Most memorable images from 2016

1. January 31

Pristine. Sunrise at Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 22mm, F/16, 1/3s, ISO 100.
It's a great idea to look back upon a year and choose one's favorite images. I've been going through my images from this year over the last few weeks and, although the year is not over yet, have come up with some favorites or most memorable images. Some of these are not necessarily the best images but they are images that I am fond of. The image above for example was taken on a solo snowshoe hike in #RMNP Jan 31, 2016 where I encountered deeper snow conditions than I'd ever seen in the park. I was the first person up there with pristine snow everywhere (also unplowed road to the trailhead ;-) ) and it was gorgeous. The sunrise didn't materialize much but I got some good images anyway such as the iconic tree above. I also generated several photosphere panoramas that you can see on Google maps. Be sure to drag your mouse all around as these are fully immersive 360x180 spherical panoramas and they really convey what it is like to be there.

• Here is for example Dream Lake. 
• This is my other favorite tree that you can find somewhat above Lake Emerald.
• This is me at Lake Emerald.
• On the way to Lake Hayiaha.

You can find more images from Dream lake, Emerald Lake and Lake Hayiaha in the links.

2. February 21

A river of rock. Calhan Paint Mines.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 22mm, F/8, 1/15s, ISO 100. Focus stack from 5 images to get everything in pristine focus front to back.
I visited the stunning and fairly unknown Calhan Paint mines that are hidden in a little town-run interpretive park for a sunrise on Feb 21, 2016. Since the last time that I was there 100's of very impressive wind mills were added all around it but luckily the views were not spoiled. This is truly an extraordinary place and well worth a visit if you're ever near Colorado Springs. You can find an immersive panorama that I made the same morning in this link.

3. March 13

Radiance. Matthews/Winters park.
Stitch from 4 images from Nikon 1 J4, 10-30 mm f/3.5-5.6 at 10 mm, f/4, 1/400s, f/4.0
I took this photograph on a short hike with my wife and son over Dakota ridge. I ride this on my bike often and it is a beautiful trail. Here we were hiking back to the trailhead and we came upon this scene with clouds lit by sunset light. I often like struggling trees as you can tell.

4. May 13

Golden Dawn. Chautauqua Park, Boulder open space.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 16mm, F/8, 1/30s, ISO 800. Focus stacked.
I was scouting Chautauqua park on May 13, 2016 for a sunrise photography class I would lead the next morning. This is one of the vantage points I identified there. The flowers are fantastic in spring in this place. The next morning was rain and fog the whole time which made for very different but still very interesting images as you can see next. I also hiked up to the royal arch this morning and made a few immersive panoramas there that can be experienced here and here.

5. May 14

Forest scene. Chautauqua Park, Boulder open space.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 72mm, F/8, 1/80s, ISO 450.
I got many images like this the morning of May 14. So different from the day before.

6. June 24

Fairytale Forest. Boulder Brook, Rocky Mountain National Park.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 16mm, F/16, 1s, ISO 100.

This little micro landscape scene can be found along one of my very favorite places in Rocky - Boulder Brook trail. It is reached from the Storm pass trailhead and the nicest parts are hidden from view from the trail but you can easily hear the little waterfalls. In autumn this place gets covered with aspen leaves that make it look like somebody scattered gold coins all around.

7. June 24

Longs glow. Rocky Mountain National Park.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 48mm, F/16, 1/3s, ISO 100.
The same day as I shot the small forest scene above I drove up to Forest Canyon overlook along Trail Ridge road and enjoyed sunset as it hit Longs peak. Truly a magnificent end of the day.

8. June 25

The ancient one. Mount Evans.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 18mm, F/16, 1/40s, ISO 100.
This image is from a sunrise on Mount Evans in the Mt. Goliath area. When the sunrise didn't materialize much, I hiked around and followed the trail up the mountain and found this tree being backlit by soft morning light. I made the sun peek through some holes in the tree branches and stopped down to f/16 to cause the sunstar to appear. This lens also has the fascinating property that next to sunstars it will show nice diffraction rainbows that are easily visible if you look at the print and even in this web sized version. You can see this image in the rotunda of the Colorado state capitol building for a few more months.

