Return from my San Juan Trip

I often post here asking for advice and help but rarely remember to post images when I get back from my trip. I'm making an effort to post more and here is the first image for that effort. I was in the San Juan the first weekend in October and had a mixed greeting, colors around Telluride were great but controlled burns to the north made the skies very hazy. Unfortunately I didn't get any good photos of Wilson Peak (and I had my camera set to Medium Jpegs!!!) so I don't have much to show there. The warmer weather kept snow off the peaks, but my second to last night things started to change. A storm blew threw the area and dusted the Sneffels range with a bit of snow and the next evening I was fortunate enough to have a storm over the range at sunset. This is by far the best light I have had this year and Im glad things turned around for me a bit.

I have always struggled with colors when posting to the web. Here I converted the image to sRGB before posting to the web. It looks like the colors are truer on my computer at least when I do this, hopefully the same is true for all of you.

I'm still working on images from the trip but here are some of my favorites. Let me know what you think!

Andy

I think this is great. I wish the mountains were larger, but there is nothing you can do about it. I like the comp and light a lot. Thanks for sharing.

That cloud is pretty spectacular. Something we all look for. Nice work.

Larger mountain range = less spectacular cloud. I think your comp here is excellent. You still get a good sense of the range, but that cloud and the foreground are the real stars of the show. This is, in fact, one of the better Dallas Divide shots I've seen in, like, forever!

Hey Andy, I was there the same night, with about half a dozen other NPN'ers. It certainly was a fantastic light show. I might crop into a little more of a pano, or maybe clone out the rocks on the right.

Beautiful!!! I agree with Todd---the foreground and cloud make this picture and the smaller mountain range with no snow works well. Congratulations...

Gorgeous - love the light and the clouds. Amazing image!

Looks like you had very fine lighting on the storm cloud that evening. The lower right and the middle portion of the sky right along the horizon looks a little bright to me.

Gorgeous shot Andy. Good photography is 90% being there eh? Personally, I would not crop a thing. The foreground trees would be cut off mid-trunk and look strange. The rocks in the lower right caught my eye too. Clone 'em out? I would.

Gorgeous Andy! I wouldn't change a thing, nicely composed and exposed.

That was such a fun night... fantastic sunset and good margaritas for all. Great shot Andy!

Nice image Andy! That was a fun night meeting other NPNers.

Thanks all for the comments. I guess this show how little I am involved on this board, I didn't even know there were other NPNers there that night! Maybe if we all wore T Shirts or something...ah, bad idea. Ill play around with the crop and cloning and see if I come up with something better. It sure helps when you get good light though!

Andy

I agree the cloud makes this one very special. Print it LARGE!

Wow that is one hell of a sunset, and capture! Sadly, though, I live in the area and I missed this lightshow... I heard about it though and I remember that it didn't look like much from Ouray (as you can see in the photo, where it's mostly clear and uneventful above the Ouray area) Oh well... that's laziness for you! Congrats on witnessing and photographing this!

Excellent composition and what a sunset you had there!

Nice shot! I was over on CR5 when it lit up. I like how the trees in the foreground are bright enough to balance things out. The rocks in the LRC are a distraction; use your discretion.

The kind of light display we all crave ... especially at places like this. Well done.

That is a "to die for" cloud! Nice capture.

Jack-

I ran past the gallery shortly before I shot this but it was closed. Next time I'm in the area I will it a point to stop by. Too bad ouray didn't get much in the way of light.

For the others that were there this evening I would love to see your shots!