Uploads from Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures, tagged nature

Milky Way Suspension At Balanced Rock

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:19:56 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

A creative composition with some good timing places the Milky Way into a position where roles appear reversed. Rather than our planet being suspended within the Milky Way, this image shows the opposite with the distant Milky Way appearing in suspension between foreground features of our planet - a unique perspective that caught my eye from the get-go.

Taken at Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, this image captures the close relationship between our planet and the heavens above. Using long-exposure settings and some gentle light painting, I was able to illuminate world famous Balanced Rock and other structures in combination with the Milky Way skies above - a combination I was thrilled to be able to capture together.

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Deep Space Spectacle From Double Arch

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Sun, 05 May 2013 16:32:57 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

Light painted Double Arch reaches across the night sky filled with colorful stars, planets, and other celestial objects. As a wide-field astrophotography (aka nightscape photographer), I like to capture elements of the night sky with interesting foreground elements to give a sense of place.

And while I love the foregrounds I've found in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains, there's something about Arches National Park that feels to me like a photographers' playground. And with that, normal sleeping patterns go right out the window!

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Milky Way Skies From False Kiva

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 19:22:54 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

On a recent trip to Canyonlands National Park, something told me to make time for a very special location known as False Kiva. Being a class II archeological site, it has some interesting historical significance and its unique, remote location stood out to me as a worthy target for a night-hike.

So after some research on the location and some patience with the weather, I headed down one afternoon on a scouting mission. I figured if I got familiar with the route during the daylight that I'd have a good chance of finding it under the cover of darkness. And since I had no shortage of places in the area to shoot on a clear night, I figured I'd make the most of the conditions with a follow-up hike down into the false kiva at about 3 am (after scouting at 3 pm) - in an effort to get into position just in time for the milky way.

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Frozen Illumination At Dream Lake RMNP

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:21:00 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

An overnight adventure under dark skies turned out to be a great chance to use some of our light painting techniques on the frozen surface of Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. And with this being one of my favorite locations to offer a night photography workshop, I'm always looking for more creative captures that show it off.

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Painting The Needles Under The Geminids Meteor Shower

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:25:41 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

From the moment David Kingham first mentioned his idea of heading up to the Needle's Eye in South Dakota for the Geminids Meteor Shower, I had a feeling it had some potential to be really cool. Sure enough, that was absolutely the case!

I'm sparing you the practice sessions that led up to this and cutting straight to the epic trip with the big shower and captures to show for it. This composite image comes from over a thousand images taken on an overnight photo adventure and shows David Kingham looking up during a break in light painting the Needles under the Geminids Meteor Shower.

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Aspen Gold Abstract

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 18:08:13 -0800

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

As a big departure from all of the grand scenics in my portfolio, I’ve been looking for a great place to capture a more intimate, abstract image with aspen trees and lots of gold color. And while the idea seemed simple enough when I first saw it almost 3 years ago, I found the perfectionist in me made it take far longer than I would have guessed. What else is new? :-)

In-fact, I had pretty well accepted that I wasn’t going make my visualized image a reality - for the second year in a row. Not one to give up though, I couldn’t help but scour the landscapes on my way down from the top of the Last Dollar Road at the end of a recent fall foliage trip in the San Juans. When I got down below the overlooks, I felt like I was really onto something. I’m not sure why because I’d been through the same area only a few days earlier. But for some reason, I felt like my internal divining rod was just about to smack me in the face.

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Old School Wilson Picture Frame

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 11:42:59 -0800

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

The end of an overnight photo tour in the Colorado San Juans put me at an old abandoned boarding house with a magnificent window view of Wilson Peak (elevation 14,016 feet). It was an amazing tour that featured a drive up on the Girl Scout Camp Road near Ridgway and the Sneffels Range, a wet hike/swim up a river near Telluride looking for a hidden waterfall, and then this old abandoned boarding house in the ghost town of Alta - all under the cover of darkness.

Having been to this location several times including most recently in thick clouds, I knew I would return someday for good conditions. And with all the detail on the inside of the cabin, I've looked at this spot as one of the better places for a capture with a rustic picture frame.