9. July 16

Ice Lake Dusk. Ice Lakes Basin, San Juan Mountains, Colorado.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 18mm, F/16, 20s, ISO 100.
This image was taken on a night I spent in Ice Lakes Basin near Silverton. This is a stunningly beautiful place with seas of wildflowers, gorgeous glacially fed lakes, and rugged peaks. I was here to photograph star trails as you can see in this image. I like this image a bit better than the star trails image due to the streakiness of the clouds. If you look carefully you will spot a yellow tent on the shelf on the right. I made a time lapse of the individual images in the star trails image but I haven't shared this anywhere yet.

10. September 30

Ephemeral Glow. Bierstadt Moraine, Rocky Mountain National Park.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 34mm, F/11, 1/40s, ISO 400.
This image is from a wonderful fall sunset hike I took with my son up to Lake Bierstadt and back. We hiked up the Moraine which was covered in aspen trees that were in full fall regalia. I took many images but this is one of my favorites for sure. Afterwards we had a great mexican dinner in Estes Park.

11. September 30

Night on the Moraine. Bierstadt Moraine, Rocky Mountain National Park.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, F/8, 30s, ISO 100.
This is from the same fall sunset hike as the previous image. This was way after sunset when we were hiking down. The very long exposure caused the lights from one of the RMNP busses to smear out causing the little S in the center. The dusk light really deepened the color of the fall leaves.

12. October 23

Curving. Chasm Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park.
Stitched from 3 images. Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 16mm, F/16, 1/6s, ISO 100.
On October 23 I hiked up to Chasm Lake together with my good friend Jean-David to see the sunrise. We discovered many small patches of ice on the edge of the lake and I used this one as a nice foreground element. The blobs are drops hanging from the bottom of the ice. This was a glorious morning in an amazing place. I also created an immersive panorama that you can experience in this link.

I hope you enjoyed this series of images as much as I enjoyed showing them to you! Happy holidays and a happy new year to all.

Gate keepers

It's been a daunting task to keep up with the images that are being ingested into Lightroom. I have a set of images to share from the Great Sand Dunes, which I visited back in April. I've only shared some fully immersive panos from that trip but I haven't shared much in the way of actual images. See an example of one of such immersive panoramas here. Worse, I haven't been able to share many of my images from a trip to White Pocket in 2014! The best images from that trip except for the ones in the link are still locked up in my Lightroom catalog. At the same time, some revelations in digital imaging as well as the new panorama tools in Lightroom have made me go back to even earlier times. The image I share below for example was taken on October 31 in 2009 in Zion National Park while exploring the Narrows with my friend Dave. We were there just on the cusp of fall color hitting and once in a while we would find trees in the canyon that were in color like the one on the right here while the one on the left is still mostly green. We were in full wetsuits and at places we had to hold our gear above our heads as the water was near our shoulders. I was reminded of these images and the trip while hearing about the tragic deaths that occurred in the slot canyons in this beautiful park just recently. The image below is a stitched high resolution composite of 9 images along the gorgeous Virgin river in the park just a few days ago. I shot this with my D300 camera using the kit lens using my old homemade panoramic head. I stitched this using the new panoramic tools in Lightroom and edited and cropped. The native image is 7530x7530 pixels or 57 megapixels as I cropped from the full stitched image for a better composition. I hope you enjoy the image

Gate Keepers. Zion National Park. Oct 31, 2009. Stitch from 9 images, Nikon D300, Nikon 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 at 35mm, f/16, 2.0s, ISO 200.

Some late fall color on the Eaglesmere Lake Trail

Quite a while ago (the 28th of September) I went on a nice fall color hike with the cmc photography section. There was fresh snow on the ground and the fall colors were peak this day so it was just glorious. We hiked along the Eaglesmere Laker trail mostly as there some great aspen groves along it. Highly recommended if you want to catch fall color next year.

Looking up. The color was just radiant with the crowns of the tree sunlit, but the ground not.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/10, 1/125s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and prints. On flickr. On Facebook.

Geometric. A slightly different perspective to the previous scene.

Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/11, 1/100s, handheld.
Bigger and prints.

The glow. The sunstar might be hard to see in this small image but it has a full 18 points! I also love the oranges in the leaves.

Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/16, 1/50s, ISO 100.
Bigger and Prints. On Facebook, On Flickr.

Eagles Nest peak framed by trees.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 55mm, f/16, 1/50s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and Prints. On flickr. On Facebook.

Orange moon.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 85mm, f/8.0, 1/40s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and Prints. On Facebook. On Flickr.

Radiance.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/16, 1/60s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and Prints. On Facebook. On flickr.

