After a week on the coast of Oregon, It was back up to Rocky Mountain National Park this morning to see whats shaking. Sunrise looked like it had some good potential this morning with a possible lenticular type cloud forming along the east ridge of the continental divide. While lenticular clouds often give dramatic sunrises, they are caused high winds aloft, and more often than not high winds below which makes photographing RMNP more difficult.
Frankly, I just wanted to get back into Rocky and get a feel for where things are after a week away. I’m a creature of habit and even a few days away for my normal routine can feel like eons to me so the sooner I can get back in the flow the better.
On top of the high winds forecasted for this morning, we have also had a ton of wildfire smoke here on the Front Range of Colorado. Wildfire smoke makes it difficult to photograph in RMNP as it diffuses the light without any of the typical benefit of diffused light. The light can wind up being very flat, very harsh and make any image or iconic scene in Rocky Mountain National Park look like uncle Bob shot it with his polaroid camera back in 1978.
I find there is one exception where wildfire smoke can actually benefit some scenes and locations in Rocky. The one area where it ‘may’ help is backlighting. Backlit images, or images shot almost directly into the sun may help to bring out the layers between the sky and ridgelines. Furthermore it may help the color palette in that it either diffuses some subtle changes in color or may cause other colors such as reds to have even more pop.
As soon as I drove through the Beaver Meadows entrance station this morning I knew regardless of wildfire smoke that the possibility to photograph certain locations where going to be off the table. When I drove over the causeway on Lake Estes this morning, the lake surface was fairly smooth and it did not appear windy, once I passed through Beaver Meadows is was an Armageddon like scene quickly. The wind was howling, grasses and trees swaying and once out of the card the strong smell of wildfire smoke permeated the air. There was a nice cloud bank setup over the east side of the park so at least I had that going for me!
Back down to Rainbow Curve where the color on the eastern horizon of the Colorado High Plains was already turning red. The large rock pile and hill just west of Rainbow Curve provides a decent wind break so that one can often photograph and keep their tripod firmly planted on the ground to assure sharp images.
As the day dawned over Rocky Mountain National Park, it was apparent the smoke was thick, the wind was howling but we had some great color in the eastern skies the last about 20 minutes. The colored skies and wildfire smoke sifting and falling between the ridgelines helped to accentuate the layers over the mountains and foothills on the east side of Rocky and beyond. Overall, not a bad return but I’m really looking forward to having this entrenched layer of smoke clear out of the park. How about a rainy, foggy morning?