snow-capped

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Soon after this image was taken, this lady got yelled at for letting her dog go into the water. LOL! Aw man!

It was literally picture perfect. This girl was just relaxin’, having a great time with her dog and that awesome hat she was wearing. The dog was having a blast swimming into the middle of the water and fetching the stick. The snow capped mountains, beautiful weather, both of them were loving life. It was seriously like a scene straight out of a movie. But after getting yelled at, the park service woman told them about another body of water that was close by that dogs were allowed to swim in – so it was all good by the end of the day 🙂

But looking at this image, it still gives me that calm/relaxing feeling that I never want to end. Next time I visit Colorado, I definietly want to make sure we spend more time in Aspen. It looked like such a cute little town with beautiful scenery. Best part is that Maroon Bells is just 15 minutes away from the town. I’d love to capture it at sunrise or sunset. That would make me so happy.

A big shout out to photography for teaching me to love the outdoors.  I don’t think I would have been able to appreciate it as much as I do now if it weren’t for photo. It has allowed me to go to places I would have never imagined and meet some amazing people along the way. Some of my most precious memories have been from exploring the outdoors and trying to capture its beauty.

My camera settings for this image is F16 at 1/400th of a second ISO 200. I pulled out my 16-35mm wide angle to make sure I captured the entire scene.

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I know I’m skipping around a lot. I just took so many pictures on our trip that it’s difficult to decide where to start. I’m all over the place when it comes to editing, but this one is another one from Rocky Mountain National Park. Can you tell it was my favorite national park that we visited? I really enjoyed the fresh air and the snow-capped mountains. Although you can’t even tell there was snow in this image. It looks like a beautiful spring day, which it was. And you know me, when I see a puddle, I have to check out what reflections I can see out of it. This one was a particularly awesome puddle. It was huge and so reflective. I got a few shots and decided it needed something else. So I asked Andrew to stand there and model for me. This is obviously his best model pose. LOL.

In case you were interested, this was on along the trail walking to Alberta Falls. It was one of the only trails we could confidently walk on. So many of them still had snow on them. And forget about making it to Emerald Lake. It was the ultimate goal but the elevation was so high and there was so much snow still on the ground that it was impossible. We only had sneakers on so we were slipping and sliding all over the place. Note to future self: Always pack hiking boots. Even when you don’t think you’ll need them, it will just make life so much easier.

The settings for this image are F/14 at 1/80th of a second at ISO 400 handheld. If any of you know of a tripod where you can shoot really low to the ground, I mean flush to the ground, please let me know! I’m always finding myself wanting something that can get that low but just haven’t found one yet.