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Late Night Sandwich In The Sneffels Wilderness

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:17:07 -0800

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

Aspen trees work with the starry skies above to make a Sneffels Wilderness Sandwich in the San Juans of Colorado. This late night panoramic image was captured on the Girl Scout Camp Road (aka County Road 5) above Ridgway, Colorado.

On a rare trip alone to the San Juans during the fall foliage, I had a chance to be as flexible as ever with my plans. And it's a good thing considering the first place I hoped to score a great shot was blocked by a private property gate!

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Starlight Discovery At Piney Lake

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 11:34:40 -0800

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

Over the past few years of exploring Piney Lake, I came to the conclusion that I really wanted to pursue what I considered a truly engaging capture from the area. In thinking about what this meant, I made the decision to pursue timing with the Aspen Fall Foliage and the light of a Quarter Moon.

So this past fall, I planned a night at Piney Lake under a Quarter Moon setting in the western skies when the Aspen Fall Foliage would hopefully be at it's peak. During the drive up in the dark, I couldn't really see much in the way of Aspen leaves but I had high hopes that they were ready for me. Sure enough, when I got to the scene, I could see plenty of bright yellow aspen leaves. And with clear skies and calm winds, I had the uncontrollable factors "right where I wanted them". :-)

In working with the last of the moonlight for the evening, I found myself drawn to the canoes lined up next to the dock. I had shown a little hesitation in going out onto the dock (considering some of the area on the west side is part of the Piney River Ranch) but with the last of the moonlight, I decided to be quiet and go for it.

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Lost Lake Star Trail Panorama

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:45:41 -0800

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

This image is the result of close to a year of planning, shooting, and then post-processing - a bit of a term project if you will. It's funny that I don't consider myself to be a big fan of post-processing, but at times, I find it adds significant value. In this case, the capability actually provided the inspiration for the capture.

I first got the idea for this after having seen some key post-processing technologies emerge - panoramic stitching, comet-like star trail processing, and star trail extension. On their own, these technologies can be pretty impressive, but I wondered how engaging it could look to capture star trails in an image so wide that it shows curvature of the trails from both poles...

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Back From The Dead

I know I pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth, but I had my head down on a couple of important projects - and I'm happy to say they're now complete. And now that I'm back, I invite you to join me in celebrating the release of a lot of cool new stuff.

New Website: I had ambitious goals that featured a faster, more flexible, and easier to use store plus a learning center forum. So over the last 9 months, I put in a boatload of hours and worked with consultants in Poland, Belarus, India, the U.K., and the U.S. to get it done. I'll leave it to you to decide if it was a significant improvement (I hope you think so):
• www.coloradocaptures.com
• www.coloradocaptures.com/fine-art-photography-gallery

Product Line Additions: With the new store, we now have several new and unique additions to the product line including Stack-A-Plaque, Aluminum, Acrylic, and Stone.
• www.coloradocaptures.com/print-format-choices/

Learning Center Discussion Forum: It's been a dream of mine to build a discussion community in the Colorado Captures website. I learned along the way that this was a whole lot more challenging than I had realized although I was able to reach all of my goals in the end. Now that it's complete, the topics cover a lot of techniques and suggestions that an aspiring photographer would be interested in. So please help build the community by participating in the forum.
• www.coloradocaptures.com/forum

Photography Workshops in RMNP: After months of preparation, I'm now offering photography workshops in Rocky Mountain National Park. As a compliment to the classroom training and learning center discussion forum, the photography workshops are a natural fit with a choice of either hiking workshop or driving tour.
• www.coloradocaptures.com/instructor-led-training/photogra...

Beyond all these enhancements, I'm also still fine tuning the website to make your experience as good as it can possibly be. And to be honest, I've been looking forward to saying that for a long time now... Thank you for your patience everyone. Be well and stay tuned for more images coming soon!

Fingers In The Fire

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 13:33:52 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

I've had one of these horizon-to-horizon Milky Way captures in-mind for a little while now... just been waiting for the right spot to try it. And while I really went up to Windy Ridge to catch the Perseids Meteor Shower, I ended up liking the results of this effort even more than the couple of meteors I was able to catch.

