A landscape photographer's tour -Part 1

Keith's travels in Colorado - April-May 2006 - page 1 (page 2)

Two years ago, Keith took his then fairly new Canon 1Ds on a trip round the Rockies in the USA. This photo-diary was written in 'Blog' fashion while he was in the USA. The latest information is at the top of the article.

>> Note

I've subsequently rewritten this photo-diary in a much more easy to follow form and I'd suggest reading the new version.

This is the same format as for 2007 visits to Northern California/Oregon and Washington/Oregon

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What's the weather like?
National Weather Service radar
Weathercams (60 live cameras)
What are the roads like?

Now I'm back in the UK , I've written a more technical article as a follow up to my original (Keith's first all digital visit)

Entries are in chronological order (newest at top). Since I generally find this order of reading an article quite annoying if you want to read the whole thing, there is a '>>Next Day' link at the end of each section. >>Start of Article<<

Items on Page 2 Denver Fairplay Gunnison (3) Gunnison (2) Gunnison Delta Items below are on this page SBS (3) SBS (2) Steamboat Springs Aspen (2) Aspen Leadville South Park Arrival < (start here) ---- More info on this site

Droplets of water at Fish Creek Falls 1/5000th second exposure.

This is page 1 of the blog

Latest items are on page 2

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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 (page 2)

Steamboat (2)

A damp grey day - not the best to inspire me to go and take pictures :-)

Anyway, I decided to drive a few miles north to Steamboat Lake where the rain turned to sleet...

Sometimes overcast conditions can bring out quite subtle colours, such as the picture at the start of the South Park section. Although the aspens near Steamboat have that spring flush of yellow/green, the ones up here still look quite stark.

I took several pictures at this spot, and I'll be curious to see how they work out as large prints, where all the fine detail will be visible. The saturation has not been altered in the conversion. Whilst it is good to check out pictures on the same day, I'm always aware that I'm only working on a laptop and my appreciation of what will work as a print may well change when I'm back home. It's another reason I like to shoot more pictures - disk space and memory cards are relatively cheap, compared to wishing I'd tried a different angle.

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On the drive up I saw this superb example of a roadside sign.

It's blurred, since I was in my car and it was raining. I could have got out, but you never know how someone who puts up a sign like this is going to react to an Englishman with a long telephoto lens. :-)

Perhaps, someone unaware of his country's involvement at the 1944 meeting at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. -- perhaps, someone not overly aware of a lot of things. :-)

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By lunchtime it had brightened up a bit, so I decided to go to Fish Creek falls, which is just a few miles outside of Steamboat Springs.

Walking up to the falls I spotted this bird trying to look inconspicuous amongst some spring flowers

Given the amount of work that went into producing this particular B/W picture of the falls, I'll leave it in the article :-) The lighting is better than this morning, where the sunlight was a bit hazy.

Thanks to one of the other visitors to the falls, I've this picture of myself at the bridge where the other photo was taken.

Notice how much 'flatter' the falls look without the good sunlight.

Hopefully we'll see a bit of sun while I'm here...

>>> Next day

Steamboat Springs

Interstate 70, heading west from Denver passes trough some spectacular scenery as it cuts through the Rockies.

Leaving I-70 at junction 133 is a road (to Burns) that follows the Colorado River. This is just east of the deep Glenwood canyon cut by the river. According to my map, I could take this small road on the way to Steamboat Springs.

Converted to BW with 'Convert to BW Pro'. Selective (masked) application of a curves adjustment layer allowed me to emphasise some of the tonal variations in the foreground, which otherwise looked a bit plain.

A bit further up the river, the cottonwoods are just coming into leaf

Straight conversion from raw. On a larger version of the print I'd look to emphasise some of the lines that lead the eye through the image. Mostly these are quite subtle variations - ideally they should not be directly visible.

The railway also follows the river, and I spotted this train heading the other way

It was a long train, taking several minutes to pass by.

