Griessental Sunset Panorama : Prints Available

Sunset light illuminates the snow-filled valley of Griessental, February 2011.

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Here’s a photo from my archives, from February last winter in Switzerland. You can see more photos from this hike here.

Back home in “the Switzerland of America” this winter, I haven’t been getting out into the mountains as much as I’d like due to the sketchy avalanche conditions. On the bright side, I’ve been taking the opportunity to work on some projects that have been on the back burner for years. Among other things, I’m learning Adobe InDesign book publishing software and am excited to start creating some photo books. I might even have time to finally put together a screensaver app for sale on my website. So, stay tuned… I’ve got some good stuff in the pipe!

Carhuacocha Sunrise : Prints Available

Brilliant sunrise alpenglow on the tallest peaks of the Cordillera Huayhuash (Yerupaja, Yerupaja Chico, and Jirishanca),  reflected in Laguna Carhuacocha - June.

Here are a few photos “from the vault”, from my trip to Peru a year ago. Both were taken along our trek around the Cordillera Huayhuash. One of my favorite shots from the trek was from this same spot but at sunset. Because I liked that one better, with its softer, calmer light and clouds, I never posted this version from sunrise. But this one definitely has some pop, eh?

Yerupaja Panorama : Prints Available

A panoramic view of the Cordillera Huayhuash around Yerupaja (6617m, 21,709 ft.), the second tallest mountain in Peru.   Jirishanca (6094m) is towards the left side.  June 2010.

>> SEE LARGER VERSION HERE <<

I took this panorama during one of the more spectacular bits of hiking during the 11-day trek. That day we came from over a pass off the right side of the photo, but instead of taking the standard trail down through the valley, we hiked along this high ridgeline, with a huge views of the mountain range the whole way. We ended up at a lake down in the valley on the left side of the photo, under impressive peak of Jirishanca.

My spontaneous three week trip to Peru last June ended up being a wonderful decision, not the least because I met my girlfriend Claudia on this trek! I would have never guessed before this that I’d soon be spending six months in the Alps to be with her. And she arrives to Colorado on Monday!!! So thank you, Peru!

Here’s yet another 4×5 photo from the archives, unearthed from the depths of a backup harddrive where it’s been collecting dust for 4 years. This was taken back in September 2006, during a backpacking trip in the San Juans with fellow photographers Momo Vuyisich and his friend Csaba. (See more photos from the trip here). We had arrived at the high elevation Columbine Lake in the afternoon in the midst of a rain/sleet/snow storm and sat around in our tents for a while. When we noticed that the storm was clearing we quickly hiked to a high ridgeline above the lake and beheld this amazing view of the storm clouds clearing off the peaks! This was the first shot I took, with a wide angle lens. Since the clouds were lifting so fast, I quickly switched to a longer lens, refocussed, and shot a second, tighter shot that has been a favorite ever since. This one here has more of the clouds, though, and looks really cool especially at full resolution.

I’ll never forget witnessing and photographing this fleeting spectacle from such a lofty vantage point. Nor will I forget Momo’s enthusiasm… he kept shouting “Woooohooooo!!!!! Woooohooooo!!!!!” Good times…

By the way, this orange mountain here is one of my all time favorite mountains on Earth… because of the amazing snowboarding lines it offers in the winter! I’ve ridden countless different lines on many different sides of it over the years. See, and read on below…

Here’s Ann Driggers skiing right down the guts of the big orange face in the top photo. And since I was rocking the helmetcam that day, I have first-person footage of myself hauling ass down the same line. Check out the video here, along with other photos from the day (this descent is the second one in the video, starting about halfway through).

Anyhow, while I’m rambling, and getting further and further off topic… perhaps you have noticed the new blog redesign? Or I should say, the newer new redesign, since I just redid it a few weeks ago. Well, I took just took it several steps further down the redesign road. This is what happens when I don’t get outside enough… I redesign my websites and post “from the vault” photos…

I completely abandoned the traditional two-column blog layout, in favor of a simpler, narrower one-column layout, with all the navigation repositioned up top in compact drop-down menus. (Courtesy of the amazing PixoPoint Menu Plugin). This offers two advantages, to my eyes: 1) The traditional navigation sidebar was getting so cluttered, it made the whole page look like a ton of text, when I’d rather the have the balance be on the imagery instead. So it’s much cleaner and simpler looking now. And, 2) by ditching the sidebar, the whole thing is narrower now, which shows more of the background imagery, which was the main new visual feature of the new design, and which wasn’t even showing up on standard size monitors before. Now it should. And just in case some people have troubles with the dropdown menus on really small monitors or phones, I’ve also included a secondary backup navigation at the bottom of the pages.