In this image, the Milky Way stretches behind a scraggly looking tree all the way from one horizon to the other - reaching over to the light pollution and glow from the rising moon to the east. And with the scraggly tree seemly reaching out into the core of the Milky Way, the title you see above came to mind pretty quick.

The composite image you see here comes from 18 individual captures that featured a little light painting at both ends - captured up on Windy Ridge in the Bristlecone Pine area near Alma, Colorado and then stitched together with Microsoft ICE.

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Rippled Reflections of Crestone Needle

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 17:55:08 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

I was drawn to this view from the first time I saw it. Then when I saw it on the cover of a fourteener book I got a few years ago, I knew I had to give it a try. Sure enough, we got to see people ascending the steep trails up to terrain that (in my mind) clearly crossed the line from hiking to climbing - definitely cool to see. The note above shows the easiest route up to the needle from the east side - ascending up through the saddle. The route is rated as very difficult with a reputation as having the most difficult descent of any of the Colorado fourteeners. I'm guessing that means a few people have died on the way down...

As it turns out, this area used to be easier to get to and was extremely popular - on the order of 10,000 visitors each year. So much that the damage to the terrain was greater than it could bear. So the Rocky Mountain Field Institute (a non-profit group out of Colorado Springs) got involved to move the trailhead a few miles down the hill, clean the area up, and improve the trail up above timberline (a major deal, by the way). The result is a beautiful, secluded area below a couple of Colorado's most impressive fourteeners.

This image was taken just after sunrise from South Colony Lake (the lower one) below Crestone Needle in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Westcliffe, Colorado. With all the wind, finding some calm water was a challenge. In the end I did find some but I ended up liking the rippled reflection even more. What you see here is a composite from three varied exposures that were gently blended together.

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Crestone Needle Nightscape

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 09:28:07 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

After months of planning, I finally made it up to the South Colony Lakes next to rugged fourteeners Crestone Needle and Crestone Mountain. This backpacking trip was fun, but it came with a little sacrifice... 5 miles up through rain and hail (yes, the ground turned white) and my wife waking up to such fierce winds, I thought for a few minutes that I'd see her in our tent rolling across the tundra...

Even still, we saw some incredible sights. At the foot of two of the most rugged mountains in the state, this is a mecca not just for hikers, but for technical climbers. Most everyone we ran into had helmets and ropes which says a lot about the terrain. And since I consider myself a hiker not a climber, I found myself amazed at the terrain these people took on. The point of light near the bottom right corner comes from some climbers getting into position to "scale the needles" between Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle. Needless to say, I was impressed with anyone heading up that route, but at this hour, I was in awe. To put it into perspective, the route down from Crestone Needle is known as the most difficult descent in Colorado.

This panoramic image (coming from 5 vertical captures) was taken from the trail between upper and lower South Colony Lakes near Westcliffe, Colorado. It's a rare opportunity to be so close to so many big, rugged mountains as this location deep in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I timed the hike and capture (3:37 am) so that the thin moon (13% full) coming up beyond the mountain on the left was just high enough to illuminate the mountains on the right below the milky way. Taken with my new D800, I'll admit I was pretty impressed with the low-light details I was able to capture (even out of the moonlight).

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Bringing Life To Ice Lake Basin

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 21:58:21 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

The last of the mountain snowpack for the season provides fresh stream water that brings life to the mountain basins down to the valleys and beyond. In this time of significant drought (biggest since the 1950s), I couldn't help but notice the life thriving high up in the San Juans - especially near the sources of water. No, it wasn't a surprise. But it was just good to see. They say money makes the world go 'round, but sometimes I think it's really the water...

This early morning panoramic image shows all kinds of wildflowers above an unnamed pond and (deep blue) Ice Lake in Ice Lake Basin near Silverton, Colorado. I thought capturing both the pond and the blue lake together really helped to show contrast in color. I've heard Ice Lake looks so deep blue because it has a light bottom and it has a high concentration of calcium carbonate which absorbs the green and red wavelengths, leaving the blue more visible.

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Starlight Awakening In Ice Lake Basin

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 17:08:06 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

Stars and wildflowers work together in this night-time scene high up in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. Sure, I could have captured some more colorful flowers, but there was something about the way these little white puff balls added to the overall comp by pointing to the reflected peak. This turned out to be the scene to remember as the weather denied a good sunset and sunrise. But that's okay with me because the chance to see this scene when I awoke made it all worthwhile.