Just for my friends interested in such things, I've got a detailed view of the seven power units

Not far after that, the tarmac runs out. Just how good was this road going to be? particularly given I'm not in a 4WD car.

Fortunately there were some people working on the road who confirmed that it did go where the map said, and it was in good condition.

So to Steamboat. I spent a few days here on my last trip, so I'm staying at the Alpiner Lodge (lots of places here try to give that 'Alpine' feel :-)

Not quite the cosmopolitan air of Aspen, but it's a great place to buy a stetson...

This is the slack time of the year for places like this, and I had the Metropolitan Mudd Coffee Co. to myself...

For those of us from the UK, gas (petrol) prices over here still seem quite reasonable.

Cheap at half the price...

>>>Next Day

Aspen 2

I was up fairly early and headed up Castle Creek. Unfortunately at this time of the year you can't get up to Maroon Bells or Independence pass, so a couple of other interesting locations were out.

OK, I could have cycled, or walked 12 miles, but that just wasn't going to happen :-)

The sun is just illuminating the background trees, which I've deliberately kept out of focus. I exposed for the background so that none of the image clips. For a print, it would be important to get the contrast and brightness of the foreground trees right. By being careful with exposure and working at 16 bit, there is plenty of detail to bring out in the darker areas.

There had been a very light fall of snow and the early morning light looked very cold

At last a chance to use the 24mm shift lens...

Taken (hand held) by pointing the camera parallel to the trees and shifting the lens upwards to get the composition I wanted.

If I'd used a normal wide angle lens I'd have had to tilt the camera upwards which would make the trees lean over - they are on a fairly steep slope. Not a problem at all to use the shift lens like this (manual focus and meter for the shot before shifting). One other thing is to move so that one of the trees blocks out direct sunlight.

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Aspen has built itself a reputation for free-thinking and being a bit different (it helps if you have money ;-)

Who needs signs to tell you what to do?

There are several other prohibited things listed above the sign...

After several trips driving round the US I've decided that Dodge produce the best range of ugly vehicles when viewed in your rear view mirror.

The example below should give an idea what I mean.

Grace, elegance, styling - who needs it :-)

Tomorrow... off north to Steamboat Springs for a few days I think.

>>Next Day

Aspen

With the more direct route (Independence Pass) closed for the winter, the route from Leadville to Aspen involves heading north to I-70, then going west to Glenwood Springs, and turning off towards Aspen.

I took a short detour on the way to I-70 explore some side roads - good maps help. Always be sure that you can actually go where you want to take photos. We have nutters in the UK as well, but they are not allowed guns...

It's not that bad really :-) The people I meet on my travels over here are usually pretty friendly - certainly more so than the miserable people I'll see on the tube in London when I get back ;-) It's one of the reasons I like visiting the US - people talk to you.

So to Aspen, which immediately has a rather more monied look to it...

With all the usual stores you find in any small town

I called in at Pismo - a really good gallery devoted to fine art glass. You could easily find half a dozen items on display that together would cost as much as my house in Leicester...

In that strange way that things just happen, I also ended up doing a quick bit of Photoshop instruction :-)

As well as items of extremely good taste, there is always the simply bizarre.

So, if you want your home consigning somewhere truly awful.

Or there is always the Salon next door.

I saw these on the way back to the Aspen Hotel, where I'm staying for a couple of days. A good size room with a walk-in wardrobe.

I'm here a couple of days, so stay tuned :-)

>>Next Day

Leadville

I'm not really an early morning person, but one of the nice things about travelling 7 hours west, is that it becomes easy to get up at 6am (well for a week or two).

This morning it was bright and sunny, with a light fall of snow everywhere. I set off for Leadville via Frisco and I-70

A quick diversion up a side road and some of yesterday's hidden mountains were visible.

And one for next year's Christmas card collection...

I'm just doing quick conversions to black and white here, and many pictures at this size look better in colour on the web. Hopefully a bit of work back home will produce some of the B/W prints I'm looking for.

