Photographer in Colorado

Continuing on my journeys through Iceland… On day 3, I made a brief stop to capture some of the wetlands close to Kirjufell.

Then I headed out beyond Kirkjufell, towards the Snaefellsnes peninsula. Here is the view of Snaefellsnes Jokull. This is the glacier above a dormant volcano.

As I approached a town, Rif, I noticed this waterfall that is fed from the snowmelt of the glacier.

After passing through Snaefellsnes National Park, I visited this abandoned farmhouse. This is a site that I have visited several times in the past — it becomes even more dilapidated and covered with more graffiti with each visit!

On the return trip to Grundarfjorður, I stopped at the beach near Latravik. The foreground shadow was slowly creeping along the berm as the sun dropped lower behind the mountains behind me.

It was close to low tide when I walked down the beach. The beach is formed from black volcanic sands that are the result of volcanic activity in Iceland over the millennia. This beach had several pools that I could use to include some reflections of the clouds.

In the following image, the edge of the pool had interesting patterns created by the ripples of the beach sand.

There is one feature close to this beach that I captured the day before — A Giant Padlock. This padlock is the main feature of the gate that leads to the berm that I captured.

However, there are several padlocks that adorn the gate, including one on the left side of the giant padlock!

In the final image, I captured the road and the berm framed by the hasp of the giant padlock.

This last October, I made another trip to Iceland. After arriving in Keflavik airport and renting a car, I headed to Reykjavik. My flight had arrived an hour earlier than scheduled. Having visited several times in the past, I knew my way around the city. I entered the center of the city by means of the road along the waterfront. It was sunrise by the time I reached the city. Along the waterfront is the “Sun Warrior” sculpture, that was lit by the sunrise. Fortunately there were no crowds in the area, so I was able to capture the following image.

After visiting Sun Warrior, I had some breakfast and then headed out to a fjord. This would give me the opportunity of taking a nap during the day to overcome jet lag and make some photographs.

“Hvalfjorður” is a fjord some 30 kms north of Reykjavik. The road around this fjord was part of the ring road until a tunnel was constructed to cross the fjord in the 1990’s. I always like to visit this fjord since it is a short drive from Reykjavik. A bit of history: during World War 2, this fjord was used as an allied naval base.

I made my way around the fjord. This is a really pretty drive with some great scenery. One of my favorite spots along the road is the “Laxa i Kjos” (salmon river). This river is a crossed by a single-lane bridge that passes small waterfalls as the river makes its way down to the fjord.

Later, I managed to get a nap and then returned to Reykjavik. I spent some time near the harbor, where I made this image of the Harpa Concert Hall.

This concert hall has glass windows that has colored panes in random locations. Here is one of the images that I made inside the hall, that shows some details of the windows.

The next morning, I headed to the next destination, again passing through Hvalfjorður. Here is another image that I made of the waterfall.

En route to Grundarfjorður, there were a couple of herds of Icelandic horses along the roadside.

I parked the car at a close by parking area and made my way towards the horses. There were two groups of horses; one on each side of the road. As I approached the fence, several horses made their way to greet me. I had the opportunity of capture several images of these wonderful horses.

After arriving in Grundarfjorður, and checking into the hostel, I headed to Kirkjufell that is located just outside the town. Here is one of the images that I made here.

More to come.

This week, I spent a couple of days in the Gunnison area to make some images of the Colorado Fall colors. After arriving at Taylor Reservoir, the aspen on the far bank had taken on their fall colors.

Above the dam wall, there is a rock wall and a line of aspen growing up the slope. In previous years, I never managed to get a decent image that shows the contrast between the gray cliff face and the yellow aspen.

After reaching Gunnison, I setup a tent at the campsite and then headed north into the Ohio Creek valley. In the Gunnison area, there are plenty of cottonwood, willows and other trees (apart from aspen) that typically have fabulous fall colors. This is one location that I often visit. This year I stopped along the roadside. After a few minutes, I noticed the following scene where the trees lined the creek. I had never captured images at this particular location. The angle of the sun created perfect backlight and shadows for this scene.

From this location, I headed further to the base of Ohio Pass. This location always has great fall colors. I this following image, I focused my attention on the red and gold colors of these trees.

The west side of the road always offers fabulous backlighting in the afternoon sun. I framed these small aspen trees between the two large aspen trunks.

There are also willow bushes that still had green summer colors that contrasted with the golden yellow aspens.

In the following scene, I looks like the sun is lighting the center of the trees, but casting a dark shadow around the rim of the trees.

Across the far side of the valley, a huge pine forest dominated the landscape. However, there was a gap that created a triangular sliver of light in the field.

From here, I made my way up Ohio Pass. As I rounded a bend, I came across the following scene where the low sunlight grazed the top of the trees. A few minutes later, the trees were in shadow.

At the top of the pass is another pine forest. This was the first time that I noticed the low sun picking out the red ground cover.

These two days were great for viewing the fall colors. Mid-week was great because of less traffic and fewer visitors than would be the case for weekends.

These ones almost got away! I prepared this selection of images in August, but never posted. We often visit Reynold’s Landing, along the South Platte River. I always check out the pond located to the one side of the river. This time, I found this Snowy Egret close to the edge of the pond. I liked his pose as it was looking for food.

These egret struck some interesting poses. Here is another one.

Close to a weir, we found this Night Heron. After several minutes, this heron got his leg up, so I managed to capture this image.

This cormorant spent a good half hour preening. Several times, the bird spread its wings. This was one image that I captured before the cormorant took flight.

We found a couple of Say’s Phoebe along the riverside. This bird is an immature, as witnessed by the fluffy feathers.

Here is another image of this bird.

The other Phoebe was buzzing around close by. Eventually, chasing this one away!

Yesterday afternoon, we headed down to Reynold’s Landing on the South Platte River, hoping to do some birding after watching the football game. It was pretty quiet along the river, with maybe 3 groups of people tubing down the river. We spotted the usual night herons and snowy egret. After most of the tubers had passed, we spotted a Great Blue Heron. I had been wanting to capture some different behavior of this fabulous bird. So I just waited to see what happened. The heron was perched or a log, gazing up an down the river.

All of a sudden, the heron appeared to take flight.

But it was just one big hop…

To the other end of the log!

And then landing.

To resume gazing downstream!

Even though we spent just over an hour at the river, we had fun watching just a few birds. The Great Blue made my day!

May was one of the rainiest months of the year, with huge storms over the Eastern Plains. Last Saturday, the sky was full of storm clouds, so I headed out to Bennett. I captured this image north of Bennett; this is close to the flight path out of the DIA airport. You may even spot an airplane in front of one huge clouds in this image.

Soon I headed east, so I could return to Bennett. Along the roadside, the strong winds kicked up a dust-storm on one of the plowed fields. This was spectacular against the dark clouds.

From here, I headed south, through Bennett and then to Kiowa. South of Kiowa, I found another huge storm cloud that stretched all the way from Colorado Springs to Bennett, against a deep blue sky.

This next image that showed the full height of the storm above me.

Soon it was time to turn back. Across the road where I had parked, was this half-dead tree in front of a roadside pond. This was lit up by the late afternoon sun, just before becoming obscured by clouds.

Fortunately, I was able to make this image, with the trees and fresh spring grasses, against a storm laden sky.

While out daughter Susan was visiting us, the two of us took a trip to the South Platte river to see what birds we could find. After finding a Night Heron, she became entranced by these birds fishing among the rocks. It turned out that there were 5 Black-Crowned Night Herons spread out across the width of the river! What luck. We spent most of the next hour watching these herons as the they were fishing.

These birds are really amazing to watch. Look as those bulging eyes that I managed to capture in the following image.

This was the heron closest to where were sitting close to the bank of the river. Soon the heron spread its wings an did some rock hopping to move to a new location.

Here the heron continued fishing. Success at last, as it caught something from the river! Susan saw several herons catching some prey. I only managed to get one decent image, with the heron swallowing prey.

After munching on the food, this heron did some rock hopping. I captured this heron in mid-stride.

Here is the next image in mid-stride.

Finally, this heron resumed fishing from the next rock!

We both enjoyed the time spent observing these herons as they went about hunting for fish and other critters swimming in the Platte River.