Photo Friday: The Tree of Colors
Sometimes the subjects compel you to make the shot… and you listen.
There wasn’t anyone else around to do it, so he had to do it himself.
Standing out while standing in.
I had been on my motorcycle for about two hours, that bright, cold, Colorado morning. I had ridden from Montrose up to Gunnison as the sun was rising and made some photos along the Gunnison River.
I love to ride in the fall colors, and this week I had just missed peak color, so I resigned myself to finding small patches that had held on like guests laughing and chatting while the wait staff patiently, and slowly, cleans up the place.
Deciding on breakfast in Crested Butte, I rode through downtown Gunnison heading north through blazing Cottonwoods still crowned with lots of glorious color, although it was beginning to fade to the inevitable browns of loss.
I came around a bend in the road in an area mostly devoid of trees and much color and there he was. This magnificent old Cottonwood. I thought he deserved a snap.
But I was cold, and there was no place to pull the bike over and stop (Grrr, Colorado). I slowed, but kept on going.
I wanted coffee.
I wanted a couple of scrambles.
I wanted to feel my feet again.
Did I mention it was cold?
Then I glanced in the rearview mirror and instantly knew I had to turn the big V-Twin around.
Going north into Crested Butte, the sun had lit up the tree from the side, but when I went past it, the tree became backlit and the colors simply screamed at me to make a photo.
Yellows, reds, oranges, and even a bit of green — all on one tree. Spectacular.
Colorado has a lot of Aspens, so yellow is the predominant color of fall there. If they have a very wet summer — and they haven’t for many summers now — they can get some red, but this year it was all yellow.
So coming upon this gem, standing tall on the side of a lonely road, was special. And I found a spot to stop and walked a bit back with Nikon in hand.
Sometimes the specialness of something doesn’t reveal itself to you the first time you see it. You may need to look at it a second time in a new light to see what it truly can be.
Kinda like people too, ya know. Sometimes we have to take a second look under better, or at least different light to see what they are really about.
There was no other tree close to this vicinity, so this guy had to do all the heavy lifting… hold all the colors, standing fast against the cold, grasping tightly those tiny bright appendages ready to take flight at the first sign of a wind.
He did it marvelously.
A half-hour later I had scrambled eggs and hashbrowns.
After a little bit more I could feel my feet again.