My wife by the way, deserves a whole lot of credit on this one. She let me talk her into a plan that featured our camping above timberline - a risky proposition with the afternoon storms rolling in. But with a poncho and a whole lot of determination, we made it up through the rain to the upper basin in time to pitch a tent and make some dinner. Fortunately, the ugly weather was all gone leaving us some nice peaceful conditions for the night.

And while the weather was peaceful, the skies were thick with clouds – not a good prospect for night-time starry sky photography. The patterns told me that the morning would be clear and hopefully much of the night so I kept my optimism. I went to sleep with an alarm set for 11:30pm - just as the moon should start rising. When I got up at 11:30, I was disappointed to see a thick layer of clouds from horizon to horizon. So much for the moonrise... I set the alarm again for 1am in the hopes it would clear. When I got up at 1, it was still overcast. Determined not to give up, I set the alarm for 2am and went back to sleep. Finally at 2, I remember looking out of the tent and rejoicing like a little kid in a candy store that had just opened. After all, this was easily the most beautiful scene I’d ever woken up to.

This composite image was captured at an unnamed pond in Ice Lake Basin near Silverton, Colorado. Over the years, I’ve heard nothing but good things about this area and so I knew I had to go see for myself. Now, I can join the ranks of those who’ve been there and know just how cool it really is. On the technical side, two exposures were captured with my D800 and blended together in post-processing with a little help from Star Spikes Pro 2.

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Hand Painted Mystery Under The Stars

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:31:15 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

Unknown animal tracks combine with lines in the sand to provide a great foreground in this image captured under starry skies. I was hoping to find some great lines leading to the Milky Way and this scene with the animal tracks sure got my interest. The glow you see on the right side is light pollution coming from the little town of Alamosa, Colorado.

I described a few of the techniques I used in taking my last uploaded night scene from Sand Dunes. An interesting one I tried here was an attempt to "hand paint" the foreground. No, I'm not talking about post processing; I'm talking about light painting. When I shot earlier that night, I used my light diffuser to illuminate the foreground with a soft, gentle light. In this case, I was a bit lazy and tried just illuminating the palm of my hand with my little flashlight. Normally, this approach produces a light that's a bit too warm, but in this case, I thought the results looked great!

So there you have it, a hand painted night scape from Sand Dunes National Park, near Alamosa, Colorado.

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Milky Way Gold From Sand Dunes Colorado

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:55:21 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

I've been meaning to get back to the Sand Dunes and improve on one of my favorite early night-time captures. Before I really knew much about what I was doing (with night photography), I found myself chasing a vision of the milky way south into the San Luis river valley and finally caught the image shown below. I captured the same golden light pollution glow over the little town of Alamosa, Colorado with the Milky Way above.

Yes, this is a composite image, but I did the work to get it. My wife and I did a scouting trip into the park in the afternoon where I recorded the gps track. Then that night in complete darkness (without even any moonlight), I ventured out following my recorded track. And here, my friends is where this took some real nerve (at least for me).

As I left the parking lot to head out onto the dunes, I entered a zone where the darkness became a bit freaky. I'm used to hiking in the dark, but this was really dark. And I realized that I'm used to having my headlamp light up most everything I need to see - trees up close or forest a little further away. In this case, it was much more wide open with at least a mile of visibility - to those who could see it. I could only see about 100 feet (if that). Add to that the herd of mule deer running around as I left the parking lot and I got a good reminder that I'd entered the domain of the wild.

So thanks to the gps track, I got to explore most everywhere I wanted to get to - while scouting earlier in the day. And I decided that gps track was so important that I don't think I would have been able to reach a spot anywhere near as cool without it. Route finding was still a pretty good challenge because of the limited visibility, but I thought the reward seemed well worth it. I got another shot of Milky Way Gold - only this time it wasn't just close to the dunes, it was from the dunes! :-)

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Yankee Girl Milk

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:34:50 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

As one of the best looking mines I've found yet in Colorado's backcountry, the Yankee Girl Mine stood out as a spot worth returning to on a recent scouting trip. So with a plan in-mind for some dark night photography, I set out to shoot the Yankee Girl against Milky Way skies. This light painted, stacked, composite image was taken at 4:30 in the morning from a jeep trail off of Red Mountain Pass between Silverton and Ouray, Colorado.

