Little Gem’s

Sometimes certain locations fail to inspire us on our first or second visit. For whatever reason this locations may not click with landscape photographers. Sometimes we have our own preconceived notions on how locations should look and photograph. Essentiall we attempt to exert our will on the landscape instead of allowing the landscape to speak to us. I had previously had this very experience at Gem Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. Learning to relax and let go of the way I thought Gem Lake should photograph allowed me to open up to all the possibilities present. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 AF VR
Sometimes certain locations fail to inspire us on our first or second visit. For whatever reason this locations may not click with landscape photographers. Sometimes we have our own preconceived notions on how locations should look and photograph. Essentiall we attempt to exert our will on the landscape instead of allowing the landscape to speak to us. I had previously had this very experience at Gem Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. Learning to relax and let go of the way I thought Gem Lake should photograph allowed me to open up to all the possibilities present. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 AF VR

I’m guessing that most landscape photographers can relate to this phenomena. You arrive at a naturally beautiful location but have difficulty conveying the location through your images. In other words, the place is just not speaking to you. Two things may occur when this happens. You end up trying really hard to photograph the location only to feel disappointment once you review your images back home. Contrary to the first approach, the second approach may be that you feel completely uninspired by the location, never take your backpack off and you leave your camera packed never to see that light of daylight at said location. Both approaches often leave you feeling frustrated, neither are right or wrong approaches.

I’m a big believer in both visiting a location without a camera when possible as well as an advocate that even if you’re feeling uninspired by a location you should take your camera out and make an attempt to photograph something. It may be difficult to do but sometimes just going through the process of examining and composing fires one’s creative juices and you will find yourself again inspired.

Gem Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park has been one of these locations for me. Gem Lake rests of a small shelf 1.7 miles from the start of the Lumpy Ridge trailhead. It’s a beautiful location in it’s own right and it’s one that many visitors to Rocky Mountain National Park will visit. Gem Lake is very close to Estes Park and the 1.7 mile hike is a fairly easy one. Guidebooks and locals will often recommend this hike to visitors because of the beauty, location and elevation that is lower than many of the other lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park. I often get asked by clients if I have images of Gem Lake in my portfolio for sale, of which I did not. This is because I personally find Gem Lake a difficult location to photograph.

While not your typical grand landscape, the rock walls of Gem Lake offered endless possibilities for photography. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 AF VR
While not your typical grand landscape, the rock walls of Gem Lake offered endless possibilities for photography. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 AF VR

Earlier this week there was a nice low layer of fog hanging over Estes Park before sunrise. I decided to hike up along Lumpy Ridge to get above the fog layer and photograph Longs Peak at sunrise rising above the fog and the town of Estes. I’ve been waiting quite awhile for conditions like this and it’s a fairly uncommon occurrence to get a fog layer low enough to cover Estes Park, but not high enough to obscure Lumpy Ridge. So I was fairly excited as I took off up the trail in the fog. As I’ve written before, fog is one of my favorite conditions to photograph in, but fog is a fickle friend. Minute changes in temperature or wind can cause the fog to move or dissipate so it’s always a gamble trying to figure out where to photograph from.

More often than not fog is not going to do what you want it to do. That was the case this particular morning. By the time I was up above town, most of the fog had cleared off from west to east. Fog remained over Lake Estes and I was even able to capture some moody images of the Stanley Hotel as the fog moved eastward. Beautiful clouds hung over the divide and although I was not going to be able to photograph Longs Peak rising above the fog, I was still able to capture a beautiful sunrise, just not the one I had envisioned. The light on the peaks lasted only about 10 minutes or so before it disappeared again behind some clouds. I was about 1/2 mile from Gem Lake at this point and I decided to continue onward and hike up to Gem Lake if only for an excuse for some more exercise and time outdoors.

I arrived at Gem Lake with no intention of taking off my backpack or photographing the lake. For starters the light was fairly blasé as it was now overcast and about an hour after sunrise. Secondly I had visited Gem Lake numerous times in the past with the intention of photographing this popular location and had come away with less than inspiring results. When I arrived at the lake I did what I normally do when I’m out exploring and hiking. I sat along the shoreline, surveyed my surroundings and just enjoyed the quite and solitude.

The unique coloring and striations of the rocks around Gem Lake are unlike any other found in Rocky. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 AF VR
The unique coloring and striations of the rocks around Gem Lake are unlike any other found in Rocky. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 AF VR

For those that have not visited Gem Lake it’s a unique location in Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s located on the top of a shelf and surrounded by rocky walls that rise up from its sand and gravel shoreline. It has neither and inlet or outlet stream and is essentially a shallow pool of water in a sandy depression. As I sat on the shoreline relaxing I started to study the rocky walls that rise up out of Gem Lake. The striations, colorations and patterns on the rock is unique and each small section of rock had beautiful and intricate patterns. I started to see potential images everywhere and within minutes had my camera and tripod out and I was now inspired and entrenched, photographing the surface of the lake and the rocky walls that rise above its shore.

