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Silverton Waterfall Couple Adventure | Erika and Taylor
An intimate couples session with Erika and Taylor at a waterfall in Silverton, Colorado.
A couple of weeks ago I finally got to shoot at the most dreamy Silverton waterfall. I’d stumbled upon a photo of this spot a few months ago when location scouting down in the Durango and Silverton area. The water was turquoise, something the San Juan mountains are known for, and the plants green and lush from the steady flow of water.
I knew that Silverton was still over 3 hours away from my hometown in Grand Junction, so I made sure to head out on a holiday weekend to have more time to explore. It's certainly a tradeoff, visiting anywhere in Colorado on a holiday weekend; however, having an extra day was worth it, even with the crowds. Somehow, we only saw three other people here the entire hour we were there.
The San Juan mountains themselves are astounding. They have always been intimidating to me because of how steep and inaccessible they are. Unless you have a strong will to spend most of the day hiking or are okay with cliffy steep drop-offs on 4x4 roads, the entire area can seem scary. So it was nice getting out to Silverton, having the same campsite for four days, and realizing that you don't have to climb 3,000 vertical feet to have a good view.
Before we headed out to Silverton, I knew I wanted to shoot at this waterfall. I was prepared to set my tripod up to photograph Keith and I - if I had to. Luckily my friend Erika and her partner Taylor made the 7+ hour-long drive from Denver to explore the San Juans as well. Erika and I know each other from our previous shoots together, as well as from our all girls content creating trip to the Pacific Northwest last fall. She is an amazing writer and a health and wellness coach, if you don't follow her on Instagram, you can do that here. Her partner Taylor is also equally as creative as a multimedia designer and animator.
On our last night, Erika, Taylor, Keith and I, along with their two dogs Presley and Sasha, headed to the waterfall, towels in hand. Never having been here, I only knew to follow the stream. Once we found our way, Keith, the dog whisperer, held on to the pups while we had ourselves a little Silverton waterfall adventure.
Skateboarding Guanella Pass with Memory
Skateboarding portrait session up on Guanella Pass with Memory!
Skateboarding Guanella Pass
A little over a year ago, Memory and I found ourselves driving out to Guanella Pass in the middle of Janaury to get her some skateboarding shots! While the north entrance into Guanella Pass from Georgetown is usaully closed that late into winter, the south entrance up Guanella through Grant is typically open a little further (depending on the snowpack)!
The beginning of Guanella pass from the south is a lush wooded forest area where the road runs right next to the creek. Eventually you stop passing houses and trailheads and you start switchbacking up the national forest road into this huge mountain valley. It was the perfect spot for us to pull over and start shooting!
Guanella pass is usually incredibly busy in the summer. There are National Forest roads that seemingly jut off in every direction, the campsites overrun with trailers and RV’s. But in the dead of winter with strong winds and temperatures in the 30’s (don’t let Memorys’ shorts deceive you! It was F R E E Z I N G) we had the whole road all to ourselves. We just pulled over on the side of the road and, thankful for the strong sun at 8,000 feet, shot to our hearts content as Memory skateboarded around!
This board is no longer in production but you can purchase a similar one here from the same brand here! You can pick up a similar jacket here.
Renaya + Ben | Couple Session in Grand Junction
Capturing love amid the unique landscape of the Grand Valley in Grand Junction, Colorado!
I love taking advantage of the endless opportunities to meet people on social media. Theres a good chance that if we’ve met, its because of instagram; heck you’re probably here because of it! And surprise, this is no different! Renaya and I originally talked about grabbing coffee and meeting up, until I so desperately wanted to be behind the camera again (it had been a couple of weeks), and asked if I could photographer her and her boyfriend!
So we met up a few days later at a local trailhead! Renaya and Ben are some of the cutest and most in love couple I’ve ever photographed. In photography you kind of have a list of poses and prompts you can give to the people you’re photographing to help them feel more comfortable and to get more natural reactions. These two didn’t need a word from me, you can truly tell how in love they are just by their interactions with each other, even when I wasn’t shooting.
Grand Junction Locations
I’ve been driving around this town for two months now seeing all of these amazing locations that I want to shoot in. Grand Junction I’m finding has just about every landscape you can image within a short radius. I think wikipedia explains it best by saying we have Colorado National Monument to the south with its canyons and mesas’ interwinding into the Black Ridge Canyon Wilderness and Mcinnis Caynon National Conservation Area. We have Grand Mesa to the east, the largest flat top mountain in the world, and I’m hoping a welcome reprieve from the heat in the summer (although it is currently covered in 16 feet of snow!). There are the Book Cliffs to the north, a series of more mesas that extend into Utah, and then there’s I-70, the freeway that runs right through it all and keeps this small city easily commutable.
We are surrounded by BLM land, which, hi, hello, have you met me? I know I will never tire of exploring the nooks and crannies of our federal lands.
Funny enough, the first location Renaya, Ben and I shot at is just below a mesa of huge houses but I love how undeveloped it feels and how quirky the landscape is. The colors and texture reminds reminds me so much of the paint mines near Colorado Springs!