With its dramatic setting, surrounded by forests of pine and aspen and flanked to the west by Hallett Peak and Flattop, Bear Lake in the Rocky Mountain National Park is a stunning visual delight.
However, set at an altitude of 9,500 feet above sea level it's quite a chilly location, so when my wife Liz and I decided on an early morning dawn and sunrise photography session here, during our two week stay in the area, we made sure we were dressed in full survival gear.
It was a bit of a cheat though, as the trailhead car park was less than a quarter of a mile away, but even so, when you're in the middle of shooting a time lapse sequence you can't just wander off for a quick warm up!
We'd been to Bear Lake on two previous occasions during our stay so we knew where the best place to view the sunrise would be, looking west towards Hallett peak, which would be the first point the sun would illuminate as it rose behind us in the east.
I was really, really hoping for a still morning which would give a nice reflection in the waters of the lake, as during our previous visits there'd been a bit of a breeze so no reflection.
Well I wasn't disappointed, as our chosen morning was a still as anything and gave us a perfect reflection of the mountains and forests in the surface of Bear Lake.
In fact, as the dawn moved on into sunrise the reflection became so good that I had trouble believing what I was seeing, and I'm sure some folk will think this video has been mirrored in PhotoShop, but I can assure you the reflection really did look this perfect.
So as the morning moved on and the sun rose higher we watched and photographed as the band of golden light flowed down the sides of the mountains and out along the shore of the lake until almost all the scene before us was glowing.
We finally packed up at about 8.30am, by which time the car park was full (it had been empty when we arrived very early), and we headed out as everyone else was trying to get in.
I reckon we saw the best of the day.
Filename - rocky mountain timelapse 05
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 19mm
Exposure (start of sequence)
15 secs @ f4, ISO3200
Exposure (end of sequence)
1/250 sec @ f4, ISO100
Capture interval - 15 secs
Location - Bear Lake, Rocky Mountains, Colorado, U.S.A.
This clip - HD 720p
Clip duration - 22 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.