Worth mentioning on the technical side is that I'm really happy with the Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens I've started using. As you can see here, there's very little coma effect on the stars in the corners.

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Background below provided courtesy of wikidot.com.

Yankee Girl Mine has an amazing history. It started in 1882. A prospector named Mr. Robinson was out hunting and found a rock full of galena on Red Mountain. He found where it came from and found a huge chimney of silver ore. He constructed the Yankee Girl Mine. This was the start of the Red Mountain mining boom. Mr. Robinson sold his mine for $125,000 after one month. The mine has a 1,050 foot vertical shaft. The Yankee Girl shaft house above the mine has a bull wheel and wire for getting out ore. You can still see the shaft house today. At its height, the mine produced ten tons of ore each day. Ore wasn’t sorted because everything was valuable. There was no waste! Each day, a mule train of seventy five mules, each carrying 250 pounds of ore, went to Silverton because they had a train and Ouray didn’t. The mine produced silver, copper, and gold. It made $8,000,000 in its time. There were problems too. Everyone knows when you dig down, water fills up the shaft. So they bought a $30,000 pump to keep the water out, but corrosive water eroded the pump in just one month. This bad water was a major problem at the mine. Guston, a town near the Yankee Girl, had a population of 300 people. Guston had the only church in the Red Mountain mining district. There were two other mines nearby, the Guston Robinson and the Genesee Vanderbuilt. While the boom lasted, the Yankee Girl was the center of attention.

Capturing Cupid's Milk

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:42:18 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

Photographer David Kingham makes the most of this amazing night-time scene high above Loveland Pass - featuring a view of the Milky Way arcing over Colorado peaks and Denver light pollution. The core of the Milky Way appears to start just above the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area (right side), arcing over Cupid (to be climbed after this capture), Grays and Torreys Peaks and then over the Denver light pollution and finally, David capturing the scene (left side).

In past trips to Cupid, I timed our trek with a thin moon. On this, my 3rd trip to Cupid in 2 years, I decided it'd be pretty cool to time it with a possible view of the Milky Way over the peaks instead. It was a little risky as the darkness of a moonless night can make it tough to see much of anything in the foreground. But I figured that with all the light pollution from Denver and Summit County, just a few clouds would be enough to reflect some light our way. And boy did that turn out to be a good call!

But David and I had an an added bonus in that internationally known travel and landscape photographer Dan Ballard had agreed to join us for the trip. So between the great conversation on the way up and then the incredible view of the Milky Way arcing over the front range light pollution and the illuminated clouds hanging out over Grays & Torreys Peaks, we were pretty excited (as you can probably imagine).

This image was captured at 3:38 am after a night-time trek above timberline to a peak high above Loveland Pass, west of Denver, Colorado. It's an unnamed peak we stopped at (elevation roughly 13,000 feet) on the way to our final destination - Cupid. This panoramic image comes from 11 overlapping exposures stitched together using PTGui. I shot each of the exposures with a Nikon 24mm f/1.4 lens at ISO 1600, f/1.8 for 20 seconds.

This image is best seen LARGE.

Reflecting On A Dream - Alaskan Northern Lights

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:09:35 -0700

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

As the last good image of the Aurora from our recent trip to Alaska, it's now a great chance to look back... to reflect on the dreams I've been able to make good on... the wondrous sights I was able to see with my own eyes, capture with my camera, and then share with friends... and the longer list of reasons I've given myself to return to Alaska than I went there with.

With skies lit up like I'd imagined in my dreams and the bus starting to pull away, I grabbed my tripod and ran to catch my ride back to Fairbanks. And with that, I'll rest easy knowing I made the most of my time there and will dream of a day when I can return to the great north to once again, see the wondrous Northern Lights.

I thank all of you for coming to visit, for all your encouragement, and for all the kind words along the way! This was my last good Aurora image from the trip, taken at Chena Hot Springs Resort near Fairbanks, Alaska.