The Spring of Winter.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 80mm, f/8.0, 1/25s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and Prints. On Flickr. On Facebook.

I have some more nice images to share from this trip but for now 7 images will have to do ;-). I hope you enjoyed them. I certainly enjoyed taking them. Check out the Facebook and Flickr links to explore some more.

The river bend

I am going through a lot of old images that I didn't fully appreciated before. This one is of a bend in the Virgin river in the Wall Street area of the Zion National Park Narrows.

Around the bend. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On Google+.
High resolution composite stitched from 9 images. Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55mm at 24 mm, f/16, 1.3s, ISO 200. I made several versions of this image, several of which are in the Zion gallery on my smugmug site.

Narrows reflection

I recently found this image from the Narrows in Zion National Park while going through my Lightroom library. The image is a composite of 9 images to create a very high resolution image and I hadn't noticed while shooting it that I had blown out (i.e. it was overexposed outside of the range of the camera's sensor) the cliff in the back. At the time, Lightroom wasn't able to bring these back to anything resembling nice color so I never bothered stitching the images. However the latest Lightroom versions are far better at this and surprisingly by just dialing back the exposure slider a little on the individual raw files, suddenly a blue sky showed up and detail in the rock appeared. So after some stitching and editing (mostly some dodging and burning) the image below was created that I am very happy with.

Narrow reflection. Buy a print. Image on flickr. Image on facebook. On Google+
High resolution composite from 9 images from Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55mm at 24 mm, f/16, 0.6s, ISO 200.

Another Eldo sunset

Monolith. Buy a print.
Stitched from 5 handheld images. Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 100
On flickr. On facebook.

Fall Drama in Glacier Gorge

Glacier Gorge Fall Drama. Buy a print. Image on flickr. Facebook.
Nikon D300. Nikkor 18-200 mm at 18mm, 1/250s, f/8, ISO 200.

Mills Lake sunset

I went to catch the sunset at Mills Lake with my daughter a few weeks ago. Haven't had time since then to post the pictures here.

Sunset at Mills Lake. Buy a print. Also see this image on flickr. Facebook.
High resolution composite from 9 images. Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55mm at 32mm, f/16, 1/6s, ISO 200

Mills Lake horizontal. Buy a print.
High resolution composite from 9 images. Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55mm at 32mm, f/16, 1/6s, ISO 200

More later.

A few more Boston images

Walking between the conference center and the hotel I stayed in, I was able to shoot one or two pictures. I like to stay in hotels that are not too close to the conference center so I get a little walk in going to and from the talks. I'll spare you all the iPhone images from bars and such as they are really only interesting to the people in them. The below is a tree in the same park as the previous post was from:


Radiant. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/80s
Google+ post. Image on flickr.


Nature's bed (I know cliché!). Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/25s
On flickr.


Reflection. Buy a print.
Composite of three images from Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f1.8DX ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/60s
I love how the building becomes sort of radiant because of all the reflections bouncing around in these urban canyons.


Geometric. Buy a print.
Composite of three images from Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f1.8DX ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/60s
This is a different crop of the above image.
On flickr.


Having a smoke. Buy a print.
Composite of four images from Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f1.8DX ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/400s


Corridor. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f1.8DX ISO 800, f/6.3, 1/500s

Fall color in Boston

Spending a few days in Boston (work) and I was amazed to find a bit of fall color left on the trees here.

From 2011-11-27

This came from my phone using the pro HDR app. Just added my name. Not fine art but I thought it was neat.

More fall color in Eldorado Canyon State Park

This image was taken two weeks ago in Eldorado Canyon State park (for earlier pictures from the same outing see here and here). This was quite a while after sunset while I was walking back to my car and the yellow trees were positively glowing.


Blast. Buy a print.
Boring technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 8.0 seconds. Two different developments in Lightroom of the image were combined in enfuse to balance sky and foreground.
Same image on Flickr. Google+ post.

More fall color in Eldorado Canyon

This image was taken at dusk. I have some nice images looking out over the rock formation with sunset glow on them that I will post at a later time. Now fall color is still topical so I'll show that here. This is a followup to the previous post. This waterfall is fairly easy to find right at a pullout to a big bouldering boulder. You have to scramble down a little through some brush and there it is. There are many nice waterfalls in this area but it is often difficult to get a good angle on them. I think this one works.


Dusk fall. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, f/11, 1.0s. 3 stop grad ND to darken the sky. Processed in Lightroom (no HDR).
Relevant Google+ post. Image on flickr.

