Tag Archives: park

Hiding In Plain Sight

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Mountain goats aren’t really known for being stealthy. They don’t have a lot of need to be. There aren’t that many predators up here at the top of the world at over 14,000′ to get them so they usually just hang out not caring very much about who sees them.

Yet Nature, who is in charge of animal protection here in this world, has chosen to give them life saving camouflage anyway. When you enlarge this image by clicking on it, and you know you should, you’ll see that even with them standing out in plain sight your eyes will drift right over them and you’ll often miss seeing them. This effect is even more pronounced when the herd is scattered out and the individuals take on the coloring and look of the boulder field they like to forage in.

Occasionally a coyote and on the rarest of occasions a mountain lion will find its way up here in the hopes of catching a lamb or a sick billy-goat but they’re usually so whacked out by the lack of oxygen up here that their efforts are half-hearted at best. Still the camouflage is there in case they need it.

This is Mt. Evans by the way, and it is 14,264′ up in the air. It is also one of the tallest of our national parks with all kinds of neat facts that you can read elsewhere about how cool it is. The road up here is not for the squeamish and will often involve some or all of the passengers in your vehicle crouching on the floor to avoid the sheer terror of the incredible drop offs just inches away from your tires. Drivers Pay Attention! Gravity is not your friend up here.

For those of you who are going to ask “Is that blue real?” the answer is no. It’s actually bluer than that. I had to tone it down in Photoshop from the real color because it is SO blue, and that is the famous Colorado blue you hear about, that my staffers walking by catching a glimpse of it on the monitor would be frozen in their tracks, stunned into immobility, so totally hypnotized by it blueness, that they would be paralyzed and fall over in what we call the Blue Coma. Since some of you may be viewing this on portable devices and doing things like walking or chewing gum I thought it best, in the interest of your safety, to bring it down into a more tolerable color.

Soon and that is in a couple of weeks, the ewes will start having their lambs and the tourists will start arriving to see them. The park opens later in the year than most other parks because this geography and weather up here are similar to arctic conditions. There’s tundra scattered around everywhere with arctic plants growing and biting winds and fast-moving storms that race in just to catch everyone unaware, so they, the people in charge of these places, want to give the inquisitive tourists every chance of making it up and back down alive. Plus the roads are mostly snowed shut until sometime in mid June. But life is an adventure and you’re alive or should be so jump in the old Celica and get on up to the top of the world. There’s views, and vistas, and far-reaching sights that will make you say “oh Wow” or even “Holy Moley” and you can see the Mountain goats hiding in plain sight. It’s worth it.

Colors, Patterns and Textures in the Southwest

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One of the incredible perks in having a job like mine is you get to see things like this on a regular basis. Sure there are many times where you don’t have the extraordinary light or the stupendous subject matter but then a lot of the time you do. And all you have to do is look at it and take it’s picture. How cool is that? Pretty damn cool actually. This is a shot of Navajo mountain from the Bryce area. What you don’t see in that picture is that it is a little after 6 in the morning early in the spring and it is very cold, like wearing two down jackets cold. At the time I took this it seemed much less glamorous than it does now looking at the end result. Now if that sounds like whining I don’t mean it to, there are just some facts of life about this job that aren’t apparent by looking at the photograph. Frozen fingers and numb toes aside this is a great job and I don’t ever want to stop doing it. I may wear three down coats next time however. And some gloves.

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Colors, Patterns and Textures is the name for this post and it has been the hardest to put together because of the difficulty in choosing images for it. This presentation could easily be several thousand pictures, if not more, long. The reason it isn’t is because I know that as much as you like looking at gorgeous images I’d lose you at about six hundred so I’ve decided to abbreviate this post and repeat it with different images every so often. This is a wall at Aztec Ruins National Monument built by the inhabitants when this place was occupied. Now whoever designed and built this wall knew what beauty was about. There is no architectural reason to use a row of the most beautiful blue colored rocks here but after seeing it could you have used anything else?