So after arriving with no intention on breaking out my camera, I was both busy photographing Gem Lake and inspired. This in a location where I had previously found little to photograph. The combination of lowered expectations combined with time spent on locations relaxing and enjoying the scene instead of trying to photograph allowed a breakthrough so to speak. I’ve experienced this many times in the past and found that being able to relax as well as releasing any preconceived notions of how the scene should look and photograph can allow for a creative breakthrough. Although it may sound somewhat corny to some, sometimes you need to let the location speak to you, not the other way around in order to truly see the beauty and uniqueness these natural places all have.

Early Bloomers

While it may be a little early  in the season for wildflowers in Rocky Mountain National Park, flowers are starting to sprout if you take the time to look for them. Currently Mountain Ball Cactus are blooming in the lower elevations of Rocky Mountain National Park. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 105mm f2.8 Micro AF.
While it may be a little early in the season for wildflowers in Rocky Mountain National Park, flowers are starting to sprout if you take the time to look for them. Currently Mountain Ball Cactus are blooming in the lower elevations of Rocky Mountain National Park. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 105mm f2.8 Micro AF.

Spring keeps settling into Rocky Mountain National Park and were as we move through the first week of May. Of course that means it must be time for a winter weather advisory and some heavy snow this weekend. As I write this post it looks like Rocky Mountain National Park, especially the higher elevations above 8000 ft are looking good for some heavy snows over this Mother’s Day weekend. I’m ready for summer and while Rocky is certainly making the transition towards summer, May snowstorms are in fact, common. So with that being said, why not discuss early season wildflower opportunities in the Park.

Rocky’s climate varies tremendously and when people joke about experiencing all four seasons over the course of a few hours in Rocky they are in fact stating a real possibility. One of the things I find most interesting about Rocky Mountain National Park is not only it’s wildly changing weather and temperatures, but the flora and fauna that must endure and exist in this climate 365 days a year. Late spring tends to bring the biggest snowstorms to Rocky Mountain National Park along with some of it’s most unsettled weather. Even with the threat of large snowstorms and large temperature swings one can find some of Rocky’s early season wildflowers on display if they look closely enough.

Pasque flowers are some of the earliest bloomers in RMNP. Look around the base of Ponderosa pines to find them. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 105mm f2.8 Micro AF
Pasque flowers are some of the earliest bloomers in RMNP. Look around the base of Ponderosa pines to find them. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 105mm f2.8 Micro AF

Some of the first and hardiest bloomers in Rocky Mountain National Park are the Pasque flower and the Mountain Ball Cactus. Pasque flowers tend to be the first wildflowers to appear in Rocky Mountain National Park. Typically they can be found in shady areas at or near the base of Ponderosa pine trees. They grow in small groups and their lavender coloration is subtle and much more understated then their summer wildflower brethren. It’s easy to walk right past a Pasque flower without even noticing it’s there. Pasque flowers which are aptly known as ‘Easter Flowers’ tend to start blooming as early as late March right through April. Pasque flowers can still be found in the park though we are nearing the end of Pasque season.

Another early wildflower bloomer is one of my personal favorites, the Mountain Ball Cactus. When we think of Rocky Mountain National Park the first thing that comes to mind is cactus right?, probably not. When most of us think of Rocky Mountain National Park we think of high mountain peaks, alpine tundra, majestic lakes and snow, not so much cactus. Two forms of cactus actually exist in Rocky Mountain National Park, the first being the Prickly Pear Cactus, and the second being the Mountain Ball Cactus.

The Mountain Ball Cactus can also be found in the lower elevations on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park. Mountain Ball Cactus tend to bloom in late April through mid May when the cactus springs back to life after going dormant for the winter. Mountain Ball Cactus are small plants and again are fairly easy to overlook. They tend to grown on southern facing slopes and some one of the best places to find them are in Upper Beaver Meadows and along the south facing slopes of Deer Mountain. Mountain Ball Cactus blooms are small but they produce a very colorful and beautiful pink bloom.

Isolation of the subject is one of the reasons I look using Macro lenses for the early wildflowers such as this Pasque flower in Horseshoe Park. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 105mm f2.8 Micro AF
Isolation of the subject is one of the reasons I look using Macro lenses for the early wildflowers such as this Pasque flower in Horseshoe Park. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 105mm f2.8 Micro AF

Photographing Pasque flowers and Mountain Ball Cactus can be challenging. Many photographers will simply ignore these wildflowers, preferring to wait for the summer blooms. When photographing Mountain Ball Cactus and Pasque flowers one has to work a little harder to be creative and capture images that display these wildflowers understated beauty. Unlike the summer wildflowers, one is not going to find fields or large groupings of either of these flowers. You are also not going to be able to create classic near/far compositions of wildflowers in the foreground and mountains in the background. Photographers will need to concentrate on the flowers themselves to create compelling imagery.

