One of my favorite kinds of light to use when photographing landscapes is backlighting. In some ways backlighting goes against the basic principles of photography. We are taught early on that we should have our source of light behind or on the side of our subject. This was especially true during the days of film photography.

Latitude and dynamic range with film photography was very limited, especially with transparency or slide films like Fuji Velvia or Kodachrome 25 or 64. You could certainly backlight subjects during with film, but often you would have little to no details in the shadow areas and the results would be a hard silhouette.

Todays digital sensors have so much dynamic range, that there is still plenty of detail in the shadow areas of the frame which allows one to become even more creative with the light. If you combine backlighting with first light or the soft lighting the occurs just before dawn or right after dusk, you can open up opportunities to photograph subjects and locations at times that typically might not be considered perfect.

This was the case on Saturday as I had a client out in the field. The original plan was to photograph Dream Lake at sunrise. The winds were blowing pretty good when we left downtown Estes Park, headed for the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. I knew if the winds were blowing this hard into town that we should just figure on at least doubling the gusts by the time we reached the Bear Lake parking lot.

Sure enough it was blowing pretty hard up at Bear Lake but with some light snow flurries coming down and some nice cloud structure in the sky over RMNP, we figured we could deal with the wind up at Dream Lake and possibly be treated to a really nice sunrise over Hallett and Flattop Mountain.

Heading up the snow trail towards Dream Lake, and orange glow like an orb began to form over the high plains of eastern Colorado. With sunrise almost an hour away the clouds were over Rocky Mountain National Park were already starting to glow magenta, red, yellow and orange. Blowing and falling snow were adding to the atmospherics and things were looking good.

We took a little longer than expected to get up the trail as my client had just flown in the night before and was working and a short nights rest. Looking over Glacier Gorge towards Longs Peak and the Keyboard of the winds showed great promise as the kaleidoscope of color formed over Rocky’s tallest peak and only 14er.

We stopped to give my client a rest and shoot the predawn light that was really starting to explode. While the color was great the winds were howling now. From time to time, I could just see the tomahawk edge of Hallett Peak come in and out of the clouds which had cloaked most of the divide at this point. Amazingly, Longs Peak and Glacier Gorge were for the most part free of being cloaked in clouds and only had clouds move in and out of the landscape periodically.

With Dream Lake appearing to be a bust, and the sunrise really starting to ramp up, I opted to set this shot up with my client and take advantage of the backlighting and color east and south of Longs Peak. While we weren’t going to be able to capture sunrise at Dream Lake this morning, I knew we would have some great backlighting that would be more dramatic than we would have had up at Dream Lake.

It’s a good lesson in not only having a backup plan when out shooting, but also one in which you look to work with the conditions presented to you as opposed to the ones you hoped for. We could have pressed on to Dream Lake and ended up with windburn, but instead we chose to photograph Longs Peak at the wrong time of day. Regardless we came away with some beautiful images of Longs Peak in dramatic winter lighting, while we learned the importance of taking advantage of the conditions given that particular morning.

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.

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.

With another large November snowstorm about to descend on the Front Range of Colorado, I took a run up to Rocky yesterday morning. Based on the weather forecast, cloud cover and timing of the storm it looked like we might have some nice light at sunrise before the weather started changing over RMNP.

As I’ve stated many times, the lighting in Rocky Mountain National Park can be simply stunning in November when sunrise or sunsets cooperate. While the lighting can be amazing this time of year in Rocky Mountain National Park for photographers, there are still challenges when photographing this time of year.

The biggest challenge is accessibility. Trail Ridge Road is closed at Many Parks Curve on the east side of Rocky and the Colorado River Trailhead on the west side. Old Fall River Road is closed at the Alluvial Fan, Wild Basin is open a short distance from the entrance station to the winter parking lot. Bear Lake Road will stay open to the Bear Lake Parking lot though the road may be snow packed and icy, especially after recent storms.

While Bear Lake Road will stay open, many of Rocky’s classic landscapes in and around Bear Lake, Dream Lake, Glacier Gorge etc., are not lit very well during the shortest days of the season. Most of the peaks in the Bear Lake/Glacier Gorge area orient facing northeast. Combine this with towering mountains and valley’s and the lighting can be tough this time of year in this area of the park (contrary to the summer months when the sun is farther north and the lighting is amazing).

This leaves the Mummy Range, Moraine Park and Upper Beaver Meadows as the most accessible areas in Rocky in the winter with the best light for photography. This is a fairly small geographic area so if your not creative you can quickly run out of new or different locations to photograph.

As somebody who has been photographing Rocky Mountain National Park for well over twenty years now, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to photograph these areas so its always a challenge for me and my personal portfolio to find new locations and compositions. Of course, weather, lighting and conditions are never the same twice so it’s less difficult than I’m making it sound.

I ended up settling on a composition that is very close to a popular pull out along US 36 that has a commanding view of the continental divide and many of the prominent peaks in Rocky. I’ve seen many others photograph from this location as I have, but I’ve never incorporated this tree into the image (as others have).

While watching this colorful sunrise unfold in front of me, I couldn’t help but thinks how much the image in the viewfinder reminded me of many of the Lyman Byxbe copper plate etchings of Rocky Mountain National Park made famous in wall art and postcards.

