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.

Warm gorge

Two weeks ago, I went for a little sunset hike up Lake Haiyah and ended up in a blizzard up at the lake. There is a cellphone shot of this on Facebook. Going back down I shot some pics along the trail. At times there was a little golden hour color visible but I did not think much of the images until today when I loaded them in Lightroom and Aperture. There turn out to be some interesting images in there that I did not realize I had. Here is one of Longs with a hat of clouds basking in warm light.

The gorge. Buy a print. On facebook. On Google+. On flickr.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 72 mm, f/11, 1/80s, ISO 100, on tripod.

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.

50 year anniversary

This month it was 50 years ago that Longs peak's famous east face diamond was first scaled by Dave Rearick and his partner Bob Kamps. The radio had a story on it this morning with interviews with the climbers and here is a nice account on the successful attempt. At the time, the climb was considered so dangerous that the parks service simply did not allow anyone to try. Kamps and Rearick obtained special permission. In honor of the anniversary here are some pictures I took of Longs Peak¹ a while ago.

This is standing below the east face. I can't imagine climbing this thing.


A more traditional view standing on the other side of the lake:


Here are more images. I wrote about the photo excursion that yielded these images some time ago.


¹It always bothered me that the official spelling omits the apostrophe as the USGS mandates for most place names named after somebody.

Chasm Lake at dawn

Prelinks before the post:

• Smugmug gallery of images
• Flickr gallery (includes some extra images)

Last Saturday, I finally was able to get myself out of bed at an ungodly hour of 2 am in order to photograph the sunrise at Chasm Lake. I had been planning to do this for a long time and my research showed that the light was still good, but wouldn't be for very long anymore. Chasm Lake is at the foot of Longs Peak (yes no apostrophe) in Rocky Mountain National Park. I remembered vaguely that it was a good distance hike as I had done it several times before and I had looked around for hiking times. One guide book and a web page mentioned about 3h20m for the 4.2 mile hike, which seemed long to me, but perhaps the altitude makes it more difficult. So I got up at 2 am, turned on the coffee machine and got dressed and hopped into he car hoping that the coffee would keep me awake. It was more the blaring car stereo that did it though. I got at the trailhead parking (which was almost full already as is normal on the weekend) at around 3:30 am, and started hiking at 3:45. Since the sun was going to rise around 6:46, which I knew owing to the GPS and to checking the location in the excellent TPE app programmed by fellow Colorado photographer Stephen Trainor, I thought I'd better hurry if I want to catch the predawn glow. Along the trail which is initially mostly in the forest, I passed many very friendly folks (it's a strangely social event going up this trail around 4 am because of all the people attempting to summit Longs). Up above the treeline, the starry sky was spectacular (moonless night) and I could clearly see the Denver metropolitan area. I scrambled the last few boulders and saw the lake and Longs' diamond face before me. However, it was still very dark. I checked my watch and it was only 5:30 am, still over an hour to go and apparently if you're motivated, 3h20m turns into only 1h45m, giving me plenty of time to check out some locations. I chatted a little with some very cold climbers that had bivouacked there and found some locations right next to the water and waited for the sun to come up.

Waiting for the sun to come, I tried to make some star trail images realized that I did not bring a remote release. This oversight stops one's ability to make bulb exposures so I had to work around this by combining multiple 30 second exposures, with the result that the star trails look like morse code. Next time better I guess. The star trails are more easily visible in the image when you click on it.


Shortly before day break, the sky and mountains started glowing beautifully purple. The image below was taken 20 minutes before sunrise using a 13 second exposure.



Ten minutes later I generated the following high-resolution composite on which you can see the lake more fully as well as the lake shore.



At about 6:46 am this is what it looked like. The mountain was suddenly on fire and the glow contained oranges, reds, and magentas and even bright yellow in the vertical ledge in the middle:



A more close-up view is here:


After about 5 minutes, suddenly the sun disappeared behind a hazy layer for a few minutes and the light turned sullen grey. I was afraid that the good light would be gone already after only a few (but intense) minutes. Here is a link to an image during this grey period. However, this was by far not the end of it, and 5 minutes later, the sun came back with a vengeance. Now the mountain and the lake where bright yellow:



There are some more colorful images on the smugmug gallery.

