Peter Holcombe Photography Blog

I am so happy with how great Jonathan & Courtney’s engagement shoot turned out! As I was driving up to meet them in Idaho Springs it was raining, hailing and just all around nasty. This is the year of perseverance.  With rain nearly every afternoon, it has been a very wet year.  We decided to go for it and just see what happens. The rain quit on the drive and we had a great day until we got up to Mt. Evans.  At the base of this 14′240 peak the clouds came back and the wind picked up. It looked like it might rain or even snow at any moment. We photographed for a while around Echo lake then decided to push on higher up the mountain. I am so glad we did! Driving up was near zero visibility, and then we climbed out of the cloud layer we were in. Suddenly we were looking down on a sea of clouds with amazing clouds above us as well. I quickly found a great spot  and set up my lighting equipment and got ready to shoot. Then another cloud came in and we couldn’t see anything again. This is what shooting in the Mountains is like especially at 11-14′000 feet in a storm. Courtney stayed warm in the car and between clouds I would call them out and we would shoot a few images and then they would retreat to the car. This went on a half dozen times until I felt like we had gotten the image I was after. However , I did notice a clearing in the storm to the west. It was a long shot but I thought that maybe we would get a nice sunset when the sun got low enough to shine under this cloud base.  Jonathan & Courtney didn’t mind waiting to see what might happen, so we waited.  With my background in landscape photography and spending half my life in the mountains I knew there was potential for something extraordinary. The Mountain Gods smiled upon us this day. We got one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever witnessed. To top it off I had Jonathan & Courtney and all my gear ready to go. The last few images in this post are from that time. I know many people will assume the sunset was created digitally in Photoshop but this is truly a real and magical moment. I feel so lucky to have been in this situation. Jonathan has climbed all but one of the 54 14″000 foot peaks in Colorado and said he has never seen such a sunset either. It was the perfect day. Just proving that if you push forward, sometimes you will be rewarded for your efforts. I feel this is so true in photography, business and life.  You get out of it what you put into it.

Please enjoy these images……I am so happy with how great they turned out!

Texture in paint on an OLD concrete wall in Idaho Springs.

This was fun, They were being yelled at by an old man to get a room or rent one from him. I love the depth and rich color in this image.

This is all about the color and depth as well as Jonathan & Courtney’s connection in this fleeting moment.

Just playing around in one of my favorite meadows to photograph in.

A quite moment in the Aspen grove. It is so green this year!

Old building near Echo Lake at the base of Mt. Evans.

Sandwiched between cloud layers. This sea of clouds below us is more common to the Cascades than the Rockies.

The magic is starting. Sometimes less is more. Do you need to see their faces to feel the emotion?

This is one of my favorites. I love the start of the amazing sunset, I love the warm glow surrounded by the cool blue of the storm. This offsets the composition of them being weighted to the left.

I can hear angels playing harps…..

Another favorite. No MANIPULATION ON THE SKY. This is what we were rewarded with for hanging in there on an unlikely day. Blue stormy skies with a briliant light show high in the Rocky Mountains.