Western Colorado

Well, this weekend I'm in Western Colorado with the in-laws, enjoying some time out of the city. We're in a small town called Grand Junction on the Colorado/Utah border. We flew from LAX into Denver yesterday, then drove ealier today through the mountains along I-70 (through snow - note today's date is May 22...wtf). It's about a 3-hour drive, but between the snow and my need to get out and shoot, I think we stretched it out to maybe 5-6 hours.

I actually lived in Colorado for 8 years before moving to LA, so it's good to be back. But as soon as I got out and started shooting, I was again confronted with the 2 major challenges you face shooting photography in CO. 1) Scale - everything is unbelievably huge - I found I was using my 18mm for a lot of the "beauty" shots, just to try and capture the scale of everything. 2) Color Palette - everything in Colorado seems to be some variation of green or brown - and unfortunately today the gray sky didn't help.

So given the challenges, I decided to look for unique things off the beaten path. I busted out Don's 50mm f/1.8 and looked closely at trees and rocks for texture. I went down by the Colorado river (massively flooding due to snow melt & rain), and shot the rapids at slow shutter speed. I played with the ISO, Sharpness, Contrast and Saturation in-camera. Anything to break free of what I always seem to come out with when I'm here: a mind-blowing vista which has now become flat and monochromatic as a photograph.

Hopefully it worked... I'll be posting some of my stuff here and on my other pages over the next few days. Let me know what you think!

www.paulsearsphotography.com

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