On Guanella Pass with Stephen Weaver

Sunset on Mt Bierstadt. Guanella Pass, Colorado, 2013

It’s all about the light (as it is repeatedly, repeatedly said), and you need to keep going back until you get it–or, as in the case of our Guanella Pass Workshop last Sunday, wait until it comes to you. That can be very, very, very hard to do when the weather conditions are sloppy and crappy, they have been sloppy and crappy for hours, and there is no sign of any change in said sloppiness.

And so it was for the ten of us who had signed up for Stephen Weaver’s workshop.

With the group in tow, Steve had us spend a few hours in the early afternoon near the top of the pass working in the tundra on some “intimate landscapes” as he calls them. The highlight of the day, however, would most likely be the golden hour when the light finally (Steve hoped and we hoped) would turn the usual Colorado high mountain-spectactular.

Then came the first wave of rain, thunder and hail, which chased us off the open terrain up high and moved us down lower on the Georgetown side of the pass to shoot flowers and forest scenes.

Steve was a fount of knowledge, tips and philosophy, wandering back and forth, checking up on us quite amiably, and dropping wisdom and practical hints like fertile seeds where needed. Even if he wasn’t talking directly to me, I could hear him talking tips to others, so it was like getting a several hour-long photography lecture while, at the same time, actively shooting and putting the advice into practice. With my new Nikon D800 in hand, and feeling pretty clumsy-dumsy with it, I got a double bonus as Steve shoots with the same machine and made several suggestions which helped me immensely.

I was a virgin to this type of photography–wandering around in a group with an instructor, that is–and I was initially worried that being in a gaggle (small though it was) might inhibit my eye and my shutter finger. (You know, the “hard-to-pee-when-others-are-watching syndrome”…or something like that.) But, once I saw everyone was having a great time doing their own creative things, I was easily able to do the same.

In the late afternoon, we returned to the top of the pass to eat and wait for what we hoped would be the culminating light show on Mt.Bierstadt. But then we got a second wave of rain, thunder and hail…then a third. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. And so it went. Most of the group stayed dry with Steve in the big van. Since I drove up separately, I stayed in my truck and read my D800 manual. With the hour getting late and the approaching sunset hidden behind a wall of black-grey clouds still spewing huge, icy, water plops, the gang in Steve’s van decided to call it a day. Off they went down the mountain, along with a young couple from Florida/Kansas who had also arrived in their own car.

What to do…what to do…? I kept thinking of Dan Ballard’s admonition to stick to it until you get the light you want. And I kept listening to a tiny voice in my head that kept whispering, “Stay, stay, stay…”

As the rain pelted down, I slowly drove down from the pass to check out a lake on the west side. Still raining. Nothing inspirational there. I very slowly drove back up to the pass. Sunset hour approaching, and still raining…but not as heavily as before. Hmmm…and isn’t that a bit of the sun trying to cut through the wet boiling mass to the west? Maybe I’ll wait this one out. Just in case.

Well, the rest of the story is as you see it in the image above–the sky partially cleared and, for a just few fleeting minutes (whatever happened to the “golden hour“!), some spectacular light beamed its way through to terra firma and lit up the side of the Sawtooth and the Mt Bierstadt massif. Yes, yes, yes! (If I were only more familiar with my new camera…but that is yet another story.)

I talked with Steve via e-mail a few days later and he said he, too, had a feeling about how the sunset would pan out. He had the responsibility of most of the group there in the van with him, though, and general group-think had them heading down the mountain and back to Denver, so that’s what they did. (If you visit Steve’s website, though, you’ll see that he is obviously pretty dern good about getting out in super-duper lighting conditions. I just wish he had been around to hear his take on that beautiful evening.)

Moral of the story, then? Stick it out! Wait for that light. Wait until all possibility of getting good light has been exhausted. (Heck..then start taking pictures of the stars!)

Now let’s see just how good I am at adhering to my own advice in the future…