Road Trip Continues; A Pleasant Little Find

Aspens in full color. (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II; 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 92mm; 1/160th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200
This is one of my favorite images from the entire trip.  Surely to be printed large, matted,
framed and hung on my wall.

As my wife and I were driving between Chama and Taos, New Mexico, we drove a very scenic and interesting highway, Route 64.  I can highly recommend the drive.  We drove through valleys, over a couple of mountain ridges and through a very pleasant countryside.  The road varies from semi-arid to fully forested with evergreens at the higher altitudes.  In places the views rivaled the spectacular views we saw in Colorado.

While driving through Kit Carson National Forest, a small grove of aspen trees whose leaves were a brilliant yellow suddenly appeared on my left and then it was gone.  We had seen lots and lots of yellow, orange and gold aspen trees, but there was something about this small grove that really struck me.  The high altitude landscape was filled with evergreens but for this small aspen grove.  Mentally, I noted how beautiful they were and the nice setting in which they were growing.  As I continued driving, I then thought to myself, "I have to go back and make some photographs or I will be sorry I didn't."  I quickly applied the brakes, much to my wife's surprise, and told her I had to go back.  She understood as I have done this many times over the years.  As I have written here many times, if you think you can go back later, the scene and subject will have changed.  You have to stop immediately and make your images.

I knew before I left the car with my camera in hand that I wanted to try to isolate a few of the trees and concentrate on their structure, lines, colors and patterns.  That, I saw, as my main challenge.  How do I pick out only a few and make a pleasing composition.  The image at the top is my favorite of the several I made.  The image below is the entire grove just to show you what I saw. 

I guess it was that this little grove stood all by itself and wasn't among the huge groves of aspens we had seen over the past couple of weeks that stood out for me.  The uniqueness and size of this little grove versus tens of thousands of trees on the mountain sides is what was attractive.

Small grove of aspen trees.  Route 64 in Kit Carson National Forest in New Mexico. (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 57mm; 1/125th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

Next post gets us to Taos and some wonderful images of historical areas.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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