Thursday, January 14, 2010
South Platte River, Colorado
(click on image to enlarge)
I have been meaning to get out to Eastern Colorado for a couple of months now and I finally had the chance this week. Got the Campervan all packed up and headed northeast from Denver along I-76 and got more excited with each passing mile. I was headed out to a place that I have been going to since I was about 8 years old, a club where my dad and I duck hunted while I was growing up. Oh, the stories I could tell about some of the times that we had out here, but that’s not for this entry. So, in a way, it feels like driving back in time every time I come out here, like visiting an old friend, seeing what has changed and what hasn’t. It’s always a little different, but also I have changed and see things just a little differently than last time, sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which.
I got down to the river about an hour before sunset and grabbed my camera and tripod and started wandering around the river bottom. The air had that old familiar earthy almost rotten smell, I could hear the cows and geese in the distance, the sounds of motors and dogs barking, the wind rustling through the last of the dried up leaves on the cottonwood trees, it was awesome. There was a high, thin layer of clouds, just perfect to catch the light of the setting sun and all of a sudden the world in front of me was all orange. I was shooting the orange glow reflected off the river ice when I noticed a strange angled cloud formation just above the trees and I knew I had the picture.
The sunset just kept getting better and I noticed an owl silhouetted in a tree by the purple orange clouds behind it, just waiting to catch a glimpse of its dinner. I kept taking pictures, there was barely any light and I was a ways from the van when I heard the coyotes yapping. I know that sound carries, but they sounded pretty close and I was getting pretty nervous, I didn’t want to become anyone’s dinner myself, so I broke into a trot and safely made it back to the van before anything could happen.
Another awesome day out taking pictures!
