Fall 2022 in SW Colorado
Day 7
If this day is proof of anything, it is proof that not everything goes as planned.
The seventh day out on the road found Capt Colorado and me shooting together again. We planned to start out the day shooting The Cabins, but after driving down from Last Dollar and seeing them, it was a hard pass. No clouds. Minimal fog. Zero elk. Meh. It wasn’t even worth a BTS image. With that, we drove on and down to the Highway shot and waited for sunrise.
Beautiful even in blah conditions
We did shoot a few images there from the highway, but not because the conditions were great. I think we both knew or next destination was too far to get to before sunrise, so we might as well sit tight and make the best of where we were. Toward the end of the shoot, we got the drones out. After the highway, we headed back into the Telluride area and noticed a fog had rolled in. With that, we crossed our fingers and raced back to the cabins in the hopes of some epic conditions!
Guess what, crossing your fingers doesn't do anything but give you sore fingers. The fog hadn't rolled in enough to make stopping worth it. With that, we decided to go shoot through The Window.
After a rough ride, we finally made it to the cabin with the window view. Shooting through The Window is always fun, but presents its own challenges, especially when shooting in the early morning or late evening hours as the dynamic range is quite extensive along with the shadows being very deep. Also, with this scene, other than totally manipulating the shot in post, you really have to decide which boards in the cabin you want straight and which you are fine with being crooked as the cabin is twisted in all sorts of ways. I decided not to manipulate the image and left all of the cabin’s boards as they were in an effort to tell the cabin’s story.
Peaking Through The Window
Shortly after shooting The Window, The Good Captain had a business call to attend to, so he drove into town to ensure he’d have a solid connection. I stayed back and met up with Love Letters Photography. She and I shot a bit in the Ghost Town area before driving up to see if we could find an old telephone booth sitting lakeside up in the mountains. It had been on both of our List-O-Things-To-Shoot for quite some time now.
Living On The Edge
A frosty window through time
After a very minimal search, we found the booth as well as an old truck. They were both great in their own rights.
An old truck and an old English-style phonebooth lakeside in the middle of the woods. Sure, why not?
From here, we met back up with CC and shot Lil'HI. It was quite the wet spot with cold water seemingly dripping from everywhere! We really didn't get good light conditions. I may go back, but I doubt it.
Peaking down Lil’HI
On our hike out from Lil'HI, we parted ways with LLP and headed towards Last Dollar. We decided to take the pass to the highway that runs to Ridgeway. From there, we shot Sneffels from a decent distance.
Colorado’s Snowy Peaks and Autumn woods
The final image above was a 27 total image handheld panoramic image. It consist of nine left to right images with the addition of shooting three images per movement (HDR). The original RAW/DNG stitched image is below in PNG form.
Original image from above before editing.
On the other side of Last Dollar Road, before you empty out onto the highway, you pass Last Dollar Ranch. How could one not stop and take a picture!?
Last Dollar Ranch entrance
After leaving Last Dollar, we headed toward our next morning’s composition at the Old Beaver Dam.
Uncompahgre National Forest
The day’s last light shines on Ole’ Sneff…
So, let's see how we did with yesterday's plans for the day. Did we hold true to our plans? As a refresher, our plans were: The Cabins, Highway, Cushman, Bridal Veil, aspens across from Cushman, Last Dollar, Overlook, and finally CR7. Not too bad. The morning plans are The beaver ponds w/reflections of Sneffels.
The Cabins: Didn’t Shoot, Boring Conditions
Highway: Shot in Boring Conditions
Cushman: Didn’t Shoot
Bridal Veil: Didn’t Shoot
Aspens across from Cushman: Didn’t Shoot
Last Dollar: Shot in Boring Conditions
Overlook: Didn’t Shoot, Boring Conditions
Sneffels Sunset: Shot in Boring Conditions
Not too bad. We shot 3/8ths of what we set out to shoot. Those are Hall Of Fame numbers in baseball; HaHaHa! We also added Lil’HI in place of Bridal Veil in an attempt to get out of the blah blue-bird sky conditions.
The morning plans are to shoot The beaver ponds w/reflections of Sneffels… It’ll be cold, but hopefully worth it.