Cumulo-Granticus. From Sugarloaf Mountain, Colorado, 2015 (A type of cloud to be avoided if flying an aerospace vehicle of any kind.)
I was up well before sunrise, checked the weather and peered up at the dark sky–but I convinced myself the conditions sucked for a sunrise photo sojourn what with the constant stormy weather and all…yadda, yadda, yadda… So, I was not anywhere but inside our small apartment when the sun’s rays started groping through the writhing clouds along the foothills. The high peaks on the Divide were poking through like beacons of divine white light.
Dang, I was missing it!
Once it was apparent that the sky and light was “happening”, I hurried up to one of my favorite perches, Sugarloaf Mountain, and made the summit by 7:30a.m. or so. And I did manage to capture a few nice scenes (as in the above), but likely nothing like what I would have found had I showed up at the start line at sunrise. Still I was somewhat lucky–just twenty minutes after hitting the summit, I was enveloped in grey mist (again, as in the above image). Whiteout!
After hiking back down the semi-bald Sugarloaf Mound, I did my usual patrol along Lost Angel Road, looking for light, form, and texture. I stopped at one point and photographed a nicely cloud-draped Bear Peak. It was then that I met a man of about my age or so walking a tiny, but elegantly-dressed and very friendly, curious canine.
It turned out he was a long-time (30+ years) Sugarloaf resident and a photographer himself–Willy Sutton, as he introduced himself. We had a pleasant chat about sunrise pictures from the Sugarloaf Mountain summit, rainfall, and photography projects, and then we were each on our way.
At home, after looking through the images on his websites (and his impressive CV), I discovered just how accomplished William S. Sutton actually is…and those Sugarloaf Mountain images I love to make suddenly seemed just a bit…well…small. (Sampling the CV: MoMA, Guggenheim Fellowship, exhibits dating all the way back to 1979, and so on.)
It never ceases to amaze me the talent of folks who live around here–Olympic athletes, Nobel Prize winners…and nationally recognized artists of which Mr. Sutton is one.
So, here are your links to explore:
William S. Sutton and Michael P. Berman’s Wyoming Grasslands Project
You might also like
Leave a reply