A landscape photographer's tour
Steamboat

Keith's travels in Colorado - April-May 2006

In 2004 I took my then fairly new Canon 1Ds camera on a driving tour round the Rockies in the USA. This photo-diary covers my second driving trip around Colorado in April/May 2006. This collection of photography and comments has been re-written to make it easier to follow than the original (big) web page. On my return to the UK, I wrote a more technical article about the photographic aspects as a follow up to my original "Keith's first all digital visit to the Rockies"

What's the weather like? National Weather Service radar Webcams What are the roads like?	Daily pages 27th April London-Denver 28th April South park 29th April Leadville 30th April Aspen 1st May Aspen 2nd May Steamboat Springs 3rd May Steamboat Springs 4th May Steamboat Springs 5th May Delta 6th May Gunnison 7th May Gunnison 8th May Gunnison 9th May Fairplay 10th May Pikes Peak and back to Denver

Steamboat (3)

A lovely bright morning, enough cloud to make the sky look interesting in black and white (pure blue equates with a smooth grey sky - not want I usually want). Studying the maps had also found several locations worthy of exploration. Off I headed in the general direction of Yampa.

Unfortunately a relatively small rock in the road (from a nearby cliff) exposed one of the difficulties of low profile tyres and alloy wheels -- fortunately I was able to pull over and change the wheel (to one of those horrid 'spacesaver' tyres)

Ho, hum, it's off to the rental people to replace the car. Unfortunately, since it needed to be returned to Denver, I ended up with a bigger car. Why unfortunately you ask? Well the Mercury Grand Marquis is a big car, and has all the delicacy in handling and performance I'd associate with a river barge. This is perhaps not the vehicle I'd choose for exploring mountain passes :-)

On the way back from the 'bump', the sky decided to get even more interesting, just to remind me what could have been :-(

The rocks in the background are the core of an old volcano - there are several such outcrops near Yampa.

Image converted to black and white using channel mixer, to emphasise sky.
See Introduction to digital black and white article for more info. When working up an image like this as a print I'll pay considerable attention to getting the tonal balance right for the print I want. It's difficult to show on the web, but I'd want to emphasise the cottonwood tree and the shack a bit more. I'd also do a bit of dodging and burning to show the different slopes on the hill. Paying attention to this allows you to lead the viewers eye through the composition in a clearer fashion.

Back in Steamboat I spotted this sign.

Surely not? No, the rock incident had happened earlier that morning :-)

Next Day >>

27th April>>28th April>>29th April>>30th April>>1st May>>2nd May>>3rd May>>4th May>>5th May>>6th May>>7th May>>8th May>>9th May>>10th May

More Travel blogs

October 2008 - Travelling in Colorado (picture from 'Photo-blog')	'Cascade Colours' from Keith's Autumn 2007 visit to Oregon/Washington
Fall 2010 - Visit to the USA, Pacific Northwest	The North Californian coast - part of Keith's April 2007 tour