The difference this time using the 1Ds, is about 15,000 photos taken between my first visit to Colorado and this one :-)

That equates mainly to a better knowledge of how to get the best exposures, and a better eye for what will look good in black and white.

Even so, I find it takes a couple of days before I start to 'see' the shots that really work.

Taken with 24-70mm lens, converted to B/W with 'Convert to B/W Pro'. The image was cropped at the bottom to get rid of the foreground and emphasise the sky. As a print I'll be able to get a lot more 'texture' in the clouds.

So after a while I stopped in Leadville, at just over 10,000 feet. At this time of year you get the impression that nothing much happens on a Saturday afternoon.

Well, apart from a few bars...

The pictures below was taken in the Cloud City Coffee house (see last visit) It is converted using ACR and has had some shadows/highlights adjustment.

I've exposed to just clip the brightest part of the sky, and pull the rest out of the shadows. I've also improved the focus/depth of field (16mm at f18)

While the image is much easier to work on than the original (which took a lot of work), the place just didn't look so interesting, and the picture on the wall that makes the original had been sold.

Anyway, enough of this ... time to go out for the evening ;-)

Tomorrow ... East of here I think :-)

Oh, I forgot to mention the nearby gas station/qwik-e-mart, the interestingly named "Kum & Go", with this perceptive sign outside :-)

>>Next Day

South Park

Well, after a good night's sleep (loads of waiting at airports helps). It's a trip round Denver and along US285 to Fairplay. Not even too much trouble remembering which side of the road to drive on...

Unfortunately it's raining in Denver and sleet/snow while heading on to Fairplay. Not bad enough to make travel difficult, but certainly enough to hide the big mountains that the maps say are here...

A dull day in the mountains does not make for the best source material for black and white pictures

News to some of you in the UK - there is a real South Park :-)

This sign from a scenic (in good weather) overlook at Kinosha Pass

Some roads were just not worth going any further on...

A fine breakfast (OK, early lunch) at the Brown Burro in Fairplay

Just as I was sticking a pin into Leicester, on the world map behind, I heard another English accent. Paula from Cirencester, who now lives here (with Jeff) and raises and trains sled dogs. Seems she funded the trip a while ago by selling a Ford Cortina...

I'm staying at the rather nice Hand Hotel in Fairplay

Where do you go when the weather is a bit dismal...

Why, over to the Fairplay Hotel, where people are being locked up for a fund-raising drive for a local clinic. Never being one to avoid free food, I went over to see what was happening.

Live music and drinks at 4:30pm :-)

Do those lights look at all unusual?

Yes, they are shotgun cartridges -

And here are three ladies I had a chat with at the bar :-)

Note to visitors to the area - Beer is much more effective at altitude (this is around 10,000 feet), so remember to drink lots of water :-)

Some of the South Park characters were supposedly based on real people here -- I can say no more :-)

Tomorrow it's off to ... Leadville

>>Next Day

Arrival

Travelling out from the UK

First of all, my flight was cancelled -- it seems the plane never even got over from the US yesterday.

Not too bad apart from the fact I'd got up at 3am to get to Heathrow...

Since I'm not wandering round the airport with a camera, we'll have to go with this example taken with my camera phone. Quite possibly the worst technical quality image on this site, but inspired by This one taken a couple of years ago in Leadville, CO.

I'm in a motel near Denver Airport, and it was time to check that all the kit was in order.

As you can see, the 24mm T/S lens has also made it along.

So the eqpt list is Canon 1Ds, 16-35 2.8L, 24 T/S 3.5L, 24-70 2.8L, 70-200 2.8L

Oops, I seem to have forgotten to bring a tripod ;-)

Fortunately there is wireless access here, but the signal strength is a bit low in my room.

But there's a much better signal in the corridor :-)

Tomorrow - head west into the Rockies

>>Next Day

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Keith's first all digital visit to the USA

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