Fall Color Bound

I am off to Utah and the red rock country. I also hope to see some of the fall color of the La Sal Mountains. The aspens of the west got me to looking through last fall's Colorado trip and that led me to this image. Here is some of the fall color of southwest Colorado as a way to think about the fall color of southeast Utah.

Red rock country-here I come!

W.W.A.D.

W.W.A.D. What Would Ansel Do?

It is a beautiful September morning in Colorado. The sky is blue. The clouds go from orange to pink to white. The aspen are yellow, green, or even reddish. Colors are everywhere. Bright, bold, vivid colors. It is autumn after all and colors abound. Everything about the setting screams color. I naturally reach for a box of Velvia with color like this.

But what would Ansel do if he were here? Well, Ansel being Ansel, he would probably still take a black and white negative and come away with a print that was so sharp, deep, and glowing, that it would make you want to give up trying to ever make an image here yourself.

I like black and white images, but I am really a color photographer. I sometimes dabble in monochrome but my work and images are mainly color. Still I often take some black and white film with me on a trip-just in case. However, Colorado in autumn is not one of those trips that jump to mind for it, so I did not bring any.

So as I pondered what Ansel would do with a scene like this I flipped a switch on the digital camera to B+W and took a couple of quick images and surprise! They looked pretty good. So while, I did not have black and white film to use in the 4x5, I had "black and white" pixels I could use in a little digital camera. So I made a few images with the thought of working these into monochrome.

When I got back home to my computer I tried working with a few images and did a little Photoshopping out the color. I liked what I saw. I found that monochrome can make a great "fall image". Actually, the wonders of modern computer programming allow you to do a lot of neat things with images that would take ages in the darkroom to learn. I am able to take an image to monochrome and tweak it with a lot of darkroom like techniques and get a very respectable black and white, or sepia, or other type of traditional look.

As I worked with this image, I was quite pleased with the qualities I was able to find in the monochrome world. The quality of the sky, the definition in the peaks, the glow of the aspens. It was all there. It was autumn in black and white.

Maybe that is exactly what Ansel would have done.

Finding a place to stop

The roadways through Colorado have some great scenery. I often stop or want to stop every 500 yards to take another picture. However, just finding a place to pull over can be a trick. Narrow roads, steep mountain passes, abrupt cliffs, and no shoulder roadways are quite common in the San Juans. Sometimes you can get an image out the window at a tiny pullout, but just as often there is no opportunity to stop at all. Then there are the times you are lucky enough to find a place to stop where you actually feel safe enough to set up a tripod.

Those are the locations that I like. If you can find a trailhead and hike in is fun, but when the big view is all around you, you can get those stunning images right next to your vehicle. I like to think of myself of someone who is looking to get away from the crowd and road, but when you are driving and the scene presents itself, you can take some wonderful images awefully close to your car.

Take this image here. The location is on the road to Red Mountian pass. For many miles of this drive there are steep drops and no places to stop. There are also a few great scenic overlooks that every car seems to stop at (yes, I stop at them too). But this was a great place with a good shoulder to stop on that everyone else just kept right on going past. That gave me plenty of time and space to be under a darkcloth to focus without worry of a suprise encounter with the next car stopping. And as you can see, I am right on the side of the road. Sometimes it is that easy. The view is great and all I needed was a good place to stop.

Big Mountains

The San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado are big mountains. They stretch for miles. They have many peaks over 13,000 feet and some that reach higher becoming a "14'er". They are also rather remote and sparsely populated.

Driving through the San Juans takes time, there is no Interstate here and even the highways are more often driven at 40 mph than 70. You travel among giants- around big peaks, over mountain passes, and along young rivers. The way is often long and winding, but it is always scenic and you always see more mountains.

One part of the range really stands out for me and that is the north face of the Sneffels Range. The wide flat valley of the Uncompaghre River runs north-south and at the north end of the valley stands the mighty peaks of the Sneffels Range. They form a chain that is visible for miles and they rise some 7,000 feet above Ridgway. There are several famous places to stop, such as the Dallas Divide, but I went to find a different view. I explored several forest service roads that take you to outstanding views. I explored many of those views and photographed in many locations.

This spot was something I found on an afternoon drive. From a small hill you could see across a large expanse of aspens to the line of peaks. It is not a location I had seen images from before so I filed it away as one to visit one evening. On a night with some hazy clouds, I ventured back, set up the tripod, and waited.

