Sangres On Fire!!

While studying the weather forecasts last week, i realized that there was an excellent chance at a fantastic sunset in the San Luis valley yesterday, so i decided to execute a plan ive had for a while to photograph the San Dunes/Sangres from San Luis lakes in winter.
I knew my luck was improving when i ran into Kiyomichi Koike at the VC, his book "whispers from the sand" is now out and i highly recommend it--stunning photography! I took a short jaunt in the dunes and the clouds were looking good for sunset

Arriving at the lakes, things at first looked pretty good, then clouds blocked the light about an hour before sunset. I thought this was all id get. (note the sky is in fact cloud cover, not blue sky)

FInally, 20 min before sunset, the sun dipped below the clouds and things really lit up!

Here was the light source, looking west. More at ESS, today and all next week!

Stan - these are beautiful shots!
Im not familiar with how to get to the lakes though???

Stan, I am lurking over here, away from the canp territory. Just had to say that that first pic you posted on this thread is friggin sweet! Great work.

Sweet light. I'm glad to see you caught a few ice-free patches on the lakes.

When I stopped by the lakes a few weeks ago, they were frozen solid. I woke up to a nice toasty 22F in the dunes campground. The lakes were at 7F & ~600 ft lower in elevation !

Nate, the San Luis Lakes are located off a side road from the Dunes. Turn on the only paved road off of the Dunes road, just between the Mendano-Zapata Ranch and the Dunes. (There's a sign for them...) Be sure to watch closely for the right (North) turn into the park itself - it comes up quickly when you're cruising down the road...!

Very nice, Stan. I like the first one and the lake reflections are very nice. I'll be looking for the ESS posts.

Great images! I like the simple comp in the first image.

Nice stuff Stan! Where is the fire extinquisher!

I've looked at these several times now and I have to say that #1 is my favorite, but the colors in the other shots sure are appealing. Can't wait to see more, Stan.

I love number 1 and number 2

the tracks and simplicity of number one is great and the colors and relfections and ice in the water on number two is great and the photo makes that mountain over the dunes look HUGE

Very nice work Stan,
#1 and 2 are my favs, This was the wknd I was planning my first trip to the dunes. But the storm up here and work I could not make it down this wknd as planned.

Stan....great decision made. Beautiful light captured as usual. I love the first one's impact and the light in all the rest of them....regards, Rajeev.

Way to go, man! I like #2 and #3 best. Great call.

Patience pays off. Nice work.

Bill Brennan

Great series, Stan. #2 is magic.

So Stan,
Aside from all you know from what you do in your day job, how do you anticipate "an excellent chance at a fantastic sunset. " When several days out, what determines how you can anticipate the quality of of sunset (or a sunrise for that matter). Is there a reasonably easy way to determine that or is this one of those "it's really complicated and you'd never understand" things? Thanks.

Patrick; It differs from case to case, but for this opportunity, here it is in a nutshell: I looked at relative humidity in a computer forecast in the layer from about 20,000 ft to 35,000 feet, that gave me an idea of whether to expect high clouds (cirrus) which tend to work well at sunset. I also looked at lower levels to make sure i wouldnt get shut out by low clouds. Since the computers often do not handle relative humidity too well (clouds are hard to forecast) I also relied on patter recognition; it looked like winds from the northwest aloft, with a fairly strong jet stream located to the northeast, i know form experience this gives me a good shot at some nice clouds over the eastern mountains. In the computer forecast, it looked like the clouds would stay along and east of the Sangres, with relatively clear skies to the southwest, so i figured this would work out well with the sun lighting up the clouds to the east. As it turned out, some mid level (~10-20K ft) clouds showed up to the south, almost ruining things, but luckily they were high enough that the sun dipped below them close to sunset and it was amazing light. So, half skill, half luck

Wow, that third image is one of the best I've seen here. The combination of orange and blue pastels is to die for! Looks like your research paid off bigtime.