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The color of the sand, the texture, the play of shadows on the ripples of this small section of the dunes in Monument Valley is every bit as intriguing as the buttes, towers and monolithic rock formations that make up this world Heritage place.

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Simple patterns can be visually satisfying. This tree against an unadorned wall in Santa Fe has a zen-like attraction. The intense colors, while arresting in their contrast, can have a soothing effect and show that a small piece of the total view can be more rewarding than showing the whole picture (so to speak).

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While similar in composition to the image above, this scene also taken in Santa Fe, shows a more muted color palette. Same type of view but different light and time of day. You could stand in front of a composition like this for days and never take the same image twice.

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While walking through the dunes in Monument Valley after watching the sunrise you see all the details and patterns of this spectacular country begin to emerge. A desert newspaper recording the comings and goings of the creatures of the night. The tracks of a small mammal are crisscrossed with trails of insects and the morning light turns the color of the sand to a deep rich red. I take a lot of pictures but I think I take more of them here than any other place.

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You can begin to understand why artists like Georgia O’Keefe painted the subjects she did when you come across a pattern like this one momentarily displayed in the sand. I say momentarily because the next breeze to blow through here will erase this work of art in a heartbeat. That is unless you take a picture of it.

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Other patterns are created by man and will last for centuries. These petroglyphs are on a cliffside in Capitol Reef National Park.

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Texture plays a large part in my selection of things to shoot. Here the frozen sand has been turned to rock and although it looks like momentary waves in a sand dune it is here to stay. This is Antelope Canyon in Arizona and this dune is nearly a hundred feet under ground. The light comes from an opening in it’s ceiling that runs the length of the canyon.

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Waves of stone. How were they frozen in time? It certainly looks like that was what happened but this scene was slowly created over eons by the water that occasionally pours through this canyon. It is mind numbing to think of how long this must have taken. The result however is etched forever in my memory.

Cloudscapes

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Huge, billowing clouds moving slowly across the sky have always been an arresting sight for me. Memories of childhood float up from the depths and soon you are seeing sailing ships and improbable animals and one that might even look like your loopy uncle Skid, although I guess its possible you didn’t have a loopy uncle Skid. We did and he was great. People travel great distances to see the light and sky of other places but we  have that magic right here in our back yard in Colorado. The images that follow were taken from our deck looking west towards Rocky Mountain National Park as we gently eased into sunset.

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As the sun moved further towards the west the light began to take on a reddish hue

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Soon the blue and white was being replaced by reds and yellows and pinks

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and some of the thunderheads were taking on a pronounced bluish-black underside.

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When the sun goes behind the hilltops and ridges the lower parts of the clouds go dark while the upper parts can be brilliantly highlighted.

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Then as full darkness approaches the gold comes out. There is still some blue in the background because the mountains are lower over there and let the last of the sunlight through.

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An explosion of gold and orange and yellows is brought into even greater contrast by the black undersides of this mammoth cloud. That’s the last hurrah, like that incredible finale at a fireworks exhibition. The only thing missing is the William Tell overture playing in the background.

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The sun is completely set and this last look is tinged in blues and purples with rose highlights, the evenings swansong.

Sleepy-eyed Doe

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Watching from the morning mist

Atmosphere is something we all try to make happen in our images when we get a chance. You need the right conditions and of course the light has to be perfect. Fog or mist or even very subdued lighting due to clouds or other weather conditions are a necessary part of creating this effect. But what can be the most important element of all is that serendipitous event that cannot be planned. That special surprise that happens just because you got lucky. While in Rocky Mountain National Park shooting elk one morning I felt something watching me from behind. I turned and found this mule deer doe staring at me from out of the morning mist. There was no wind, the ground was wet from all the moisture in the air and even the birds hadn’t awakened yet. Everything was whisper quiet. After my taking a few quick shots she soundlessly backed into the brush and disappeared. This is one of those straight out of the camera shots that needed no post processing in Photoshop. What I saw is what you get. This shot is absolutely gorgeous as a large print.