Fall in Eldorado Canyon State Park

Yesterday, I dropped the little boy off with mom and sis who is selling tickets as a fundraiser for the awesome organization she rides horses with - The Westernaires. She is close to having sold 400 tickets now, which means she will have two chances to win that horse that we have little idea where to keep but we'll deal with that if it actualy happens. I am very proud though that she is working this hard to accomplish her goal with actually fairly little help from us except for giving rides and keeping her company. She is a better sales person than me. Anyway, I did a quick evening run after this to Eldorado Canyon State Park, a very nice park just southwest of Boulder that is famous for its climbing. I posted some winter images from this place before. The picture I will post below is quite different from those images. Even though as I showed before the high country of Colorado is getting snowed on already, the foothills are still in full fall mode. So I went to Eldorado Springs to hunt for a waterfall surrounded by fall foliage as well as to recreate a sunset shot I did with my phone a while ago but with better gear. The latter didn't pan out as I had hoped (I'll post some images anyway when I get to them), but the waterfalls wwere great. The below is one of those images I found.


Fall in Eldorado Canyon State Park. Buy a print
Technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11.5mm, f/16, 0.4s, 3 stop ND and 3 stop grad ND filters to slow down the water and darken the sky. Edited in Lightroom (no HDR here!).
Relevant G+ post. The image on Flickr.

Rocks and reflections in Summit Lake

This was taken a while ago at Summit Lake below Mount Evans. I shot much more the other way too, but right now I just wanted to show this image.


Summit Lake rocks and Mount Warren. Buy a print.
Technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/8.0, 30s, circular polarizer.

Same image on flickr.
Google+ post.

Fall comes to the foothills

Snapped this using my iPhone on my daily bike ride a few days ago. I used the HDR pro app to combine two exposures to avoid the blue sky from blowing out.


Also see the relevant Google+ post.

Fall color in unconventional places

From Sunday's hike to Two RIvers Lake in RMNP. I noticed these tiny leaved plants on the forest floor had gorgeous yellow and orange colors. On my way down I shot a few images of it. Most very long exposures as it was getting quite dark quickly.


The forest floor comes alive. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/8, two exposures of 1/4s and 2.0s blended manually in Photoshop. Originals developed in Lightroom.

I really like the color contrast here with the greens from the trees, the yellows and reds from the shrubbery, the sunset colors and the blues in the sky.


A bed for tired bears. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 4.0s. Original raw file developed in Lightroom.


Fallen giant. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 2.5s. Original raw file developed in Lightroom.


Patches. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 15s. Original raw file developed in Lightroom.

There was a lot of fall color in the park but I thought it was nice to see images that did not involve seas of aspen once in a while.
Google+ post.

Boulder brook - Fall color in RMNP

This last Sunday I was working on finishing up a book chapter that I was already behind on on the deadline. I finished it somewhere Sunday morning, so I had some time in the afternoon to go out. So I set off for RMNP to see some fall color. Last year I visited Boulder Brook and I wanted to do this again as it was gorgeous. This is a small stream that runs along aptly named Boulder Brook trail for a while. It is only a short way from the trailhead, but I decided to explore the entire trail as it was still some time before sunset. It turns out that the most interesting parts I think are at the bottom in the part where the brook can only be heard from the trail, so a little bushwhacking is involved.


The red, the yellow and the green. Buy a print.
Stitched from 9 images (3 rows of 3) shot at 35 mm using the 35 mm f1.8 DX. ISO 200, f/16, 4s.

I love the red roots from the mosses that grow beside the trail. The color contradicts very nicely with the yellow of the fallen aspen leaves. I now realize that this is close to the same view (but more intimate) of an image that I shot last year in the rain, which can be found here and is described in a previous blog post.

A second viewpoint is here:


The thin blue line. Buy a print.
Stitched from 9 images (3 rows of 3) shot at 35 mm using the 35 mm f1.8 DX. ISO 200, f/16, 2.5s.

Walking back I saw some great color up in the sky, but arrived at the trailhead just too late for the really gorgeous sunset colors. Nevertheless I shot a quick pano that I will include below.


The gorge. Buy a print.
Assembled from 8 shots (4 each two and a half stops apart) at 35 mm, f/8.0, 1/5s - 1s, ISO 200.

Due to the vertical format of this blog, I had to make the image small. You can get a very large view of it by clicking on it.