Colorado Fall Colors: Part 1

Too many pictures to post, so I decided to split it up and post in two parts. Part 1 pretty much represents the first day:

This shot was Sergey’s idea:

Some kind of a waterfall that we found on the way. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much water running down:

I wish I had a super wide angle lens. I shot most of these @ 24mm on FX (full frame).

The colors in this forest were amazing, so Sergey and I hiked a little to get these shots:

Some of the aspens are unusually long, with no branches and leaves on the lower part of the tree.

This red-tailed hawk was sitting on a bench, enjoying late afternoon sun after his last meal. He curiously looked at us for a little bit, then took off.

I shot this lone aspen with a long lens. The sun rays really brightened up the leaves, so when I exposed to the leaves, the background got darker. I isolated the tree out by darkening it a little more in Lightroom:

Fall colors being the subject, we ended the day by playing with flashes and color gels in the forest:

As the light disappeared, it got really creepy and we decided to create some images of ghosts. It was fun until it got completely dark – that’s when we grabbed the gear and ran towards the car. I don’t think I want to do that again… Being in the forest that late was really scary!

I will post Part 2 of our adventure tomorrow, so stay tuned!