Location Planning and Anticipating the Light

My image Iris Meadow Sunset was recently chosen for  the September Cover of the Rocky Mountain Nature Photographers web-site. The story behind this image provides a great example of what some location planning  and the ability to react to  sky conditions quickly can do for the landscape photographer. I am a member of the Chico Basin Ranch Artists and this June we were down on the Zapata-Medano Ranch in the San Luis Valley for our annual Artists Gathering. Conditions on the ranch were perfect with fresh snow on the mountains and the  wet meadows ablaze with blooms of wild iris. During our first evenings dinner I was watching the sky through one of the windows and quickly realized the sunset light was going to be spectacular.  I excused my self and quickly jumped in the my truck and drove a  few miles to a location   I had scouted earlier in the day. I arrived just in time and  quickly set up on this  composition as the sunset  began lighting up the clouds over the Sangre de Cristo Range. The resulting image  turned out to one of the best I made during the trip. This light only lasted a few minutes and if I had not scouted the location and  been able to react quickly to the developing conditions, this image would have been lost.

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Photo:Nebraska Sand Hills Sunrise

One last image from Nebraska  before I move on to other images from my mid-west trip.  My absolute favorite time of day to photograph is that magic time  just at and before sunrise. If clouds are present above the horizon and the horizon is itself clear, the clouds can take on amazing colors of pinks, reds and orange as they reflect the light from the rising sun. This sunrise made at Smith Lake was fabulous and although I did not know it when I photographed it, this  would be the first of several amazing sunrises I would see and photograph in the following days.

Smith Lake Sunrise ©Stephen Weaver