The making of "Summer's Light"

Summer's Light, Eagle's Nest Wilderness, CO

Sometimes, when, taking a photo, I’m not setting out to capture a grandiose scene of an iconic location. Sometimes I’m just trying to capture the mood and the beauty in the moment. And that’s certainly the case with this piece, which I have titled Summer's Light.

I was camping above the town of Silverthorne Colorado in the Eagles Nest Wilderness. I had just wrapped up an art festival the previous weekend, and as it is often the case, I wanted to take some time and enjoy the local area. It’s one of the perks of making part of my living in the challenging world of art festivals.

I had driven in on some back roads into the area and found a nice quiet place to set up camp. It was a beautiful late afternoon in July. Warm, but given the fact that I was at a fairly high altitude, not at all hot. As the sun began to dip low in the sky, I grabbed my camera and decided to wander around close to my camp a bit, never wanting to waste, a nice sunset.

A nearby hillside was covered with Fireweed. The pink flowers glowing in the setting sun. I found a spot where I could get a low camera angle with my wide angle lens, placing a large cluster of them in the bottom of the frame, and pointing the camera directly back towards the setting sun.

As the sun got lower in the sky and dipped under the clouds in the west, it set forth it’s golden rays just above the tops of the distant trees, and warmed the landscape and a beautiful golden glow. I captured this photo at that moment.

Originally this piece was titled Summer Sunset. But, after several people told me that it looked more like a sunrise to them, I decided to change the name to Summer's Light. That way the viewer is free to interpret it as they wish.

To me though, it will always be a representation of that warm summer evening in July in the mountains, and a photo that I was honestly just taking simply for the joy of being there, not planning to do anything more with it. But once I started showing it at art festivals (at the urging of my girlfriend), it quickly became one of my more popular images. I think its success is due to the fact that it has the elusive quality of capturing the feeling of a moment in time.

You can find this image in my Colorado Landscapes Gallery and my art festival booths.