2023 Crested Butte Wildflower Photography Trip

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 16-35mm Lens @ 20mm.  Foreground: f/11, 1/3 sec, ISO 100. Sky: f/11, 1/13th sec, ISO 100

I made my annual wildflower photography trip to Crested Butte this year from 7 to 12 Jul. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been to Crested Butte, somewhere between 30 and 50, but its heavenly setting never ceases to enchant me. The wildflowers were a bit late this year due to enduring snowpack.  The high elevation trails that I wanted to hike up around Schofield Pass were still woefully cut off by the snow plug, which is usually melted by July. Above all, I wanted to photograph the night sky above fields of wildflowers. The clouds cooperated 3 of the 5 nights.

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 16-35mm Lens @ 17mm. Blue Hour: f/11, 13 sec, ISO 200. Milky Way: f/3.2, 25 sec, ISO 4000

In this dark sky over Mt. crested Butte the Milky Way’s galactic core is nicely defined. This is a blue hour blend in which I photographed the foreground at 20:45 during twilight, left the camera in place, then shot the Milky Way at 22:15. This was the last instance of the year to get this particular shot. Later and the Milky Way is already vertical and far to the right by nightfall, much earlier and the wildflowers haven’t bloomed yet.

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 100-400mm Lens @ 400mm.  f/5.6, 1/500th sec, ISO 200

I was strolling through a wildflower meadow with my 100-400mm doing tight shots of flowers, not expecting to photograph any birds. A great opportunity arose when I noticed the predictable behavior pattern of this Mountain Bluebird feeding his fledgling. He’d disappear for about 2 minutes to gather a beak full of insects, then perch at the top of a tree and tell his baby to come out. The chick responded to his chirps by flying out from the cover of the tree and landing on the fence post where the male could feed him.  I quickly changed my settings to “C”ontinuous auto focus, expandable tracking area, and bird eye detect. The meadow where they lived sprawled several miles to the base of mountains and was filled with Aspen Sunflowers, Mules Ears and Lupines.

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 16-35mm Lens @ 25mm.  f/16, 30 sec, ISO 100

When possible, I try to use techniques that show motion in an otherwise static scene. That’s why photographers carry neutral density filters. In this case, a 10-stop ND filter blocked so much light from reaching the sensor that it forced a 30 sec exposure to blur the clouds. Ironically, I hiked to this location to shoot star trails at night, but the same clouds that made this photo prevented the night photo.

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 16-35mm Lens @ 20mm.  Foreground: f/11, 1/25th sec, ISO 100. Sky: f/11, 1/100th sec, ISO 100

I bracketed this shot of a meadow near Mt. Crested Butte because the exposure difference between sky and foreground was high. I took one shot exposing for the meadow, then under-exposed the sky by 2 stops and blended them together.

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 100-400mm Lens @ 400mm.  f/5.6, 1/500th sec, ISO 200

For me one of the most cathartic and unencumbered forms of photography is slowly wandering through nature with a macro or telephoto lens with no particular objective. You can find limitless treasures in a meadow or forest when you have ample time to investigate. This is a Checker Spot butterfly perched on an Orange Sneeze Weed flower.

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 100-400mm Lens @ 110mm.  f/8, 1/500th sec, ISO 200

Nothing like an old fence post with barbed wire in front of mountains and wildflowers for a strong western vibe!

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 16-35mm Lens @ 18mm. f/4, ISO 800, 90 Sec x 120

One of the tricks of night sky photography is finding a good landscape that faces the right direction to be placed beneath the stars. In the case of circumpolar star trails around Polaris (the North Star), I needed to find a south-facing shot. This image is composed of 3 hours of continuous, 90 sec exposures. I light-stacked them using StarStax. A passing by vehicle conveniently illuminated the wildflowers in the foreground during an exposure. With most cameras, you need a remote intervalometer to shoot exposures longer than 30 sec during interval shooting.

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 16-35mm Lens @ 17mm. Foreground:  f/4, 120 sec, ISO 4000. Milky Way: f/2.8, 25 sec, ISO 4000

Sony A7rV, Sony G Master 100-400mm Lens @ 275mm.  f/5.6, 1/400th sec, ISO 400

Even though Moose are native just across the border in both WY and UT, they were introduced into Colorado. Our Shiras Moose is the smallest American subspecies while the Alaska Yukon Moose is the largest.

I used a 10-stop ND filter to force a 30 sec exposure to blur the clouds. Only problem was that would also have blurred the wildflowers as they danced in the breeze so I made a separate exposure for the foreground and blended them together. I waited for the sun to burst into a sunstar when it touched the mountain.

View my complete gallery of Crested Butte Wildflower Photography prints