Not such a successful couple of days shooting, if you want to count keepers. Yesterday there was a beautiful sunrise lighting the Sangre de Cristo mountain range and I was able to get a few shots of it before the light changed… Unfortunately none of them turned out. It was a difficult situation with the a nearby landscape in front of the more distant mountains. I assumed that the horizon was far enough away for the lens to focus on infinity, making both the foreground and the mountains both sharply in focus, but I was wrong. Usually that works, but in this case there was just too much distance between the two landscapes and the foreground details were simply too close. The foreground would have disappeared nicely into silhouette and the distant mountains would have been sharp, if I had chosen more accurately. I should have tried both, but apparently I thought I had nailed it. Oh well, live and learn, with emphasis on learning!
Sunrise and Fog on the Sangre
On the other hand maybe any photo batch that has one keeper could be considered a success. I was luckier this morning, I made the same mistake but in this case the distant mountains were shrouded in clouds and fog and the lack of sharpness there didn’t adversely affect the image 🙂 So, lesson learned and one keeper to show for it.
The day has devolved into a cloudy windy snowy day, perfect for staying inside snuggled up on the couch buried in puppies. As always, this image and more are available for purchase from my image gallery both as wall art and commercial stock. Hope you will stop in and have a look! New images include beautiful lighting on the south face of Pikes Peak, some mountain landscapes of the Sangre and some shots of elk and deer to round it out!
There is a great view of the 
From that point on I saw nothing but darkness until I reached the overlook over Cripple Creek. I was afraid the one stop was all I was going to get but was happy to see that there was still some good light over the Sangre De Cristo Range when I arrived. The lights of the town were also putting on a good show by that time, so I got my first nighttime image of the town as well 🙂 I am hoping to soon get downtown at night to capture the Christmas lights in but it doesn’t appear to be all set up yet, so that will have to wait.
Finally, the last of the sun’s rays were streaming over the mountain peaks in the south, reminding me of how these mountains got their name, “The Blood of Christ”. Soon as it is with all sunsets, it was all over… nothing left to do but go home and process the images.