Sunrise at Garden of Gods

With such a fabulous experience with sunset at the Garden of Gods we were up to getting up early and trying a sunrise shoot.  It was fun and, for me at least, very educational.  While we think of both ends of the day as being the Golden Hour, the site can make a huge difference in how that light will play out.  The biggest difference at the Garden was the background and the sky.  In the morning there were no clouds, the sky looked more muddied and the mountains to the west of the rocks were hazy and boring.  Oh well, the rocks did light up with lots of orange to go around!  Plus, we found some of the more interesting compositions were shooting from behind the rocks, on the shadow site.  We hope you enjoy our sunrise.

This ridge is just north of the main Garden, not a part of the Garden.  It appeared that the only easy public photo access was from business parking lots below the ridge or from our lookout above the Garden.  This ridge is white, not the red rock as seen in the Garden.

Photo taken from the lookout above the Garden.

This is the only white ridge within the Garden.  Between this white rock and the larger orange rock is a nice walking path.

The Garden is very accessible with many paved paths and easy to follow hiking trails. We saw many people walking and biking in the Garden.

On the shady side!

Those little pepper dots are birds.  There are hundreds  of birds nesting in the area.  In the morning they make quite the racket!

I took so many photos of this bird flitting about . . . and got just one worth posting!!  

After a couple of hours at the Garden, we packed up our gear and headed back to Albuquerque.  Nice trip home.  With a day to recover, we were ready this morning to check out Cuba, NM and the San Juan Badlands with my brother and Angie.  Tomorrow Tom leaves for Austin.  Thanks for joining us.

Sunset at Garden of the Gods

WOW!!

Same shot as above only shot at two stops under-exposed.  Just shows how really bright this rock gets in the golden sunset!!

Same as above but in Silver FX

This image was taken on the shady side of the rocks.  The sunset would be on the right.  Quite a contrast to what was happening on the other side!

There is one white ridge, outstanding in a field of hard rock red!

WOW again!  This was such a fun shoot.  As you noticed, Tom and I had a very different style in shooting this site.  If you are ever in the Colorado Springs area you just have to go and walk this site.  The ridges run south to north so we guessed correctly that one side would be awesome in the evening light and the other side would be just as awesome in early morning light.  We were told of a viewpoint up the road and up the hill that would give us a spectacular view in the morning (is on the east side of the rocks).  Up next . . . Sunrise at Garden of the Gods!  Plus, I have put many more photos than shown here on the gallery section of . . . so you might just want to check over there for more photos.

Tom and I are back in Albuquerque.  Tomorrow we are shooting around Cuba, NM checking out  the San Joaquin Basin badlands.  Hope your weekend plans include some photography!!  Thanks for sharing.