I framed up a view of the valley with many of the big peaks including the awe inspiring Mount Sneffels. If there ever was a mountain that fit the the picture perfect image of what a mountain should be-Mt Sneffels is it. It rises above it's neighbors and is over 14,000' tall. I recall reading that Georgia O'Keefe painted the same mountain in New Mexico many, many times. I think this is a mountain you could spend a lifetime photographing and never grow tired of.

The light in the sky faded and the color in the clouds got a slight tint of red. I worked through sheets slowly. I worked slow and I photographed long slow exposures. I was hoping the clouds were moving enough to give them a blurry reddish quality to contrast with the silent stillness of the peaks. I was not disappointed. The sky was perfect and the big mountains rose to meet it. What a great place, these big mountains.

In the Meadow

In the high country around Ouray I found this small stream cascading down through a meadow. There was nice color in the aspens around the meadow. There was a nice peak in the distance. There were just a few clouds around. There was nice angle on the afternoon light to slightly sidelight leaves. It was certainly worth an image.

Finding the right things help an image. Or maybe a better way to say it is finding the right things in combination help make the image come together.

Normally the mid afternoon is a horrible time of day for color photography. However, since that mid-afternoon sun was side lighting the leaves, it gave them some definition. Add in the clouds and the mid-afternoon light was not so bad. So even though the light was nothing spectacular, it was light that had potential for an image. I just need the right location.

The stream was the inspiration. The leading ribbon of water spilling down through the meadow was a good setting. The other elements like the mountain and trees in the distance made it right.
I tried some different things too, using both a wide and moderate angle lens on the image. I was not sure which would be best since the both looked good on the ground glass. So I took both and could decide on the light table at home (BTW-I picked the moderate angle).

Then after a couple of images, it was time to pack up and go look for the next location.

In the Cimmerons

The quest for fall color often means driving. One clear day I drove over Owl Creek Pass to photograph the Cimmeron Range. There was a spot I knew of where a small stand of aspen would turn reddish orange instead of the more common yellow. I was hoping to backlight these trees and have the Cimmeron ridges behind them. In 2004 I was there with dark stormy sky hanging over the range and came away with a great image. This was very different light and color, but I still had hopes for backlit red aspens. I found the aspen but they were not red this year, they were regular ol' yellow. I still took and image, but the conditions just were not there.

I explored more of the area and off of a small side road I found a stream that made a great leading line to rugged Cimmeron ridges in the distance. This sure is a scenic place. The sky was clear but the somewhat backlit trees still made it a great location. I set about making an image.

With the "severe clear" you cannot put in much sky so I used the stream to fill the image and just put in a little of the sky over the peaks. I touch of the polarizer to help with the light and the sky and the image is there. A little exploration and a great location get a great image even on a bluebird day.

Timing

Timing is everything when it comes to fall color. Well, that and luck. I had planned a trip to southwest Colorado for fall colors for months. I chose the last week in September since I had great timing and great fall colors going that week in the past. This year the colors were late turning. Now being in the San Juan mountains anytime is spectacular and even with a slow start to the colors it is still a great place to be. The color may have been late but it was still pretty nice where you found it. Some places were mostly green but others were flaming yellows and oranges. You just had to look.

There are so many roads and so many viewpoints it is really hard to go wrong. This is one such image. It is a view literally right on the side of a dirt forest service road. And what a view it is. I would have liked to have found this valley with the aspens at their peak color, however there was more green than yellow. But there was one lone aspen on the side of the hill in great yellow color and that stood out. There was a great image here afterall.

I set up the camera and went with the longest lens I have for it-a 210mm. On a DSLR that might have a nice reach, but on a 4x5 that is slightly longer than a "normal" lens (it's about a 65 in classic 35mm terms). So I was still able to have a great deal of the valley, peaks, and clouds in the image. While I waited for the right light some cattle made their way into the scene. This kept getting better. Finally it all came together and I found a great image of the soft light of morning on an alpine scene. I stayed and waited for the morning sun and took several sheets of film as the light changed and the sun light hit the trees.

So much for being too early for fall color. The timing was everything here and if I was here a week later I would not have had the one lone yellow tree and maybe not the clouds or the cattle. Come to think about it-I timed it perfect.