I’ve tested it on numerous browsers, Mac and Windows, and so far so good. But as usual, please leave a comment if you see something wrong or have any suggestions or harsh criticism. ; )

Here’s another 4×5 photo “from the vault.” This is Litlmolla island, near the town of Svolvær in the Lofoten Islands, just north of the Arctic Circle. Taken in August of last summer, during a six week trip through Norway.

#2, you ask? Here’s “#1.” When I first edited my photos after the trip, I chose to post #1 in my gallery, probably because I initially preferred the warmer light on the island and horizon. However, a year later as I look at the two again, this one here is clearly my favorite. I prefer its subtle tones and softer colors, and as a whole it has a lot more feeling to it. As an extra bonus, #2 was shot on large format film (#1 was from a much smaller resolution digital camera).

A photographer friend of mine Dave is traveling somewhere over there right now… I’m looking forward to seeing his photos after he gets back.

Here’s a photo I just dug up from the archives, taken back in August 2006 during a 4 day backpacking loop hike in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. This photo was shot with the large format 4×5 film camera, with a 135mm lens. Seeing this makes me want to get back to Wyoming again for a summer backpacking trip!

I just “found” this photo from back in July 2006, when some friends and I hiked a circumnavigational route around Wetterhorn Peak, a 14er in the Uncompahgre Wilderness of the San Juans in southwest Colorado. For a portion of this day, smoke from a nearby forest fire filled the high alpine basin, obscuring the view of Wetterhorn in a blue haze.

I just dug this photo from the dusty depths of my hard drive. I took this sunset shot of Snow Peak (13,024 ft.) way back in March 2004. I was living in Denver at the time, and took advantage of an unseasonably warm spell in March to go winter camping up on this high ridge in the Gore Range, just east of Vail.

One of the great things about the Gore Range is that on the west side of the range there are numerous high points and ridges that are relatively safely accessible in the winter, offering awesome panoramic views of the main spine of the range. Better yet, the west side of the range gets great sunset alpenglow light since there are no large ranges directly to the west. From a photography point of view, sunset shooting is always a bit easier since you don’t have to wake up early, and you can spend the afternoon casually scoping out photo possibilities. On this evening, I had a really fun photo shoot; there were so many photo possibilities in every direction, and the wind-sculpted sastrugi snow formations on the ridge provided lots of interesting foreground possibilities. You can see some more photos from this evening here, here, and here.

I just unearthed this photo taken back in February 2006. This is the view of Mt. Massive (center) and the Sawatch Range, as seen from the 14,440 foot summit of Mt. Elbert, the tallest mountain in Colorado.

I had hiked up Mount Elbert in the afternoon, knowing that the clear skies and full moon would provide plenty of light to make my way down at night. The evening turned out to be one of my most memorable summit experiences ever; the air was perfectly calm, I had warm clothes on, and I spent over three peaceful hours relaxing on the summit in the twilight and moonlight. During my time up there I also took what is perhaps my favorite photo to date, “Elbert’s Moonshadow”.

Both photos were taken with the 4×5 camera, with Provia film.

This was an early experiment with the 4×5 camera, taken back in January 2006 in the foothills above Boulder. I first exposed the film for a few minutes to record the city lights, then I covered up the bottom portion of the frame using a thin piece of cardboard cut to fit in my cokin filter holder. With the camera in the same position and the city lights blocked out to prevent overexposure, I left the lens open for several hours to capture the star trails.

It’s hard to see at web resolution, but on the center horizon are a bunch of light trails from airplanes taking off from Denver International Airport.

Just to switch it up from all my recent snowy posts, here’s a photo from a gorgeous summer day last December at Lake Wakatipu, near Queenstown, New Zealand. I snapped this photo along the road on my way to hike up for a sunset vista of Mount Earnslaw, which is the glaciated peak at the upper right here.