Fairview Reservoir, December 2014

I've been itching to shoot a sunrise or sunset in my TrailMark neighborhood for a while. The timing is tough on weekday mornings with getting the kids ready for school -- I've looked out my window and seen more than one sky full of colorful clouds when I simply didn't have time to get out and shoot it. I tried this past Sunday, but conditions were too uniformly overcast for anything interesting.

Skies looked promising this afternoon, with mostly clear skies and just enough clouds to add some interest. So I headed over to Fairview Reservoir about 3:30 to see what might transpire.

I was initially a little nervous when the only substantial cloud was right in front of the setting sun.  But there was just enough space between the bottom of the cloud and the foothills for the sun to peek through and provide a nice starburst effect.

The pond is mostly frozen over, but the waterfowl still enjoy one little section of open water.

A number of Canada Geese came in for the night.  I should have bumped up the ISO when they did to shoot at a faster shutter speed and freeze their movement a little more crisply.  But I still like their silhouettes against the sky.

I found it funny that some of the geese didn't actually land in the water, but instead skidded to a halt on the ice and gingerly walked over.

It wasn't the most vibrant sunset in terms of color, but eventually some pinks and oranges did show themselves.

The ice had an interesting pattern that was brought out by the fading light, so I thought a shot with a lot of foreground was in order to showcase that texture.

Crisp and cold conditions resulted in the typical numb fingers when I finally packed up.  But they were a small price to pay for the chance to shoot another beautiful Colorado sunset!