Clouds of 2018

Clouds in Shades of Grey

If the monsoon clouds are not colorful then they look best in black and white. It always rather amazes the number of shades of grey in the clouds.

Black Lake Dawn

I bought my house because of the dawns. My windows don't face the setting sun but the east. Dawns do some marvelous things.

Storm Building over Ute Valley

It was a spring with fires all around us. Not always easy to tell which clouds were effected by a fire on the other side of the mountain and which weren't. The Ute Valley clouds above were just clouds I think. But the pink clouds below were at least colored by the Ute Park Fire.

Angel's Fire

And a fire to the west of my house seemed to give the clouds silver linings.

Partly Cloudy

But the last photo is at the least clouds generation by the Ute Park Fire and color intensified by the setting sun.

Clouds and Smoke and Sunset

Trees I Have Known in 2018

Lone tree

This is one of my favorite trees featured in 2018. And as I selected my best trees for the year I noted it is the only single tree all alone in its landscape. And it is the only tree in this blog which is included in its entirety withing the frame.

Some years back before I began focusing on trees as something other than an element of a landscape I read a photography blog about how it was not necessary to include the top and bottom of a tree in a picture. Which then brings up the question of where to cut off the tree. Are tops or bottoms most important.

Skeletons of Trees from Ute Park Fire

This is a photo of just the tops of denuded pine trees in the Ute Park Burn Scar.

Trees in the Snow

And this is a photograph of just the bottom of fir trees after a snow. And, you could argue, a photograph of the light which fills the forest in which the trees stand. I really like this particular photograph of trees because of the light. Which brings us to shadows the trees cast.

Shadows in the snow

 Aspens are a wonderful subject for shadows and especially aspens in the winter with snow at their feet. Even the shadows do not reveal the tops of the trunks.

Trees on the Shore

The shadows of these trees on the edge of a frozen lake is all about the tops of the trees. And like the trees in the snow photograph it is also abut the light in the forest.

Snowy Trees

This photograph also appears in a recap of landscapes for 2018 which raises the question of when is it a landscape and when is it all about the trees in the landscape. That question comes up with photograph number one in this blog. You could argue it is a landscape with a tree.

And you may have noticed that except for the first photograph they are all in black and white. Trees are great without color. It was only after realizing you did not have to have the whole tree in a photograph that I came to the conclusion that trees are not in need to green to be a tree. The first tree will now, in the depths of winter be without leaves. I want to go back and photograph it stark and bare against its landscape. It has nice bones.