I personally like to use a dedicated Macro lens to photograph these blooms. While I don’t often use a dedicated Macro lens when photographing wildflowers, I find these understated wildflowers conducive to Macro photography. Using a dedicated Macro lens in the 100mm range l allows for photographers to eliminate distraction and uninteresting portions of the scene. I like to experiment with my aperture, often using smaller f-stops and apertures to blur the background and allow the focus to be on the wildflowers themselves.

I’m not advocating using only a dedicated Macro lens to photograph these wildflowers, by all means experiment with other lenses in your kit. I am however, advocating to keep an eye out for some of the more subtle and understated beauty in Rocky Mountain National Park. Yes it’s still early in the season for wildflowers but even so there are small pockets of beauty to be found if one just takes the time to look for it.

Navigating Springtime In Rocky

Springtime is a loosely defined term in Rocky Mountain National Park. Spring in Rocky Mountain National Park can mean warm weather and thawing lakes it streams. It can also mean snow, rain or a likely combination of both. This image of Bierstadt Lake from last week is a good example of spring in Rocky Mountain National Park. Snow had fallen the previous two days on Bierstadt Lake but the lake remained open and free of ice. Just a small sliver of the sun at sunrise pierced the horizing making the snow caked pines glow red in the beautiful but brief light show at dawn. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 16-35mm F4 ED VR
Springtime is a loosely defined term in Rocky Mountain National Park. Spring in Rocky Mountain National Park can mean warm weather and thawing lakes it streams. It can also mean snow, rain or a likely combination of both. This image of Bierstadt Lake from last week is a good example of spring in Rocky Mountain National Park. Snow had fallen the previous two days on Bierstadt Lake but the lake remained open and free of ice. Just a small sliver of the sun at sunrise pierced the horizing making the snow caked pines glow red in the beautiful but brief light show at dawn. Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 16-35mm F4 ED VR

After what seemed liked a mostly mild winter followed by an above average month of precipitation in April, spring and the coming approach of summer are becoming readily apparent in Rocky Mountain National Park. This time of year in Rocky is not only transitional, but dynamic and greatly varied.

Stretches of mild and warm days in Rocky can be quickly followed by weather systems that bring cold and snow back to the park. Conditions also vary greatly based on elevation right now. The lower elevations of the park such as Moraine Park, Horseshoe Park and Beaver Meadows are all but free of snow. The Big Thompson as well as Fall River are starting to run swiftly with the spring snow runoff. Grasses are greening in the lower elevations and some wildflowers are just starting to bloom.

Move on up in elevation to places like Dream Lake and spring is not quite as apparent in the higher elevations of Rocky Mountain National Park. Currently about half of Dream Lake is covered under a sheet of ice. The remaining layer of ice should start to melt of quickly moving forward but unsettled weather all week is likely to slow progress. The east inlet of Dream Lake is open though much of the shoreline is still covered in snow. Nymph and Bear Lakes are still mostly covered with ice while lakes such as Sprague Lake, Bierstadt Lake and Cub Lake are now open and free of ice.

More signs of spring with Cub Lake thawed and green grasses growing along the edge of Cub lake. Soon the Pond Lillies that adorn Cub Lake during the warmer months will begin to grow and bloom.  Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 16-35mm F4 ED VR
More signs of spring with Cub Lake thawed and green grasses growing along the edge of Cub lake. Soon the Pond Lillies that adorn Cub Lake during the warmer months will begin to grow and bloom.Technical Details: Nikon D810, Nikkor 16-35mm F4 ED VR

National Park Service crews are busy working on Trail Ridge Road clearing all the snow from the winter. With a little luck from the weather, Trail Ridge should be open again by May 22nd if there are not any major setbacks from late spring snowstorms. Having Trail Ridge Road back open not only signals the start of the summer season, but it opens up a lot of new opportunities for photography.

So as of right now, many seasonal changes are taking place in Rocky Mountain National Park. Lakes are thawing, grasses are greening and wildflowers are beginning to bloom in some of the lower areas of the park. Keep in mind that conditions can and do change quickly this time of year. After a few temperate days, winter may descend right back on the park coating the landscape in white, freezing over the lakes and making the trials difficult to navigate.

So when it comes to photography my advice is to stay flexible and try to keep a handle on the changing and variable conditions. Look for dramatic sunrises unfolding over some of the now unfrozen lakes. If it’s rainy or gray be prepared to use the diffused light to your advantage and photograph moving water and waterfalls. Keep and eye out for newly budded aspen tree’s who’s beautiful and glowing translucent green spring leaves do not get nearly the amount of love they do when they turn golden in the fall. In a nutshell be prepared for just about any and all types of photography and embrace Rocky’s topsy turvy season known as spring.