Month: January 2020

Nature First


Working as both a professional photographer and photography guide in Rocky Mountain National has great rewards. I get to spend much of my time out in the natural and wilderness areas of Rocky Mountain National Park hiking, photographing and most importantly, showing other photographers and visitors to Rocky Mountain National Park, the pristine beauty of this 400 square mile protected land.

Thankfully, for people such as John Muir and Enos Mills we have this place no known as Rocky Mountain National Park accessible and preserved for my generation and future generations. The foresight of those who have preserved these natural areas has now been passed on to future generations and it is now our stewardship to continue to protect, preserve and educate others on the importance of wilderness and wild places. I’ve been photographing Rocky Mountain National Park since 1998.

In that time I have seen tremendous changes not only to Rocky Mountain National Park, but to all the National Park and natural areas I visit. In that time, Rocky has gone from about 3 million visitors a year to nearly 5 million visitors a year. Most of those visitors come to Rocky in a 7 month period, so the increase in visitation is readily apparent throughout the park.

As a photographer and guide, I struggle with my impact and my businesses impact on a place I greatly love. In recent years I have made an attempt to educate my photography tour clients on Leave No Trace principles, impact to sensitive locations and leaving things better than you find them. I make every attempt to visit locations in the park at times when impact will be minimized. For the most part, most of my clients are as aware and concerned with their impact on wild places as I am. I find it just as important to help clients understand the importance of Leave No Trace principles as it is to help them along their photographic journey.

The Leave No Trace orginization has done a great job to help educate visitors on the proper protocols to adhere to when visiting sensitive wilderness and wild areas. With that said, a group of photographers here in Colorado have decide to take it a step further and come up with additional principles for photographers to be mindful of when out in the places we not only photograph, but love.

My friends Scott Bacon and Erik Stensland enlisted the help of a handful of other photographers here in Colorado and they created both the Nature First Organization as well as the 7 principles of Nature First.

These 7 principles the Nature First group created came through long discussions and meetings. They are designed not to scold photographers or prevent from photographers from going to the places they love, but instead to remind photographers to be mindful when out in wild places as well as to help educate others who may not be aware of their impact on sensitive areas.

Moving forward with both my photography, as well as guiding photographers in RMNP, I will be adhering to both Leave No Trace guidelines as well as the 7 principles Nature First has created.

To be perfectly clear, I strongly believe these public lands were designed to be cherished and visited by all. They act as places that refresh and renew the soul. It’s important that we continue to use and access these gifts our predecessors had the foresight to protect for future generations.

At this stage, It’s become vitally important that we not love them to death or create situations where access is limited or restricted. Thats not the answer, but it will always be the easiest solution when our impact overwhelms both the land and those responsible for protecting the land. Nature First helps to not only educate fellow landscape photographers, but more importantly, keeps us from becoming the problem when visiting places we love.

Edward Abbey once wrote the following about protecting wilderness, “A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it.” Abbey’s word as important today as when he wrote them over sixty years ago.

Nature First has done a great job bringing this to the forefront of the landscape and wildlife photography community. I strongly recommend you visit the Nature First website to not only educate yourself on the seven principles, but also become a member.

THE NATURE FIRST PRINCIPLES

1.Prioritize the well-being of nature over photography.

2.Educate yourself about the places you photograph.

3.Reflect on the possible impact of your actions.

4.Use discretion if sharing locations.

5.Know and follow rules and regulations.

6.Always follow Leave No Trace principles and strive to leave places better than you found them.

7.Actively promote and educate others about these principles

Out On The Ice

As we head into the end of January and move towards February in Rocky Mountain National Park, the weather has remained mild and uneventful. For photographers, this can cause frustration. While I know the weather will soon change in Rocky, I’ve been keeping busy working on less glamourous projects in the park. Ice is always a great subject to photograph in the middle of winter. I captured this vignette of grasses frozen in the ice in the meadow of Moraine Park earlier this week. Photographers have pleny of compositions to work with like this if they open their mind to all the potential in more intimate scenes. Technical Details: Nikon Z7, Nikkor 24-70mm F4 S lens

It’s hard to believe but we are almost done with the first month of 2020 already. In what typically seems like one of the slower months of the year as I try to get back into my routines and move forward on new projects after the holidays, January has flown by.

Frankly it been a fairly uneventful month for photography both in the Boulder area as well as in Rocky Mountain National Park. The reason for the lack of excitement so far in January?, mild, boring weather for us photographers.

I can remember some dry Januarys, but his January has been nearly devoid of any weather other than wind and the temperatures have been very mild and pleasant. Great for hiking and outdoor activities but not great for dramatic skies, fresh snow on the pine trees or mountain peaks cloaked snow and clouds.

As is usually the case, I suspect at some point here in the near future, the weather will change and I’ll be lamenting all the snow and cold as I eagerly await the spring and summer months in Rocky Mountain National Park.

I’ve been out a fair amount working on different projects and keeping myself busy trying to stay creative. This time of year is typically my slowest in regards to taking photography tour clients out in the field, so I have more time than usual to work on personal projects. Of course having time to photograph personal projects is great, but it can also be a little frustrating when the weather and elements are not cooperating.