Looking over my shoulder I could see another photographer shooting further away from the lake but pointing in the same direction (I wonder why?). I wanted to go meet him/her but he/she was already gone when I was ready to move on. So I decided to continue my journey along the north side of the lake towards the bottom of the diamond. This was a hard scramble over a large boulder field, some traversing along a big slab and following a snow field with a deep chasm on the side up. Finally on the tip of a moraine, I took some images looking straight up at Longs using extreme wide angles. Here is a good example:



Amazing that people climb this. I have quite a few friends who have done it, but I can't imagine what it is like not being a technical climber. I could see some climbers going up and if you look at the full res (60 MP+) version of my images you can see people. More clearly could I see climbers going up Lamb's slide to the left:



I had my breakfast up here and headed back. Talked to some climbers I met that were just coming up and snapped some images such as this of the lake and Ship's prow:



Crossing the stream I came upon this view, which unfortunately I had not found before. I think this is the view to get at sunrise:



I converted it to black and white here as I thought it quite dramatic. If you mouse over you can see the color version. The blue of the sky was extremely deep even without polarizers.

On the way down in the forest I noticed some turning Aspen:


I think they provide a nice conclusion to the post.

Fall sunset in RMNP

last wednesday, I decided to take off and go shoot some fall color somewhere. I ended up in our awesome Rocky Mountain National Park, where I saw many beautiful Aspen groves such as this one (click for a bigger version and to buy prints ;-) ): Update 10/16/08: There is also a full set on flickr now.

This is with back illumination which brings out the color in the leaves very well and I pulled up the foreground a little using a grad ND filter.

When I got to the park, I realized that I should just hike to a lake that I photographed years and years ago and that on the map looked like it was ideal for sunset photography - Mills lake. It is a short 3 mile hike from the trailhead and I was in time to make it. It was 4:45 when I started and the sun would set around 6:30 pm. On my way there, I saw many people with big photography gear coming down which surprised me. Don't they know that the best light was still to come? And I can tell you it absolutely did. Strangely enough this is a thing I see quite a bit. To get the best light for the better pictures, you need to sacrifice your dinner or breakfast time and often hike in the dark and cold. The Aspen grove I posted above was just a quarter of a mile onto the trail. This scene was a little further on the trail (much better large):

By this time, the trail had become completely empty and I had the place basically to myself.
Getting closer to Glacier gorge, the sun peeked over the edge of the mountains and illuminated some trees in the valley below:

A little later, I came around the corner to a point where 8-years ago or so we had shot our christmas card photo. The moon was rising above the edge of a nearby mountain that was illuminated by the setting sun. Just spectacular I think:

In the forest after this overlook, there was a beautiful waterfall. After the waterfall, you come accross a rock overlooking the valley. I had taken a picture a long time ago in this same spot that you can compare this to.

After taking some pictures of Longs peak being reflected in a little pre-pond to Mills lake, I reached Mills lake still in time for the sunset. At the headwater side of Mills lake there are many trees lodged into the outlet. I had photographed them in winter. This time around I was struck by the superb reflection of the sunlit peaks in the lake and the geometric shapes the tree trunks made. Here is one example:

I also shot a very high resolution version of this that can be seen here.

This long lens image of Longs peak is striking because of the moon and the beautiful color.

At this point, the sun started setting and the colors took on this amazing red tint:

I love how you can see the reflection of the moon in the water and how the submerged logs take on the sunset color.
Now the sun had set mostly completely and I started walking down the trail. I talked a little to two campers that were going to camp just on the other side of the lake and that were hurrying to get there before it became completely dark. A waterfall begged for my attention and turning around, this amazing scene unfolded:

Seeing scenes like this is like a religious experience. The warm feeling wore off just a little when I realized that I was quite a ways off from the trailhead and that it was becoming dark really quickly. Since I hadn't planned on going on a hike, I had not brought my headlamp, so I walked back the three miles in the moonlight.

That's such a long exposure that the moon moved a bit causing the slightly oblong shape. The white dots are stars coming out. The hike back, notwithstanding the dark was beautiful and serene. I had to use my cell phone's light a few times to check the signs at trailsplits and arrived at my car around 8. I love trips like this.