Photo Journal : Marigold Pond Sunrise

Some mornings I let the clouds and sky dictate where I'm going to photograph from. I'll get up to Rocky a few hours before sunrise and survey the skies and weather forecasts to try to guess where the most interesting light is going to be found. Many times I'll guess wrong but over my 25 years of photographing Rocky Mountain National Park, I would say I've become pretty good at guessing how the sunrise is going to shape up. On Wednesday morning after checking out the skies which had clouds mostly clinging to the south side of RMNP, I headed out towards Lake Helene to take my chances. Generally speaking, this is an area of the park that allows a few different options. With clouds to the south at sunrise, I setup at Marigold Ponds to take advantage of sunrise.