Video of autumn in the Park. Looking forward to next weeks return visit! Be sure to subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss this year’s adventure!
Tag Archives: Elk
Autumn in Rocky Mountain National Park
https://youtu.be/IJVIICuYIpE Experience the park in HD video. Please subscribe to this channel if you like and don’t want to miss the next episode!
Elk Herd on a Rocky Mountain Autumn Evening by Steven Krull
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/elk-herd-on-a-rocky-mountain-autumn-evening-steve-krull.html Picture of the Day – wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of household items and gifts are available, including clothing, coffee mugs, blankets and pillows and much more! Click to explore!
Elk Rut Season Coming Soon!
https://youtu.be/IJVIICuYIpE Video of last year’s elk rut season in Rocky Mountain National Park which I’ll be going to again in a couple weeks! Subscribe to my channel if you like and want to be kept apprised of this year’s adventures!
Scrambling to Catch Up
I seem to be capturing more images than I can keep up with these days! However it won’t be long and the osprey will be heading for warmer temperatures and I want to spend as much time as I can with them as the little ones continue to grow and increase their skills. They have to be ready to fend for themselves on the long trip to South America, usually by the end of August!
On top of that, summer is racing by and autumn will soon be upon us, especially up here at 10,000 of feet! It is time to plan my fall visit to Rocky Mountain National Park so I was checking back through my archives to see when I went last year. In doing that I discovered that there are dozens of images from last year’s trip that have not yet been processed! So of course I am faced with the task of reviewing and editing them while I try to keep up with all the new stuff!
Today began early, I wanted to be at Eleven Mile before sunrise to make sure I captured every event possible before the heat of the day would drive the animals into the protective shade of the forest. I was not particularly fond of the drive in the dark over the curvy mountain road, I may not do that in the pitch black again 😦 There must have been a major rainstorm last night, the water level had increased considerably and my vantage point on the river bank is very nearly underwater 😦 Thank God for Gortex boots, my feet managed to stay dry during the soggy trek and one face plant as I made my way through the mess. Fortunately I was able to keep the camera above water, although I did have to clear some muck out of the hot shoe 😦 It was worth it though, I arrived in time to get a couple of captures of the beautiful sunrise!
Much to my surprise the Great Blue Heron was winging towards me in his daily fishing trip to the calm side of the dam when he just stopped and posed on a rock! this or course gave me the opportunity to shoot a couple of nice portraits and prepare for his next flight! I kept aiming the camera at him as long as my arm muscles could take the weight of my long lens, hoping I would be prepared when the flight finally came. Luckily I was ready and snapped off a number of images of him in perfect flight 🙂
The falcons were also flying around, very difficult to photograph in flight. They are very fast and they like to change directions! I will have to look carefully at each one to see if I have any keepers. A little family of merganser ducks paddled slowly by so I could get a nice shot of them and one of the osprey even flew over! Later on I wandered over to their nest to see what they were up to today. They were pretty active with several flights over their domain and the father osprey caught a huge fish! Unfortunately he brought it to a distant tree instead of the nest so I really didn’t get a shot of that.
All in all it was a pretty productive day and I am happy with what I came away with. Tomorrow the plan is to be back at the riverside by sunrise!
As always, the best of these images and hundreds more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool household and gift items are also available with any image you like including coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets and pillows, battery chargers, phone cases, stationary and much much more! Just click on any image you like and all the choices, sizes and prices will appear! For my viewers interested in images for commercial use, please visit my image licensing portal!
Unsocial Distancing
Hit the trail for the first time since my surgery, observing my usual “unsocial distancing” practice. My rule of thumb for that is six miles rather than six feet, basically I’m annoyed if I see anyone at all 🙂
The climb up the ridge was not any easier than it was before I got all out of shape sitting around the house recovering, I had to stop a few times to catch my breath for sure! I thought for a minute I was going to have to turn around when I saw a giant snowdrift ahead but fortunately with all the freezing and thawing the snow was hard packed and easy to cross.
The climb turned out to be worth it though when I saw the elk herd 🙂 The lighting was horrible so I didn’t get the glory shot, but it sure was nice to be back in the great outdoors! And the frosting on the cake were my coyote friends who cut loose with a good coyote song for me while I hiked on past 🙂 you can hear the beautiful song in this short video on my YouTube channel! Please subscribe to my channel if you like, I need a few more to get my custom URL!
