to work last week.