A stand of delicate purple penstemon carpet a pine forest floor in Colorado.
Details: the wildflowers in Colorado are amazing but short lived. These penstemon bloom for just a couple weeks in June and only when there’s been a moist spring. These were found in the Black Forest area near Monument, Colorado near the peak of their bloom.
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Purple flowers stand before a giant granite spire in Custer State Park, South Dakota.
Details: Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota has different types of beauty wherever you look. In this case, a small cluster of purple flowers adorned a grassy hill in the granite-strewn landscape near Legion Lake on a fine July day. The nearby forest cast a perfect shadow on the flowers to capture their detail while highlighting the granite spire in light and shadow.
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Tiny yellow wildflowers flourish amidst the granite boulders of Independence Pass in the Colorado Rockies.
Details: Independence Pass, on the North American continental divide near Aspen, Colorado, is well above treeline but far from barren. During the short summer, the rocky meadows at 12,000 feet teem with wildflowers such as these yellow beauties (wooly cinquefoil, I believe). Conditions for this shot were absolutely perfect with the flowers covered in shadow to show their color and detail while a brilliant blue sky with dramatic clouds provides the perfect complement along with the rocky peaks of the Sawatch Range.
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A field of bright wildflowers stands against the elements above treeline in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
Details: Independence Pass crosses the North American continental divide at 12,000 feet just east of Aspen, Colorado. It’s only open four months of the year, but in the summer, it’s windswept heights offer spectacular views of the surrounding Sawatch Range, and wildflowers carpet the rocky alpine fields. The purple flowers here are “sky pilot” (polemonium viscosum) living among multiple varieties of yellow wildflowers which provide the perfect complement to the backdrop of deep blue Colorado sky.
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The last rays of sunlight dance through stalks of fresh purple sage flowers.
Details: in photography, lighting is everything. Normally with flowers you want overcast skies to keep the sun from washing out the details, but every so often, the sun hits things just right. In this case, in literally the last minute before the sun went behind the mountains, it struck this large grouping of sage flowers perfectly.
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Perfect blooms line the branches of cherry trees in Washington D.C.
Details: the cherry trees surrounding the tidal basin in Washington D.C. are legendary for good reason. They blossom for only a couple of weeks each year, and when they do, walking through them is like walking through a world of pink punctuated by the blues of sky and water. It truly has to be experienced to be appreciated, and I can only hope my work to capture them in a photo does even a hint of justice to their beauty.
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Cherry Blossoms surround the serene waters of Washington D.C.’s tidal basin as the Washington Monument looks on.
Details: The cherry trees in Washington D.C. bloom for only a couple weeks each year at the end of March and early April. I was lucky enough to catch them in early April just as the blossoms were beginning to drop. Despite clouds and rain earlier in the day, the skies opened into sunshine just before sunset, and the shadows of the clouds danced on the Washington Monument as seen here.
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A honey bee pays a visit to the brilliant purple flowers of a sage plant in Colorado.
Details: For about two weeks in early summer, the salvia (sage) plants in Colorado bloom with their delicate purple flowers. These weeks bring hundreds of bees to each plant including this little one who stopped just long enough for a photo. A hint for photographers learning to shoot flowers, an overcast day like this one makes it easier to catch color and fine detail.
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A lone pink peony bloom set among brilliant purple sage in early summer in Colorado.
Details: This beautiful bloom was at the peak of its one-week lifespan, and it was the only one on the plant that decided to creep over into an area of sage (salvia) flowers making for a perfect and colorful frame.
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Bright pink peonies flowers in full bloom in Colorado.
Details: The peony flower is a short-lived thing of beauty. In Colorado, the blooms last about one week, but that week is amazing with a single plant covered in dozens of large flowers like these.
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A bumblebee collects pollen from the brilliant flower of pink peony in Colorado.
Details: Taking photos of bees is an exercise in patience and camera control, and I highly recommend it if you’ve never tried it–it will definitely test and sharpen your skills at quickly focusing and tracking a subject! This bee was drawn to a large pink peony on a beautiful Colorado day in early June.
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Brilliant red indian paintbrush line the shores of aptly named Emerald Lake in central Colorado’s Gothic Valley.
Details: Gothic Valley north of Crested Butte, Colorado, is one of the most beautiful places in the state, especially in the summer when wildflowers are blooming. Emerald lake, with its tranquil green water, sits high in the valley at the base of 12,800 foot Mount Baldy (seen here on the right). It’s just below treeline at 10,450 feet, and while many flowers in the lower valley have faded, the flowers surrounding the lake were in full bloom this first day of August.