The hike started out in snow and fog but by the time I reached the summit the beautiful snow capped Sangre de Cristo were beginning to shine through 🙂
A World of White
It is truly a World of White on the mountain these days. It has been snowing every couple of days for months and it is just white as far as the eye can see and although there isn’t much color to photograph I was hoping that the day after a big snow would be a good day to try some photographs! If not, it was still going to be an awesome day for a snowshoe hike in the mountains.
I was also wanting to try out my new Keen Revel III winter hikers that I got with an awesome end of season closeout deal at REI 🙂 They are light, waterproof and insulated with patented Keen Dry breathable membrane and insulated using a special charcoal bamboo material to keep warmth in and moisture out. Also handy to me is that this is one of the only boots I’ve seen that has a gaiter hook for attaching the front of your gaiters.
The instant I arrived at the trailhead I knew it was going to be a good day. The elk herd was grazing in the thick pine and aspen trees on top of the hill, so I did my best to pull in quietly and ready my camera. Unfortunately there were some power lines in the way and I couldn’t use my truck for a hide. I quietly began to move along the fence in hopes of getting a better angle, but the wary beasts spotted me right away and quickly moved to the other side of the mountain.
There was still hope though, if I could stealthily snowshoe around the other side of the mountain I hoped I would find them lingering in the high meadow on the other side of the summit. So I made my way though the deep snow up the steep trail on the east side of the mountain hoping I would arrive at the summit before they had completed their trek to the cover of the forest. Enough snow had fallen since my last visit that I could barely make out my trail, but faint tracks showed me the way along the partially packed route. I would have been struggling through a couple of feet of powder otherwise!
Eventually I neared the summit aware that the crunching of snow under my shoes was
probably alerting the great beasts to my presence. Unfortunately that was the case and as I sneaked around the other side of the mountain I could already see them looking in my direction. By the time I came into view for a shot they were already moving towards the dense forest on the edge of the high clearing. I managed to snap off a few shots and then switch to video mode for a few seconds of footage which I was able to cobble into a YouTube movie for my channel 🙂 By the way, please subscribe to my channel, I am needing a few more subscribers in order to obtain the custom #swkrullimaging URL that I need step up to the next level of success there!
Finally the elk had all moved over the other side of the ridge into the pine trees of the Pike National Forest and out of view so I made my way along the ridge admiring the beauty of the snow capped Sangre de Cristo Range before heading back down the other side of the mountain.
My feet remained warm and dry in my new Keen’s and were so comfortable that no break in is even going to be required. By the way, this article is not sponsored by Keen or any other firm in any way. I purchased the boots and all equipment used in this hike with my own funds on my own volition.
As always the elk images and much more are available on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool gift items, apparel, tech gadgets and household items are also available for purchase all with a beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountain image from #swkrullimaging! Once again, please visit and subscribe to my YouTube channel to experience the beautiful Rocky Mountains in High Def Video!
Winter Solstice 2019
Today marks the day when the sun has reached it’s southern destination at the Tropic of Capricorn and consequently the shortest day of the year for those of us living in the northern hemisphere. According to the Farmers Almanac, “Alban Arthan, Welsh for “Light of Winter,” is a universal festival, which has been (and still is) celebrated by many people and is probably the oldest seasonal festival of humankind. “. To me, it’s simply the true start of a new year as well as the day when these blasted long nights start getting shorter, if only a few seconds per day at first. I’m a daytime person, for a nature and landscape photographer not much can be done without light and longer days mean longer light!
Well anyway, 2019 was a pretty good year photographically speaking… Winter on my mountain was magnificent with plenty of good snow shoeing, some amazing weather phenomenon during the seasons change and some great photo trips to Eleven Mile Canyon, Waterton Canyon, Rocky Mountain National Park, Mount Evans and much more!
I also started shooting some video footage this year for the first time in my career! I had
my canon 70D for 4 years before bothering to learn how to use it’s video capability 🙂 The impetus to do so came at Eleven Mile Canyon. As I was sitting along the waters edge photographing the beautiful whitewater of the South Platte River I was thinking, dang, it’s a shame my subscribers can’t hear the power of the water as it roars out of the mountains on it’s journey through Colorado and Nebraska to the Mighty Missouri! Then I thought, wait… they can! If I can just figure out how to do it! Eventually that day I did figure it out and got some footage with great audio!