Keeping an open mind, there is always tons of subjects to photograph in Rocky Mountain National Park even in the middle of an otherwise uneventful winter. I’ve been splitting my time between photographing buildings, cabins and other ‘hand of man’ subjects and landscape and wildlife when the opportunity presents itself.

One great subject when the weather is bland in RMNP is ice. In the middle of winter, most photographers head up to Dream Lake to photograph the after the famous winds of Rocky quickly blow fresh snow from the surface. While any of the high lakes in Rocky are great for ice, there are lots of areas in Rocky in winter that require less effort to get to and will present some unique opportunities.

I photographed the image above in Moraine Park just before sunrise. A large frozen expanse of water in a flat area of Moraine Park has frozen over from the freeze and thaw cycle that this mild winter has afforded. Unlike the ice up at Dream Lake, this flat plain in Moraine Park has lots of grass frozen within the ice. This made for some interesting perspectives and compositions that one usually would not expect to find at the high mountain lakes which are devoid of frozen grasses.

With these images of ice, one pretty much has limitless compositions available to them. Between the grasses, the fractures in the ice, bubbles, frozen snow, etc., be prepared to spend a good amount of time photographing the details.

I often use my 100mm Micro/Macro lens to photograph the details in the ice, but my 24-70mm F4s lens on my Z7 focuses down almost to a 1:3 ratio. I find this just about perfect for ice compositions. I also like to shoot the ice when its still in shade and the skies above are blue. Those blue skies will refract in the surface of the ice and give it a blue hue. One can adjust their white balance to taste, but I find using a normal daylight white balance in the 4900-5300 K range will really allow the contrast between the white ice, and blue skies to show in the composition.

One other quick tip. Try to keep your sensor plane flush with the flat surface of the ice. When I take clients out to photograph the ice I find they often want to shoot the ice with their camera and sensor not flush to the surface of the ice. While this is a natural inclination for many photographers, you will find that getting all of the ice in focus will be very challenging and that the out of focus area where the sensor plane is not aligned will be distracting to the overall composition. I think my years of photographing with a large format 4×5 camera helped me to understand the importance of both alignment and depth of field, but for many its important to stress simple compositions that are flush with the sensor and lens. Less is more most of the time with ice.

So while I expect the weather to change as we march towards spring and I look forward to photographing Rocky after some fresh snow, keep your mind open and look to photograph some of the more subtle subjects such as ice and or man made objects until the conditions become more favorable for grand landscapes.

Sunrise On Lake Estes

With snow squalls blowing over Rocky and the wind howling, I headed east of downtown to Lake Estes to photograph sunrise this morning. With open water, geese and some beautiful light at sunrise, Lake Estes was just the elixir I needed after what seems like lots of bland sunrises and weather so far this January. Technical Details: Nikon Z7, Nikkor 24-70mm F4 S lens

In what seems like has been few and far between, we finally had a really nice sunrise this morning in Estes Park. The weather so far this January has been mostly mild and tame. While up on the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park there has been some snow this month, its mostly been wind or clear blue skies. For January, the weather has been awesome. Mild, sunny and we’ve been absent the arctic cold snaps that typically make an appearance or two this month.

I’ve been watching the weather intently these past few weeks looking for something interesting to happen. A nice dumping of snow, a dramatic sunrise, any of that would work. For whatever reason things just have not come to fruition.

Like a baseball player mired in a slump, you always know if you just keep heading out eventually your luck will change. So while I’ve been getting skunked at sunrise of late, I’ve used the time to work on other projects in the park that are more conducive to flat, diffused lighting. In particular I’ve been documenting the remaining man made structures still remaining in Rocky. While I’ve recently added a gallery depicting some of this work, this is a project I continue to enjoy when conditions are not optimal for landscape photography. You can find this new gallery and project at this link. Man, Nature and Rocky Mountain National Park

The prospects for sunrise this morning looked pretty good in RMNP. As I headed into the park long before sunrise, things did not look as good as I though they might. The mountains were shrouded in snow and the wind was howling. Snow was falling, but not enough to cover anything. If we had a sunrise it certainly looked like the clouds and squalls floating over Rocky Mountain National Park would likely obscure any light and color. Besides, even if I wanted to photograph the mountains, they were covered in clouds.

I headed down to Lake Estes east of Rocky and downtown Estes Park to see what would happen. It looked pretty dicey, but about 15 minutes before sunrise the skies to the east of Estes Park exploded in color. Lake Estes is only about half frozen right now so the open water helped to exacerbate the beautiful sunrise.

So while I was looking forward to photographing inside of Rocky Mountain National Park, the consolation prize along the shores of Lake Estes wasn’t bad either. More importantly, here’s to hoping the weather pattern is about to change and start to make things a lot more interesting.

Interview On The Landscape Photography Show Podcast

A few weeks back I was interviewed by David Johnston for the podcast he produces, ‘The Landscape Photography Show’. I’ve been a big gan of David’s photography as well as a listener to his podcasts for years dating back to his original set of interviews prior to this latest incarnation of his show.

