Rocky Mountain Wildflowers — Rocky Mountain Wildflowers

  Wildflowers are an important part of landscape photography. Using them as a foreground almost guarantees an interesting photo and the color that they add can be a very important part of the picture. Shooting wildflowers isn't difficult once you know a few pointers. Here are a couple that works well... I'm often asked when is the best time to shoot wildflowers in the Rockies. By mid to late June it is usually possible to find wildflowers at the seven to ten thousand foot levels. However, the real displays of high country wildflowers found at eleven and twelve thousand feet...

Recently Bernie and I joined a Colorado Native Plant Society group for an informative outing at Mount Evans. We began our trek at the Mt. Goliath trailhead at 12,100 feet and followed it downward through the Bristlecone area of Mount Evans along the Walter Pesman trail. Many of the flowers we discovered were tiny, ¼ inch or less as our altitude was comparable to northern Canada’s tundra or to the Arctic Circle. We marveled at how these plants grow in such a harsh environment and learned some of their survival secrets. Along the steep rocky trail we spotted the following...

This week my husband and I drove into Buckskin Gulch in the Mosquito Range of South Park, Colorado. The mountains were still covered with winter’s snows but along the roadside and in the meadows, wildflowers were beginning to add color to the landscape. Sky Pilot, Alpine Sandwort, Alp Lily, Chickweed, Old Man of the Mountain, Alpine Phlox and Wallflower were some of the notable flowers growing among the grasses, rocks and around the Bristlecone Pines at 11,500 feet.        Bristlecone and Wallflowers The Wallflowers especially were putting on a show. Bright yellow clumps were springing up everywhere, but what...

Photographing wildflowers close up, remember your camera records everything you see in the view finder or on the LCD screen. It will record the beauty of your subject when it is sharply focused and it pops out from its background that is kept out of focus. Be mindful, your camera will also record ugly dead sticks, wilting petals or even bug-eaten leaves. In close up shots, make the flowers look at you, which means that often you will have to get down to the same level as the flower that is just inches off the ground.    Pasque Flower and...

      One early-blooming beauty is hard to find and endangered by collectors in the Colorado Rockies. If one has a keen eye and a little luck, he or she just might spot a Fairy Slipper or Calypso Orchid growing in shaded forests among leaf litter on the forest floor. This tiny exotic plant, Calypso bulbosa, is a member of the Orchid Family and has 3 slender pink petal-like sepals, 2 small petals, and one bulb-like petal that forms the slipper shape. A single leaf appears before the blossom appears and remains until the flower goes to seed. Plants grow from...