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It seems that my wife Liz and I picked a very interesting time for our two week holiday exploring Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park.
We were there during the last two weeks of September which, as we found out, was the best time of the year to see the fall colours, and to catch the elk rut.
We were somewhat bemused on our first visit to the RMNP, driving past Moraine Park, to see a plethora of abandoned vehicles by the side of the road.
Looking a bit further we saw the occupants of said vehicles a little way onto the grassland, clutching impressive telephoto lens cameras, spotting scopes and binoculars, 'oohing' and 'aahing' and pointing at something in the far distance.
Intrigued, we also stopped to see what all the excitement was about, and eventually spotted a herd of elk far out in the valley, with a couple of males running about trying to keep control of a gaggle of females.
Not to look out of place, I tried a few photographs with my 100-400mm zoom fitted to my Canon 6D DSLR, but even at full stretch the elk were tiny in the viewfinder, and very grey looking in the gathering gloom of evening twilight.
So I soon abandoned my attempts to get a decent elk image and turned my attention to the opposite direction, where something much more to my taste was going on.
No elk looking west (thank goodness) but instead I had this view of a spectacular post sunset lightshow, with the high clouds catching the dying rays of the sun and the lower clouds, already in darkness, providing a contrast.
Using a wide angle lens and pointing the camera skywards allowed me to catch as much of that glorious sky as possible, using the far off peaks of the Rockies just as a bottom border to the composition.
I was the only photograopher there that evening who actually photographed the sunset, everyone else was concentrating on the elk.
so I'm glad I didn't follow the herd (sorry for the pun - couldn't resist!) but instead concentrated on photographing what I really love.
Light in all it's glory.
Filename - rocky mountains moraine park 01.jpg
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 17mm
Exposure - 1/8 sec @ f11, ISO100
Location - Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, U.S.A.
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - ND graduated filter used to control contrast
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