December 25, 2010
Chimney Rock Near Abiquiu

We camped at Abiquiu Lake, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineer facility, for nine nights in the middle of December waiting for snow on the red rock formations around Abiquiu. Georgia O'Keeffe spent her summers at Ghost Ranch, just north of Abiquiu, beginning in 1934. We got a little snow shortly after we arrived, but the sky remained a solid dark overcast — not very good for grand-landscape photography. Then it rained a little for two days and melted all of the snow. The clouds finally broke on our fifth day and some nice light illuminated the red rock formations near Ghost Ranch one afternoon. We quickly left the campground and drove down the road to photograph. In order to take advantage of the light that afternoon, we photographed from US-84 which meant we were pretty far from the rock formations. I reluctantly broke out my 100-400 to zero in on Chimney Rock, and was able to capture the images above. I had to go out to 340mm, a range where that lens is particularly soft. Fortunately, the dramatic lighting makes the image quite nice.