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Brilliant fireweed adds color to the beautiful Gothic Valley on a sublime August day in Colorado.
Details: Crested Butte, Colorado, is nestled in the middle of the state and surrounded by several mountain ranges of the Rockies. It’s not only a great place to ski in the winter, but in the summer, it’s the “wildflower capitol of Colorado.” Flowers bloom from June through August, but the peaks vary from year-to-year, and flowers bloom at different times. To find this color in August (courtesy of a plant called “fireweed”), my wife and I had to go far up the beautiful Gothic Valley north of Crested Butte. This image was taken near Emerald Lake at about 10,000 feet above sea level. The shot is framed by Avery Peak on the left and Gothic Mountain on the right, both 12,600 feet peaks.
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A thunderstorm builds at midnight over blooming yuccas in central Colorado.
Details: I love night photography, and thunderstorms are some of my favorite subjects. This storm was amazing, flashing with lightning about once a second, but very few broke out of the clouds, so I was fortunate to capture this bolt. A full moon behind me lit up the clouds above the storm and the blowing prairie in front of me.
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An incredible sunset over the Rocky Mountains blankets a field of beautiful goldenbanner flowers in central Colorado.
Details: A wet spring means an early season for Colorado wildflowers. This field, near the South Arkansas River in central Colorado, is full of brilliant goldenbanner on a beautiful evening in late May. The sun is setting behind 14,000 foot Mount Antero which flanks Monarch Pass along the continental divide. The challenge with this shot was getting just the right exposure in a single shot to bring the flowers out without blowing out the intricate highlight detail in the sky.
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Purple flowers line canyon walls striped with bold yellows and reds at the Paint Mines in Colorado.
Details: The Paint Mines Interpretive Park is a little known gem on the eastern plains of Colorado where the forces of erosion and naturally pigmented soil combine for spectacular effect. This is one of my favorite spots for photographing the Milky Way, but it’s an incredible sight in the daylight as well. Heavy rains in early summer brought the addition of wildflowers to the canyons. This hour, when the sun has just left the canyon wall and everything is in mild shadow, is the best time to capture the colors.
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A brilliant blue sky over fields of brilliant yellow flowers on the Colorado plains in July.
Details: First, this scene is fairly rare in eastern Colorado. Usually, summers are dry, and fields like this would normally be brown by July. This year, we got an abundance of rain in late spring and early summer, and entire portions of the state have turned this brilliant shade of gold. The flowers are near their peak here, and in a week, most will be gone. I’m glad I got to capture them on this beautiful July 4th day.
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Wild asters line a high alpine meadow in the shadow of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.
Details: Dallas Creek runs down from the San Juans through the Uncompahgre National Forest in southwestern Colorado, and unusually abundant rains have kept the flowers in the meadows surrounding the creek well into August. Evening has left the meadow in shadow while illuminating Mt Sneffels and the rest of the San Juan range. I stumbled across bear prints to get to this spot, and I was glad for the smoke of the nearby campsite which can be seen in the middle of the image. This scene was captured in HDR to preserve the delicate details of the flowers in shadow as well as the intensity of the sunlit mountains.
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Brilliant yellow flowers lie between the red-rock monoliths of Garden of the Gods Park in Colorado.
Details: Sunflowers aren’t very prolific in Garden of the Gods, but an unusually rainy summer has left a stand of them in the middle of the enormous red rocks of the central gardens. An afternoon storm is just clearing allowing the sun to cast the red rocks in a bright orange which contrasts with the dark storm clouds behind. This HDR image uses three exposures to capture the delicate highlight and shadow detail of this scene.
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Two red roses stand together in full bloom against a dark backdrop of leaves.
Details: this image was taken one day after this image and shows how the second rose has fully bloomed to match the first. I love how these two blooms stand so close and yet away from all the other blooms. This image was taken with a wide aperture to decrease the depth of field and make the leaves soft.
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Dan Bourque is a landscape photographer, father and husband who enjoys finding ways to capture natural beauty in amazing landscapes as well as beautiful moments in everyday scenes. His work has been featured in National Geographic. He believes planning, patience and constant self-critiquing of photos are the keys to getting beautiful images, not expensive gear. Every camera and lens he owns is second-hand, outdated, and scoffed at by those with money to burn. . .