The Winds Are Raging

This has been one wacky winter here in Colorado, the first time that I can remember where Denver is getting more snow than our mountains, and right now, the winds are blowing upwards of 80 MPH and have been for the past 2 days, the closed front door of my apartment was moving from the winds and my lights have flickered a couple of times. The winds are definitely not good for photography, both for excessive motion in the trees and their leaves and the blowing of the camera even on a sturdy tripod. Nor is it good for fire conditions as there is a very dangerous fire near Lyons 15 north of Boulder where people are being evacuated as I am writing this, and perhaps inspiring me to write this.


Last year was an extremely wet year all over Colorado so the fires were not very severe. Though, in March there was a series of wildfires in the Front Range and near Denver, the period of February and March was the only time it was abnormally warm and dry, enough to fuel these fires. The fire near Denver was at such a location to make photographing it really easy. I am sure there haven't been many wild fires as close to Denver as that fire was. I was able to get out for two nights to get numerous photos of it and not even leaving the greater Denver area. I am always amazed by wildfires and have always wanted to document them but until two years ago with the Four Mile Canyon Fire I never was unable to. Perhaps I will be "lucky" again to get more of these wildfires since I have not been too lucky getting good landscape shots so far for 2012. Destructive yet necessary part of nature, and oh so mesmerizing to watch.






These photos are from last years fire near Denver:

This one was taken at very high ISO to get a relative fast shutter speed. 

Where Highway 58 Becomes Highway 6 in Golden in western Denver, the lights in the background is the road closure and the streaking lights at the bottom are automobiles passing by

The view looking to the east with a part of the Denver area. The air is quite obviously filled with smoke

 

 

 

 

These photos are from the Four Mile Canyon Fire west Boulder in September 2010, this was the most destructive fire in Colorado history burning 175 homes and causing over $300 million in losses. These photos were taken with a much older DSLR so the resolution and noise control was much poorer than the current camera I currently use with which the previous photos were taken with:

The world renowned Longs Peak just peaking through the massive smoke cloud

While we are at it, here is an example of a couple of photos I took during some extremely strong winds, taken last July at Brainard Lake near Ward. It was quite a bit of effort and a very fast shutter speed to keep everything even remotely sharp in appearance: