(Click on images for a larger view)
It has been a good two years since I did a family portrait shoot, so when I was asked to photograph the Wagner, Lineberry and Lamberton families out at the Wagner family farm near Hudson, Colorado, I was a bit nervous. “How do I do this again?”
I’m wondering if my blog is feeling lonely and neglected. It has been a while since I’ve posted, in large part because I’ve been occupied with so much work lately (of the day-job variety). I’ve hardly had the mental focus to type and write a post at 9pm — which is consistently when I’m available to do so. Wah, wah, wah. Call the wahmbulance.
Well, things are starting to pick up on the photography front now as well, beginning with this past weekend. As a baby shower gift, we gave our friends Tim and Lexi a family photo session.
Cora was born on February 10 and is now just over a month old. On Saturday, we headed out to their house in Franktown, hung out and took some pictures.
We did a series by the window — up close with the 50mm lens — and a few with the new ringflash (below).
See the resemblance? Just give Cora a few weeks and she’ll be all smiles like Dad.
Their dog Kana is perhaps the fastest land-born animal in the world (seriously: faster than a cheetah), but Tim was able to corral her in time for a shot. Ringflash + dogs eyes = freaky.
Being of the Irish persuasion, the Lamberton’s were looking forward to today, and Lexi’s sister had given just the right outfit for the occasion.
Let’s just say Cora wasn’t fond of the hat, or her dad wearing it.
So things are about to get interesting. This weekend we have an engagement photo session, and two weeks from Friday we embark on our 2009 trip. We’re heading to Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico for Holy Week. It should provide some amazing spectacles … I’m just hoping I’ll be sharp enough to do them justice. We leave April 3 and come back April 13. I think we’ll have internet access for much of the time, so I may be blogging from Mexico.
A year ago, Hailey and I drove up Buffalo Pass Road but only got as far as the Dry Lake Campground. We were in her little red Alero, which has roughly 2 inches of clearance, and the road was getting a bit too rocky. It’s not a 4×4 road by any means…it was just getting annoying hearing things scrape the bottom of the car.
This go around, our friends were driving, and I was driving them nuts: “oo-oo-oo…stop here…” These are patient people folks. They let me photograph at nearly every bend in the road.
We reached the top of the pass right around 5pm, just as the light was getting super rich. Buffalo Pass sits on the Continental Divide, and right there, straddling the watersheds, is Buffalo Lake (above). There didn’t appear to be an outlet on either side, but I have heard of a few lakes in this type of position that supply water to both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. One of those flukes in geography.
Here is a topo map of the route from Steamboat Springs to Buffalo Pass. Gotta love The Google. Turns out there is an outlet and it flows to the Gulf of Mexico via the North Platte, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers. Thanks Google. Mine own eyes couldn’t have seen that.
Anyhow, there isn’t much of a story at Buffalo Lake. We stood on the shore, we saw a duck. Like I said earlier, these friends of mine are patient people, even when you step in the way of their binoculars as they look at duck.
Taking shots like these brings me back to those early years when I was first getting into photography with my Nikon FM. I was 18 years old, ready for college, and I had a whole summer devoted to two things (1) making $8/hour at a day care center Monday through Friday and (2) hikes in the mountains with Matt from Saturday to Sunday. Those were good days, and capturing the story of each hike became an obsession. Nowadays, landscapes are bit harder for me. As beautiful as the scenery is, it’s tough to find that unique way of seeing it.
Below is a panorama of four shots I stitched together in Photoshop (click on the image for a larger view). This is looking north toward Wyoming, about 2/3 the way up the pass.
Here are the girls…Lexi, Hailey, Shannon and Jenny. All from different walks of life, all married to dudes from south Denver.
This is the quintessential Colorado sky. It’s impossible to be grumpy, consumed, nervous, anxious or irritable under a sky like that.
I think the only spot that tops this for fall color in Colorado — that I’ve seen firsthand — is Kebler Pass. I have been over Dallas Divide a few times, but never in the fall. Same with Maroon Bells. Perhaps next year we’ll go camp near Dallas Divide and Silverjack Reservoir. Autumn is increasingly becoming my favorite time of year in the Rockies. It is just so overwhelming with its beauty, its color and its fleeting nature. It’s hard not to be moved by it.
At the end of Buffalo Pass Road, we pulled over and let Tim loose. He was feeling cooped up, so he raced into this field, flushed a flock of blackbirds and then cast muscleman shadows on a hay bale. The next morning, I got an encore of showmanship, but with better results. Perhaps I’ll get that post up by this weekend.
Fall in the Rockies…Don’t blink, you’ll miss it. One cold night and all the aspens go gold and red. One windy day and they’re empty skeletons. Fortunately for me, Hailey and six of our closest friends, this past weekend was a case of perfect timing. Above, we have Tim and Lexi Lamberton (left and center) tossing leaves into the air with Jenny Jordan (right) at the Dry Lake Campground near Steamboat Springs. Also along for the fun were Shannon and Stu Kilzer and Jenny’s husband, Matt. Mostly the same group as the Grand Lake trip from a few weeks ago.
As you can see, there was much jubilation.
The route to Steamboat Springs is always an enjoyable drive. Coming home: not so much, but I’ll get to that in a later blog post. Up I-70 to Georgetown we could start to see the first veins of gold, winding courses of quaking aspen, hugging the gulches. Into Summit County, the epicenter of the pine beetle epidemic here in Colorado. I’d say at this point, roughly 70% of the pines are dead…either gray gnarly skeletons of their former selves, or sickly red-needled towers waiting to be torched. Fifty weeks of the year, it’s one of the saddest sights in America…but this weekend, the aspens and their blazing gold and rusty leaves overwhelmed the beetle kill. I hardly even noticed the dead trees that are everywhere.
From Silverthorne, the route descends the Blue River to the Colorado River at Kremmling, weaves through sage-brush hills and Middle Park and then passes over Muddy and Rabbit Ears Passes before a spectacular descent into the Yampa River Valley and Steamboat Springs. Just shy of Muddy Pass, the aspens return, all of them in full fledged fall folliage (say-that-three-times-really-fast-I-dare-you). Cresting Rabbit Ears, the willows and their tiny red leaves take over. It is a landscape of rust and copper colors. A bull moose wandered through the willows … something we only caught a quick glimpse of at 50 mph. A U-turn and a frantic drive back to the spot and he was gone.
Above-left is Fish Creek Falls, a short, easy and popular hike (translation: a frustrating hike for Matt) just northeast of Steamboat Springs. We checked it out, wandered downtown, found a great bookstore/cafe (Off the Beaten Path Books) and then spent the late afternoon and early evening driving up to Buffalo Pass, where all the rest of these images were taken.
Aspens and pines (alive ones!) at the Dry Lake Campground.
Stu and Shannon walking back to the car at Dry Lake Campground. Click on the photo and you may be able to see Shannon sticking her tongue out at me.
Ahhh, to retire as a National Forest Service Campground host. Perhaps in another life, but there is definitely an appeal to being the guy who chops wood all day, chats with outdoorsy types, sleeps in a camper under the stars and cleans out the outhouse——never mind. What a lousy job.
Those are seedpods of wildflowers and red willows along the road side in the late evening light.
And then we decided to have a little fun with the fish-eye lens.
Yes, it is quite funny how covered in leaves and dirt I was.
Back on the road, the aspens only got thicker and deeper in color. Coming later this week…parts 2 and 3 of the Steamboat weekend.
