CLIMBING ROCKS

I recently visited the Garden of the Gods park here in Colorado Springs and everywhere I looked was a climber scaling one of  the tall, massive sandstone rocks that make this park famous. It was a beautiful day, considering it was November 26.

I knew the sun was getting low this late afternoon and that was good, but if I wanted to achieve saturated color, I'd have to shoot with the sun at my back.  But I noticed two climbers with their ropes inching their way up one of the large rocks and I could see what my shot was going to be.  In order to make it though, I had to shoot directly into the sun.  I decided to shoot anyway because I knew the sun would cause my camera lens to close down and darken my subjects, revealing only the silhouettes of the rock and climbers.  I positioned the camera so as to just show a hint of the sun behind the rock, and here is the result. By the way, the image shows the climbers near the end of their climb.  This view shows only about the top third of the rock. (As with all of my photos, click on the image for a larger look)