A landscape photographer's tour

Keith's travels in Colorado - April-May 2006

In 2004 Keith first took his then fairly new Canon 1Ds on a driving tour round the Rockies in the USA. This photo-diary covers a driving trip around Colorado in April/May 2006.

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This collection has been re-written to make it easier to follow than the original (big) web page. On my return to the UK , I wrote a more technical article about the photographic aspects as a follow up to my original "Keith's first all digital visit to the Rockies"

There are other photo travel diaries covering trips to:
Washington and Oregon in September/October 2007 and California/Oregon in April/May 2007

Note for visitors from Colorado - I had a great time, thanks! I do really like the place :-)

	Daily pages 27th April London-Denver 28th April South park 29th April Leadville 30th April Aspen 1st May Aspen 2nd May Steamboat Springs 3rd May Steamboat Springs 4th May Steamboat Springs 5th May Delta 6th May Gunnison 7th May Gunnison 8th May Gunnison 9th May Fairplay 10th May Pikes Peak and back to Denver
What's the weather like? National Weather Service radar	Weathercams (60 live cameras) What are the roads like?

Aspen 2

I was up fairly early and headed up Castle Creek. Unfortunately at this time of the year you can't get up to Maroon Bells or Independence pass, so a couple of other interesting locations were out.

OK, I could have cycled, or walked 12 miles, but that just wasn't going to happen :-)

aspens

Aspens - how the place got its name

The sun is just illuminating the background trees, which I've deliberately kept out of focus. I exposed for the background so that none of the image clips. For a print, it would be important to get the contrast and brightness of the foreground trees right. By being careful with exposure and working at 16 bit, there is plenty of detail to bring out in the darker areas.

There had been a very light fall of snow and the early morning light looked very cold

castle creek

Heading up Castle Creek road

At last a chance to use the 24mm shift lens...

Taken (hand held) by pointing the camera parallel to the trees and shifting the lens upwards to get the composition I wanted.

snow and aspens and morning light

Aspens in the morning sun

If I'd used a normal wide angle lens I'd have had to tilt the camera upwards which would make the trees lean over - they are on a fairly steep slope. Not a problem at all to use the shift lens like this (manual focus and meter for the shot before shifting). One other thing is to move so that one of the trees blocks out direct sunlight.

Aspen has built itself a reputation for free-thinking and being a bit different (it helps if you have money ;-)

Who needs signs to tell you what to do?

biking prohibited

No Biking

There are several other prohibited things listed above the sign...

After several trips driving round the US I've decided that Dodge produce the best range of ugly vehicles when viewed in your rear view mirror.

The example below should give an idea what I mean.

seriously ugly vehicle from Dodge

An unpleasant looking vehicle from Dodge.

Grace, elegance, styling - who needs it :-)

Tomorrow... off north to Steamboat Springs for a few days I think.

27th April>>28th April>>29th April>>30th April>>1st May>>2nd May>>3rd May>>4th May>>5th May>>6th May>>7th May>>8th May>>9th May>>10th May