The thick of winter

The thick of winter. Composite of six images. Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/16, 1/40s, ISO 100

I've photographed this tree many times before. It can be found just above Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It can also be seen in the fully immersive pano I posted a few days ago here that was taken basically from the same position as the above image.

Winter in the rockies

A tree high above Emerald Lake in Tyndall Gorge, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Icy Reflection

This is an image from Emerald Lake that I captured on a hike up to Emerald Lake for sunrise on December 30th of last year. I have posted on this trip before on this blog and I have many images from this that you can already see in my Emerald Lake gallery mixed in with older images. I spent a long time out on the ice this day capturing many images of the ice and reflections on it. I will post more from this extraordinarily beautiful place but for now here is an image created by stitching 9 images from my D600. This image will print wall sized with amazing detail. Click on the image for a larger view.

Emerald Ice Dragon. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On G+.
High resolution composite from 9 images from a Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/16, 1/60s, ISO 100.

Emerald Lake Panorama

I shot this standing on the middle of the blown open area on the ice that you can see in the previous post. This year has been very low in snow and the ice was just wonderfully reflective as you can see. This panorama was 360 degrees around and is shown in a cylindrical projection. When you are standing in this spot, the mountains just tower around you, so this really doesn't do the majesty much justice except when you see it large. It's also great in a panorama viewer but I need to figure out how to embed that on this webpage (preferably without flash or java).


On the ice. Buy a print. On Flickr. On facebook. On Google+.
Stitched from 12 images. Nikon D600, Tokina 11-16 mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/16, 1/60s, ISO 100.

Enter the dragon

This is an image I created a few weeks ago going up to Haiyaha and Emerald in gorgeous Rocky Mountain National Park on a gorgeous (albeit cold) morning. This image was created in the early morning hours that provide great light for landscape photography. In this location, due to its shelter in the Tyndall gorge, the light stays nice for quite a while in winter affording lots of great photographic opportunities. The purplish color in the sky is due to the some hazy clouds in the air. I really like the contrast between the cold colors on the ice and the warm colors on the dragon formation.

Enter the dragon. Buy a print. on Facebook. On flickr. On Google+.
High resolution composite of 9 images. Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 50mm, f/16, 1/80 s, ISO 100.

Fault line

Crack in the ice and trapped bubbles on Emerald Lake. I took many images of the cracks and structures in the ice the beautiful morning I was here. When surrounded by grand peaks and vistas don't forget the small details!

fault line. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On G+.
handheld Nikon D600. Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 44mm, f/8.0, 1/25s, ISO 100.

Braving the elements

Braving the Elements - Bristlecone pine on a ledge above Lake Emerald.
Buy a print. On facebook. On Flickr. On G+.
Handheld manual exposure, Nikon D600, Tokina 11-16mm at 16mm (yes it works great full frame at 16mm), 1/30s, f/16, ISO 100.

I found this tenacious survivor on a ledge above Emerald Lake (visible on the right) on last Sunday's sunrise snowshoe in Rocky Mountain National Park. These amazing organisms continue to surprise me in the shapes they have and in the amazing persistence they show in places where little can survive. Some of these are thousands of years old. This tree actually had two jays in it pecking away at the cones. I tried several compositions here but think I like this one best even though it occludes Hallett peak. You can see the gorgeous (and aptly named) Dragon Couloir on the right though in the sunlit area. One this hike I also took many really intriguing (at least to me) images on the ice that I'll share later. I also have more images from Haiyaia than the one I posted yesterday.

Hallett Reflection

Majestic Hallett reflects in Emerald Lake on a rainy and cloudy evening in Rocky Mountain National Park. From the same evening hike as the previous picture was taken.


Hallett Reflection. Buy a print. See on flickr. Google+. Facebook.
Assembled high resolution image from 9 shots using Nikon D300 at 22mm, ISO 400, f/16, 1/4s

Emerald Lake reprise

I went up to Emerald Lake in RMNP yesterday evening with my daughter. Even though this place is a traditional sunrise setting, I know from the geography of this place that in midsummer, it should work as a sunset too. Hallett peak and the ridge to the left should be lit by the setting sun and could create a nice band of light especially when it is cloudy at the same time. This evening looked promising but unfortunately, as happened many times before, the clouds were just too thick for any color. On top of that it started pouring right at sunset and didn't let up the whole time walking down to the car. Still had a great time. I did create the below panorama that I still liked.


Rainy Emerald Evening. Buy a print. See on flickr. See on G+. Large on smugmug.
Stitched from 7 images. Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 at f/16, 1/10s, ISO 400 (forgot to change it ;-) ).

Emerald Lake

Composite of 15 images (see below for the why of this strange number). ISO 100, 18-55 mm at 35 mm, f/14, 1/60s. Click for bigger. Buy a print. Also on flickr.

Last Sunday, I snowshoe'ed up to Emerald Lake in RMNP. My plan was to catch evening light at lake Haiyaha. When I drove in I had a long discussion with the ranger at the entrance station about how the park was not closed. He said that he would have preferred a shutdown because it would make people realize more what was going on in DC. It was nice and sunny at the entrance still. I made my way to the Bear Lake parking lot where there were maybe three cars. The only times I have seen it more quiet were before 4 am. The reason why it was so quiet of course was the fact that it was blowing snow and cold there. Anyway, made my way up to Dream Lake where the windtunnel was in full force. Blazed a track up the side of the hill to get to Haiyaha but after a while decided to turn around as it was just too crazy (I ended up on a very exposed edge with gale winds that were almost blowing me over) and being by myself I didn't want to risk it. So I decided to go up to Lake Emerald.


View Larger Map

Of course there the wind was howling too, but I found a relatively quiet spot where I took a composite pointing in the direction of where I knew Hallett peak was supposed to be. A small break in the clouds provided some color and I generated the above image. Unfortunately halfway through the tripod shifted in the snow and I had to reset. As it was blowing and freezing cold - too cold for my thin gloves I use while shooting - I paid far less attention to composition than I would have liked. Nevertheless I like what came out above. This image will print wall-sized easily. An image you should compare this too is one I shot from almost the same spot years ago:



In the snowy shot above I am standing more or less in front of the trees on the right hand side.

Some other pictures I did with my iPhone. I didn't use it much as you need to touch your screen with your bare fingers to take a picture.


Outerworldy glow. Somewhere slightly above Nymph lake.


Red, White, and green. The red really struck my eye coming by this. This is between Dream and Emerald lake.


Didn't make it. There are lots of beautiful gnarly trees around Emerald lake as can be seen in this older image.

More from Emerald Lake

Going through my Lightroom library I was struck by another image from Emerald Lake. I worked it up and put it on my site. Enjoy!

redone 360 degrees panorama from Emerald Lake

I redid an old panorama I made of Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park several years ago. Much more aggressive development (read higher contrast) and I am using a cylindrical projection that looks much better on a flat web page than the original equirectangular projection. This looks very good in the link behind the picture which will give you a bigger view.



On flickr here.

Redid sunrise panorama

I just redid a sunrise 360 degrees fully immersive panorama I made at Emerald Lake. I combined multiple sets sets of exposures for this result. The old version had the sunlit area blown out.

I turned this into a nice QTVR too, but I don;t have a good place to host that yet. I'll post it when I do. When I took these photos, I hiked up from the trailhead far before sunrise. Always fun, especially when it is snowy and icy ;-). For these 360 degree panoramas, I use the awesome 10.5 mm fisheye and a homebuilt device that can be seen here:



I stitch using the awesome open source/freeware hugin using enblend.