Lyman Byxbe spent many years in his Estes Park studios creating beautiful copper etchings of what are some of the parks most iconic scenes. In fact, I would argue that Lyman Byxbe pioneered many of the compositions that photographers such as myself end up emulating today.

Often found in Lyman Byxbe’s beautiful copper etchings is the use of tree’s to add depth to a landscape presented on a two dimensional medium. Like myself, it’s obvious that Mr. Byxbe was fond of the beautiful and unique trees found in Rocky Mountain National Park and sought them out in his art.

Like a lot of artists, Lyman Byxbe’s work does not receive the credit and acclaim it probably should. In recent years with the ever growing popularity of Rocky Mountain National Park, Byxbe’s work has become more sought after and appreciated. I know I certainly feel his influence in my work often as was the case yesterday morning.

There are a few books available through third parties that chronicle Lyman Byxbe’s work but other than those books, his work is available for viewing throughout various pages on the internet. I would highly recommend anybody interested in viewing one of Rocky Mountain National Park’s most interesting artist when it comes to the landscape to use a search engine and search for Byxbe’s work. If you have not taken the time to do so I think you will really appreciate his love for the landscapes of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Can you think of a better way to start a Monday morning than to find a few inches of fresh snow falling?. Most would probably pass on starting their week this way but I’m certainly happy to take it.

In what’s become a Jekyll and Hyde autumn in Rocky Mountain National Park it’s only become par for the course to expect either a beautiful warm day, or very cold temperatures and snow. We seem to be lacking when it comes to the transition of the season from autumn to winter.

It’s not unusual to being seeing snow this time of year in Rocky Mountain National Park and already this fall we’ve had as I count them, four good snowfalls in Rocky with another decent one in late August that covered the high peaks above 12,000 ft. Whipsaw like weather here on the Front Range of Colorado is nothing new, but while it creates headaches from commuters and travelers, it makes for great opportunities for landscape photographers.

One of my most common requests from workshop and photography tour clients is to capture Christmas card like scenes in Rocky after a fresh snow. Most visitors and photographers to Rocky Mountain National Park assume it’s quite easy to capture postcard scenes of Rocky draped in fresh snow.

As one who believes in both transparency and managing expectations, I spend a lot of time explaining to prospective clients that capturing winter scenes in RMNP is one of the harder things to do. As I’ve stated in past blog posts, winds, sun and either too much snow or too little snow often conspire to throw a wet blanket on photographers well laid plans to capture images of snow in Rocky Mountain National Park.

One other item I like to tell clients looking to photograph snowy scenes in Rocky is that the best times to do so are often fall and late spring. This is because fall and late spring are very transitional in Rocky. Not only do we often get unsettled weather during these periods, but access and overall conditions such as open water are better than the middle of winter.

So with this season off to a decent start as far as opportunities go for photographing snowy scenes in Rocky Mountain National Park, I was more than happy to wake up Monday morning to fresh snow on the ground with more falling.

The forecast called for clearing right around sunrise so it was as good a morning as any to get out and take my chances with the weather and clearing storm. So while we had weather in the 60’s and 70’s on Saturday and Sunday in the Boulder area, Monday morning greeted me with snow and a cold 11 degrees fahrenheit.

With that said, all I could think as I scraped the ice and snow off my truck before heading the 45 miles up the hill to Estes Park was ‘what a way to start the week’. Hopefully our pattern of whipsaw weather continues because as a landscape photographer, I’m certainly enjoying all the opportunity.

As I write this blog post, summer and autumn seem like long distance memories at this point. It was only a month ago that I was out enjoying our late season autumn color. Fall took it sweet time to arrive this year in Rocky Mountain National Park, but winter certainly wasn’t going to provide the same courtesy.

As of early November, Rocky Mountain National Park is already 3 good snow events into the middle of autumn. From a landscape photographers perspective, were more or less into the winter season. The snow is going to stay on the high peaks from now until June and the lakes will remained covered in ice through May,June and July depending on their elevations.

One can still find a few open pockets of water here and there and with a few warm days thrown in here and there, it may remain so for some of November. It’s an interesting time of year to photograph Rocky Mountain National Park. The crowds are gone and so are many of the photographers who make their appearances each fall for the fall colors and elk rut.

Even though much of the park is now frozen and or snow covered, I enjoy shooting in Rocky this time of year. Sunrises and sunsets can be amazing this time of year. In fact the quality of light with the low sun angle is spectacular. Get the right conditions and you may be able to photograph one of the most colorful sunrises or sunsets all year.

November is also a great time of year to capture winter landscapes. The caveat with photographing winter scenes in Rocky is always the timing. On account of the winds and sun, the snow wont hang around very long on the pine trees, or ice covered surfaces of the lakes. One needs a little bit of luck regarding the timing of the storm and what time it exits the area and brings in high winds on the backside of the front and sun which quickly melts snow even in the middle of winter.

Overall, November can be a very exciting time to photograph Rocky. You get a little bit of everything this time of year without the crowds found during the summer months. On top of that, sunrises and sunsets are some of the best and a well timed snowstorm is always a possibility as we move through the brown season into the winter season in RMNP.