Again, in Rocky Mountain National Park upon hearing the bugling of the bulls I thought it would be a shame not to capture the sounds to go along with the sights. Then there was the bighorn rams scuffling in Waterton Canyon to video. All in all it was quite a memorable year so I have added to my YouTube channel this video of my favorite video clips and photographs all from 2019. It’s about 15 minutes long, set to inspiring music and I hope you enjoy it!
Also the still images are available on my website for purchase as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional framing and matting. Tons of cool gift items, stationary, apparel, tech items, coffee mugs, household items and much more, all with a beautiful mountain scene from S.W. Krull Imaging!
Also please subscribe to my YouTube channel if you enjoyed the video! I’m just getting started with this new avenue and big plans for the future!
My First YouTube Movie
This is something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to for a long time… getting some software to piece my video clips together into a more polished video. One of the most amazing features of my Canon 70D DSLR that I purchased back in 2015 was the capability for it to do video clips, a DSLR that could shoot video, who could have imagined! Well I wasn’t that interested in shooting video, the camera had all that I could ask for in just it’s still shooting capabilities. Consequently, until this year I never even bothered to learn how to shoot video, didn’t even know how to switch it on!
Earlier this year I was photographing the beautiful South Platte River in Eleven Mile Canyon when it came to me that the still photographs I was shooting simply were not enough to capture the essence of the scene. Without the sound of the thundering whitewater there was simply no way to convey the grandeur of the moment. I thought of taking a phone video but the microphone is on the wrong side and the resolution is just not that impressive…. so I turned my camera around and studied the buttons. Hmmm… a switch, lets see what happens! What happened is there was a click and the OVF went blank! So I flipped out the LCD screen and shazzaammm there was a live moving picture! So… I pushed the other button and recorded thirty seconds of the violently churning water 🙂
I had created a YouTube channel some time ago for some reason, so I uploaded the clip to see what it would be like. Well it was a video clip with no intro, no reference to my website, no music, no transitions, nothing but a video clip. But I thought, maybe that is enough to start my channel with. In these days of social media, it is just not enough to take still pictures and send them to a stock site anymore. People like video and not having it is a serious deficiency in a photographers audience reach.
Same situation in Rocky Mountain National Park, without the bugling of the elk there was just no way to convey the full sensation of what I was witnessing. So I took a few clips in the park. And then a few more clips of the battling bighorns in Waterton Canyon and now I’m thinking I should get some software and put it together into some sort of cohesive theme.
Well I did it, I finally got some software and after a couple days of frustrating fiddling, I finally have my first video to show 🙂 Clearly I have some rough edges to iron out and I have a long steep learning curve to a more complete understanding of the software, but this video of the elk bugling in Rocky Mountain National Park is my start 🙂
Supreme Commander of the Valley
Still reveling in the images captured on our autumn excursion to Rocky Mountain National Park… I was thinking this image really captures the essence of the entire experience, with the majestic herd of elk that call Moraine Park home in the high mountain autumn season.
In the background you have the aspen trees donning their autumn gold and red glory while in the foreground the big bull is rounding up his herd for nightfall. This big bull doesn’t get much rest during the fall rut, he has cows to keep safe, other bulls to fend off and territory to maintain. While the cows grazed on the mountain grass the stately beast stayed alert, maintaining vigil over his hard fought harem. The crowd of people gathered on the road with their cameras didn’t make this fellow’s job any easier 😦 In this particular scene some of the cows had crossed the road, while others were afraid to pass through the opening between the cars and people that the rangers had made for them.
Eventually the huge male crossed the road and rounded up the cows that were scattering on the eastern side of the park. Not a single creature in the entire park dare challenge him, the cows obeyed without question while several bachelor bulls watched on with envy
advancing no closer than a couple hundred yards, appearing tiny in the distance even through our powerful zoom lenses. There was one lonely bull bugling in vain over the ridge, out of sight but close enough to draw the ire of the massive leader. Eventually he trotted to a high vantage point at the top of the ridge to investigate, but returned when he was sure there was no challenge to his domain. Even the people lining the road scattered in fear as his thundering hooves shook the ground when he passed by.
Eventually dusk overtook the valley and there was no more light for our cameras to capture as the cows began to lie down in the quiet of a beautiful Colorado autumn evening. Finally, the supreme commander of the valley would finally get some rest.
As always, this image and more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional framing and matting. Tons of cool gift items are also available with one of my images, including Christmas cards, coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets, pillows, and tech gadgets including battery and phone chargers. Click the link to enter the site and explore the possibilities! The images are arranged by collection or by product if you desire!
