Actually, it’s most definitely summer. Even after our cooler and wetter than usual summer here in Colorado, it feels like August. My current muse or passion in Rocky Mountain National Park has been the Never Summer Mountain Range where the lighting and scenery have been spectacular.
It’s a secret I’ve shared with my readers and clients I guide in the park, that I often go back multiple times to the same location to both capture images in ideal light I may have missed during my initial visit, or just to capture the scene in different lighting or weather conditions. Often, one has a preconceived idea how they image the shot will look, thats often not how it shakes out in the end however.
The Never Summer Range is situated both inside Rocky Mountain National Park as well as extending north and west outside the park boundaries. It’s a prominent and distinctive range and one that most visitors to RMNP admire from along Trail Ridge Road, specifically the Gore Range Overlook, the Alpine Visitor Center and Medicine Bow Curve.
The Never Summer range takes its name from the Arapaho tribes who referred to the range as the Never No Summer range as snow could almost always be found on the range. The Never Summers as they are affectionately referred to now, where also once considered part of the Medicine Bow range but in deference to the indigenous people of the region, renamed the Never Summer Mountains back in the 1920’s.
Familiarity with an area breeds success, so don’t be afraid to keep working a certain location so that you can become acquainted with the light, landscape and local. One of the keys to making better images is to connect and truly know your subject. So while we all want to photograph new locations and see new exotic places, spend time getting to know and area and your photography will begin to see improvements and gains in both your photography and images of that location.