Ophir Pass Aspens, Colorado

Issue #008 - Colorful Colorado

I’ve photographed aspen groves in the Sierra and in the Cascades, in the Tetons and in the Canadian Rockies. My favorite aspen groves are in the San Juan Mountains, only a few miles from Telluride, Colorado. In 1972, I made one of my favorite photographs, one of my best selling prints, on the edge of a grove above the small village of Ophir. Shot on color negative film with my 4x5 Linhof view camera, the scene was a simple pattern of vertical, smooth, white aspen trunks with only a few yellow leaves in late autumn still clinging to the tops of the trunks. The foreground was dry yellow grass at the edge of the meadow. It was shot on an overcast day under soft, indirect lighting with no deep shadows and no overexposed highlights. With a gray card and a spot meter I made certain that the exposure was correct.