Besides
climbing another 14er, the other outdoorsy thing I really wanted to do on our recent trip to Colorado was get some good mountain goat pictures on Mount Evans. The
Front Range Wildlife Photographers Facebook group had been blowing up for a few weeks with shots of kids; it seemed that 2017 had seen a bumper crop of babies, and I wanted in on the action!
During our visit last summer the goats had mostly eluded me. So I did a little research and realized that I'd probably gone up a little too late in the morning. If I was going up early in the morning, I might as well go up a little earlier and shoot the sunrise, right?
Of course, right.
The chosen sunrise location:
Mount Goliath Natural Area. The bristlecone pines fascinate me, and I thought I could get an interesting shot with one in the foreground. Unfortunately, after a little scrambling around I couldn't quite find the spot I'd envisioned in my head. Fortunately, there was no shortage of spots that were beautiful in their own right.
Smoke from the
Breckenridge wildfires to the west not only added nice color but also drew the sunrise out longer than normal.
The scene didn't suffer from the relative dearth of clouds, like a sunrise and sunset often can. Again, the smoke in the air ensured there was plenty of color even without many clouds.
The previous two shots are both three-exposure composites. But as the sun climbed higher the contrast between sky and foreground lessened, and I found I liked this single shot better than the bracketed blend. The composition seems to lend itself well to a magazine cover! So if you know anyone at
Outdoor Photographer, please have them give me a call. :)
Once the sunrise show had ended I turned my attention to the
bristlecone pines, looking for some dramatic views of these ancient giants in the warm light of golden hour.
Even downed trunks still possess a quiet strength and majesty.
I would have likely benefited from a scouting trip to identify some striking subjects, but still found some nicely gnarled specimens.
The oldest living bristlecones here are estimated to be about 1,600 years old. Impressive, but mere babies compared to some true old-timers in California believed to be have been growing for 3,000 years -- albeit slowly.
I'm no arborist, but I'm fairly certain this tree is dead. Still cool-looking, though.
I had the subjects and lighting I wanted up a little higher. In hindsight, I should have dropped my perspective to isolate this tree and the previous one from their backgrounds a bit more. But the whole process of researching, shooting, evaluating, and then hopefully improving my technique the next time out is what I love about nature photography!
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