A Box of Chocolates

“My mama always said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gunna get.'” —Forrest Gump, 1994

And so it is, too, when you go out into the landscape ahuntin’ with your camera bag. You never know what you’ll find.

Yesterday, I thought I’d do a bit of reconnaissance above the Boulder foothills to see if I could find another interesting vantage point for photographs of the Continental Divide and the Great Plains to rival Sugarloaf Mountain. My objective was a small peak (a knoll, really) to the west of Sugarloaf called Bald Mountain (9,147′). (I wonder how just many Bald Mountains there are in this country?) I figured I would come back with a few panoramic images if the light and clouds were right.

After I hiked up there, I found the Divide smothered in clouds and the light average, so I pointed the camera east and took just a few very plain and requisite documentary pics, like this:

Bald Mnt View #1 (View of Sugarloaf Mnt). Roosevelt Nat’l Forest, Colorado, 2013

And this:

Bald Mnt View #3 (Sugarloaf Mnt). Roosevelt Nat’l Forest, Colorado, 2013

At least, I figured, this new perspective on Sugarloaf Mountain might come in handy some day when I needed to do a presentation about that favorite photo locale. And also, now I knew the route if I ever decided to come up here in the pre-dawn darkness on a better day.

Once back down to the truck, I continued driving slowly up the rocky and snow-patchy Switzerland Trail to the Peak-to-Peak Highway, turned left on the smooth pavement, and headed south toward Nederland with the sun starting to edge close to the western mountain summits. Just before getting to that small mountain town full of “Ned Heads“, I found a pretty sweet, and unexpected, chocolate nougat with a caramel center along the way–an awesome and unexpected photo op!

What I found, in a small pond beside the highway (Hwy 72 and CR 126 intersection, to be most precise), was a swath of ice sheets apparently suspended in mid-air, fractured and partially hanging from the many bushes and trees growing in the pond. The water level had dropped maybe two or three feet since the last freeze and had left these plates of ice high and dry, so to speak. The level was still obviously changing even as I set up my tripod as I could hear constant cracking and snapping noises as the frozen sheets adjusted themselves. The place was alive and noisy. I got quickly to work with frozen fingers and warm enthusiasm as the last light of the day drained off behind the cold trees.

Now, this is one of those situations in which I came back with what I think are interesting images, but I am not sure. Why? Well, for one of those reasons I talked about in yesterday’s post: I might very well be associating the wonderful experience of actually being there, live and alive, in the cold evening air beside this moaning, snapping, crackling pond, with the idea that images from such a bizarre place must be good. The experience was unique, so the pictures must be great, too, right? The question the photographer needs to ask is: Will someone who was not there also have a positive reaction to the photographs?

Here are two examples. You can be Judge Wapner in this case.

Ice Remnants #6. Mud Lake Open Space, Colorado, 2013

Ice Remnants #10. Mud Lake Open Space, Colorado, 2013

I particularly liked this last photograph. Yep, you never know what you’re gunna pull out of the box o’ chocolates when you go out to shoot.