Photos

The Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains, is the mountain range that fronts most of the major (in size) cities of Utah. Elevations range to nearly 12,000 ft. above sea level, and the terrain varies from glacial cut canyons (such as where ski resorts Alta and Snowbird reside) to stream cut canyons (such as where Brighton and Solitude ski resorts reside), from shale and sedimentary formations, to granite intrusions and rich minerals. One thing common to the entire range is their beauty and autumn brings this about in bounds of color.

The grass, aspen, maples and oaks provide ranges of colors from gold to scarlet, and the pines and fir trees provide warm forest greens. And of course clear blue skies, some of the time. The air quality has changed drastically over the past two decades, from being crystal clear all the time, to sporting pollution both created locally, and ducted in from the west coast, and in theory the meteorologists say from across the Pacific.

This view is looking south from an area where my sons and I have enjoyed camping, near Cascade Springs. The elevation is roughly 8,000 ft, and the landscape is mostly aspen with some pine and ferns growing in the damp meadow areas.

The perspective has been expanded by the use of a 10mm lens. The grass in the near field is only 12 inches from the front element of the lens. I mounted the camera upside down on my tripod keeping it only about 10 inches above ground level. Getting a good look through the view finder was a trick. Camera shake was not a concern, especially at 1/80th of a second with a 10mm lens. I wanted to keep all in focus, I guessed at the hyper-focal distance and used what I though would be a sufficient aperture to keep dof throughout the image. I was concerned that even at f11 aperture defraction would degrade edge sharpness.

Cropping, color balance, slight contrast adjustments and scaling were done in Lightroom.