Five Colorado Photo Faves

In October 2014 I moved from Texas to Longmont, CO in order to experience the amazing beer culture in Colorado. While there, I fell in love with the mountains and natural beauty of the state and rekindled my interest in photography. These are just five of my favorite photos I took while in Colorado. I hope you enjoy.

1. Reflections of a Mountain Morning

This photo was taken in Longmont, CO near at Golden Ponds Park and Nature Area around 10AM one weekend morning. I had just received my 300mm f/4D telephoto lens and was trying to capture some photos of waterfowl when I stumbled across this landscape reflection in the water. The light seemed perfect, so I quickly swapped over to my 50mm f/1.8D and took several exposures. When I felt like I had captured it right, I took a nine exposure bracket which was later combined in Photoshop and tonemapped in Photomatix Pro.

2. Some Type of Gold Dragonfly Near McIntosh Lake

I went out for a walk/run around McIntosh Lake during the Summer and came across this guy hanging out in the plants next to the water along the thing ’land bridge’ stretch of the lake trail. I had my camera with me and my 105mm f/2.8G macro lens, so I went to town. Not the perfect macro image since this is single exposure, but I think quite nice for hand-held and at a distance. This was color corrected, lens corrected, cropped 1:1, and then sharpened slightly.

3. Meditation Spot on Top of Mount Evans

My good friend Jon came from Texas to visit me in Colorado. While out on a lark to visit some breweries we decided to drive to the top of Mount Evans. Prior to this experience, I don’t think Jon was a believer in elevation sickness, but afterwards I’m pretty sure he changed his mind. It was a gorgeous drive, a ton of fun, and to cap off the day we sat away from the crowds up top and meditated overlooking the Denver skyline far in the distance. I didn’t have a polarizing filter, so it’s hard to see, but to our left there was a rainbow just below the clouds as well. I used our shadows against a nearby rock to lend our presence to the image without us being the focus of the image. Single exposure using the kit lens from a D5500.

4. Large or Small, You’re Either Predator or Prey

I had intended to take photos of bees, since I had been attempting to get one for some time and bees move so much its very difficult to achieve. Long story short, I went walking around downtown Longmont trying to find some bees. I did stumble upon some eventually, but during the course of my walkabout I found this lady bug eating an aphid. Considering how small an aphid is, it’s quite interesting you can see its eyes here. Not as sharp as I’d like, but was taken hand-held in a very awkward position with my 105mm f/2.8G macro lens. This is the type of imagery that really makes me love macrophotography, since it’s something you’d rarely see otherwise. This and other experiences has really taught me to focus on the small stuff. Color corrected, cropped 1:1, and sharpened.

5. Bald Eagle Stoic Raptor Grin

Taken near Lake McIntosh in Longmont along the walking trail closest to the power substation. This Bald Eagle was sitting on top of a telephone pole pretty close by, so I was able to pull out a lot of detail in the image. I had brought tea with me because I was out there to try to recapture a Great Blue Heron that had been in the area the previous week. Instead I found this eagle, and ended up standing there for >4 hours waiting for it to fly so I could get shots of it in flight. Unfortunately, a very rude person continuously interrupted me asking me to take a photo of the mountains behind me for them with my camera, and at one point I turned around to address them and the eagle flew off. This is one of the better stationary photos I captured of it. Taken with a 300mm f/4D, color corrected, lens corrected, cropped, and minimally sharpened.

Well, that’s a wrap. I hope you enjoyed seeing these photos as much as I enjoyed exploring Colorado and taking them.