Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

March is a funny month. The saying goes “in like a lion, out like a lamb” but in reality is more like “Surprise! It’s winter again!”

At least that is how it felt last week, when nearly a foots of sleety powdery snow fell on Good Friday. Followed, of course, by warmer weather, crocuses pushing up through the ground, and then more snow and sleet…

This was probably the last opportunity for snowflake photographs this season, so I gave it a whirl. Nothing but dusty bits of sleet and ice. Oh well – if you can’t be with what you want to photograph, you may as well photograph the thing you’re with (to mangle an old saying)…

Dusty bits of sleet and ice. In past years I’d have a shot of a bee or two by now. Well, that’ll come…

Dusty bits of sleet and snow

Last week Pam and I headed out on a little road trip, driving from Kalamazoo to Colorado with stops along the way. The purpose of the trip was to attend the opening of the Macroworld exhibit in Fort Collins – though in reality we really wanted to just get away from the cloudy snowy Michigan winter

The drive through the Midwest was uneventful, but not boring. I love watching the landscape roll out around the car and the road – changing from woodland to prairie, rolling hills to flat plains, back to hills and then mountains.

The Marcoworld exhibit at the Center for Fine Art Photography was excellent. This was the first exhibit in their new space, and the gallery looked great. The gallery was spacious, the work was well presented, and above all the quality of every print in the show was outstanding. Many of the artists were present – and some even travelled farther than me to get there.

We decided to stay in Loveland, Colorado, since it was more or less midway between Fort Collins and Denver. On Saturday morning we just hopped onto Route 34 and made out way west, toward Estes Park. At the reception Friday evening, one of the local photographers urged us to get into the mountains before we left, and that seemed like the best way to get there. 

 The drive into Estes Park was great – winding through mountain valleys until reaching the high broad valley were the city of Estes Park is located. Once there we stopped at the visitor center, where we learned that Rocky Mountain National Park was more or less closed – you could enter, but the roads were closed off at the passes a few miles in. As an alternative, we decided to head out on the Route 7 scenic byway, and then link up to the Peak to Peak highway through the mountains.

The drive was excellent. I only pulled off once to take a few photographs – one shown here - but otherwise spent the time tolling around the mountain roads, hitting the occasional snow shower on the way. We reached the small town of Nederland, which was celebrating Frozen Dead Guy Days, and after that drove in fairly heavy traffic back to Boulder.

Sunday proved to be the most interesting day for photography. On Saturday evening we visited friends who live in the area, and they suggested the Garden of the Gods as a destination. So on Sunday morning we drove down to Colorado Springs to explore this location.

 The Garden of the Gods is home to fascinating and huge rock formations. It’s a Colorado Springs city park, and was donated to the city in the 19th century. We arrived at the tail end of an overnight snow, with clouds still low in the air and a light snow on the ground. By mid afternoon the sky had cleared and the surprising warm March sun was shining in full glory. The park was pretty full with tourists and rock climbers, but it still offered some great photographic opportunities. I took lots of photos during the afternoon, and spent the next few nights in hotels on the road working the images in Photoshop.

So that is it – a couple of days of photography and then back on the road, finally arriving in a still snow covered Michigan – hopefully just a few weeks away from a long awaited spring.

A few more images: