A landscape photographer's tour
Delta

Keith's travels in Colorado - April-May 2006

Gunnison

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"

Actually Delta is quite a nice looking place, but it's just that I was expecting a bit more to do on a Friday night :-)

I took a few shots as I was driving out (~8 am)

And the 'Classic' used car lot

Of course if I really wanted that 1970's handling, this would be the place to go.

Compared to these, the 'barge' probably performs like a rally car :-)

I took CO-92 out of Delta and headed east towards the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. On the road up to the canyon there is a good view of what I take to be a volcanic plug (core of an old volcano)

If it was in Europe, someone would have built a castle on it :-)

I went to the canyon two years ago, but only visited the south rim (picture).

It really is difficult to convey the scale of the canyon with these small images, but it's nearly 2000 feet down to the water.

When you visit places like this you do have to accept that some views, however impressive may not make good photos. I'm sure lots of people every year are disappointed by their photos of the Grand Canyon. Part of the knack in my particular approach to landscape photography is being able to spot what -might- make a good photograph :-)

The north rim is less developed and probably gets a lot less visitors, however the overlooks are at least as good as those on the south, and if you continue east on CO-92 the views of the canyon are much better (you are riding along the north side of the canyon for much of the way.

The image was stitched in Photoshop CS2 from 4 overlapping vertical images (24-70 lens) If you are careful to rotate the camera carefully there is no need for a tripod ... of course for panoramic shots, it does help.

One final point, it seems that old cars being driven by people wearing hats are just as slow and prone to erratic behaviour as in the UK. This particular car kept its indicators on for several miles :-)