We had a great discussion about a wide range of topics related to landscape photography, life, business and some other interesting topics as well. It’s always fun to be interviewed, and podcasts are a personal favorite of mine. Spending countless hours traveling and in vehicles, podcasts help to fill a lot of time for me when I cant be out in the field photographing or working with clients.

If you would like to hear the podcast and interview, follow the link at the bottom of the page. If you follow my work or are interested in heading out into Rocky Mountain National Park with me on a photography tour or workshop, you can get a little better feel of who I am and how photography, or more specifically landscape photography has played an important part in my life.

Regardless, I highly recommend you subscribe to David’s Landscape Photography Show and check out the long line of interviews he’s conducted with some of the heavy hitters in the landscape photography genre. It’s a great show and a fun listen.

The Landscape Photography Show Podcast With Thomas Mangan

Link To Interview On iTunes

Great Start To 2020

2019 went out with more of a whimper than a bang for me, mostly due to mild and boring weather for photography in Rocky Mountain National Park. 2020 has started on a great note as I spent a few days on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park recharging. I snowshoed out to Little Buckaroo Barn for sunrise after snow had fallen the previous two days over the Kawuneeche Valley. With specatacular conditions at sunrise, 2020 got off to a great start in Rocky. Technical Details: Nikon Z7, Nikkor 24-70mm F4 S lens

With 2019 in the rearview mirror and the holidays now behind us, it’s nice not only to reflect on the previous year, but also think about all of the potential for 2020. In one sense, turning the page on 2019 brings a feeling of a fresh start, while on the other, getting back into your normal day to day routine after the holidays brings comfort to somebody like myself who enjoys and looks forward to their routine.

During Christmas and the New Years holiday I try to stay busy photographing as often as I can. That can be a tall order with social commitments, photography tour clients visiting Rocky Mountain National Park during the holidays, and weather and conditions which were for the most part blasé.

Working through the holiday parties, social and business commitments at the end of the year means I would have liked to have finished out 2019 on a strong note. It’s a lot easier said then done with all the distractions and average conditions for photography.

I did manage to spend quite a few days out in the field at the end of 2019, either guiding photography clients, are finding locations and subjects to photograph that did not require beautiful sunrises or sunsets. With that said, 2019 transitioned into 2020 with more of a whimper than a bang for me.

Looking to reset and start 2020 off on the right foot, I headed over to Grand Lake and the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park for some inspiration. During the summer months when Trail Ridge Road is open, spending time on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park is one of my favorite things to do. Once the snows start falling in October, and Trail Ridge Road is closed for the season, traveling to the west side of Rocky is a little more involved.

Each year during the winter and spring months I’ll spend a few days at a time over in Grand Lake so that I can photograph the west side of RMNP when its draped in a cloak of fresh snow. Winter on the west side of Rocky is quiet and the hustle and bustle of summer in downtown Grand Lake is only a distant memory.

Grand Lake is about as peaceful, quiet and tranquil as it can get in the middle of winter. Boaters and hikers are replaced with visitors on snowmobiles, but overall the town of Grand Lake and the west side of Rocky see very little traffic compared to the summer months.

It’s not uncommon for me to be the only person in the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park at sunrise, something that does not happen on the east side of the park. The quiet and solitude is great but photographing on the west side of Rocky is difficult during the winter months.

The Kawuneeche Valley and Grand Lake are very cold places in January. Expect single digits to below single digits temperatures at sunrise. Getting a sunny day on the west side of the divide can also be a little more difficult. Snow and fog are common and even if its a clear sunny day on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park, theres a good chance you will find yourself in the snow, fog and clouds on the west side of RMNP.

I also cant emphasize enough how much snow is on the ground on the west side of the park by January. Head even a few feet into the woods or off the roads and you will likely be sinking into the snow up to your waist or chest. Snowshoes help, but instead of sinking into your waist, expect only to sink in to your knees. This makes getting to many of the locations on the west side of the park challenging to say the least.

With Saturday looking like the day the clouds and snow would break I decided to snowshoe out to Little Buckaroo Barn in the middle of the Kawuneeche Valley. It was 9 degrees when I started the short snowshoe in but I quickly was wading through snow up to waist even with snowshoes. Regardless, high clouds in the sky and the hint of pink to the east of the continental divide had me pushing through the deep snow towards Little Buckaroo Barn.

I’ve photographed Little Buckaroo Barn countless times during the summer and fall but capturing an image here during the middle of winter after a fresh snow has always been high on my to-do list.

After finally getting through the deep untouched snow around the barn, I setup my camera and watched as the colors in the sky over Little Buckaroo Barn and the Kawuneeche Valley exploded.

Pastels and pinks are a favorite, but combine that with fresh snow reflecting those colors and I knew I was in the right place at the right time. Feeling like 2019 went out with more of a whimper than a bang, the start of 2020 on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park quickly erased the past few weeks of disappointing conditions and had me looking forward to all the potential 2020 has.