Spruce Mountain Ranch, Colorado: The Light Through a Ranch Day

Open ranch ground with pine around it. The buildings are the shade, and the timing is everything.

A ranch property on the transition between the Front Range plain and the foothills gets a day with clear edges, and the reason is that neither the ground nor the trees provide any relief.

The ground is open mown or grazed pasture, which is an excellent surface at the ends of the day and a flat pale one in the middle of it. The trees are ponderosa pine, which has a high open crown and filters hard altitude light into patches rather than blocking it — so a pine stand dapples and does not shade.

At around six and a half thousand feet, with dry air scattering very little, that combination means the middle of a summer day is genuinely unusable outdoors and the answer has to be built rather than found. Which it is, because a ranch of this kind is largely timber buildings with porches and barns.

So the day divides into three: an open-shade morning, a building-shade middle, and an exceptional last hour on the open ground. This is that day in order.

We have not photographed a wedding at Spruce Mountain Ranch; Front Range ranch properties behave consistently. Which buildings and areas are included, what the covered alternative is, and whether the lighting is adjustable are questions for their team.

Spruce Mountain Ranch at a glance

Where	Larkspur, Colorado, between plain and foothills at about 6,500 feet
Morning	Open shade, which is soft and even before the sun gets high
Midday	The buildings — porches, barns and north walls. Not the pine
Evening	Open pasture raked by low sun, and a long view west
Ask first	Buildings and areas included, covered alternative, lighting control

Morning and midday

The first hours are the easiest of the day and the least used. Before the sun is high, open ground on a ranch is lit softly and evenly from a low angle, which means faces are lit across rather than down and the pasture has texture in it rather than being a flat field.

It is also the only time of day when a subject and the distant view sit within a manageable brightness range of each other, which matters at a site whose background is a long one.

The timber buildings are at their best early too, because timber reads only under raking light: log work, boarding and barn siding lift every joint and grain line when light runs along them, and flatten into a field of one colour when light faces them square. A short walk to find which elevation the sun is skimming is worth more than any accessory, and at a ranch with several buildings that walk is short.

A sunlit timber elevation is also a light. Unfinished or lightly finished wood is a mid-toned warm reflector rather than a dark absorber, which means a couple three or four metres out from one, facing it, is lit by a source the size of the wall — needing a custom white balance set on a face because timber bounce is markedly warmer than daylight. Dark-stained timber returns much less, so a glance at the finish is worth five seconds.

Through the middle of the day the open ground becomes unusable and the pine does not help. Ponderosa’s high open crown filters hard light into patches, and at this altitude dappled light puts bright spots and deep shadow on the same face at a ratio nothing holds. The rule is absolute and the test is universal: look at the face rather than the ground, and any bright spot means move a metre.

So the middle of the day belongs to the buildings and there are three kinds of shade in them.

Porches are the best: a roof with an open face blocks the overhead component that ruins faces, the depth restricts the light to a horizontal band, and the floor bounces it back to fill under the chin — a balanced three-source setup occurring naturally, and one that cannot dapple because the roof is solid. Two or three metres in from the open edge is the working position, and looking along a porch rather than out of it gives posts repeating into depth with the far end darkening by itself.

Barn openings are the second. A large open barn door is an unglazed aperture, which means nothing diffuses what comes through it and the exterior beyond is several stops brighter than the interior a few metres in. Standing two or three metres inside facing out gives an enormous soft source in front and darkness behind, which is the best portrait position in almost any barn and needs no equipment at all.

And the north wall of any building is the third: shaded all day at this latitude, and a solid surface makes shade with direction rather than dappled shade.

Evening, and the interiors

The last hour is when the open ground becomes the asset and it is worth protecting above everything else. Low sun in dry clear air at altitude is harder and cleaner than the same angle at sea level, which means it rakes pasture, timber and stone more strongly and saturates everything it touches.

Mown or grazed pasture is the surface that benefits most. At midday it is a flat field; in the last hour it has texture in every blade, and any mowing lines or grazing patterns become graphic elements that either lead into a frame or cut across it depending on where the camera stands.

The transition terrain also gives elevation. Rising ground between plain and foothills means positions genuinely above and below a subject — a camera above a group sees faces rather than the backs of heads, and a position below puts sky behind a couple rather than ground, which separates them completely at no cost.

And the long view west is the site’s distinguishing background. The Front Range rises in that direction, which means a long lens stacks terrain into a wall behind a couple — and in dry clear air at this elevation that view holds detail rather than hazing, which is why it works here and not in a humid climate. A wide lens gives a thin ridge above a lot of pasture, which is the opposite of the point.

That also produces an evening reversal worth planning for: because the mountains lie west, the sun drops behind them earlier than the published sunset time, so the ground goes into shade while the sky above is still bright and the terrain to the west is the last thing lit. A couple in soft shade with lit mountain behind them needs the faces lifted by a close warm-gelled source rather than the mountain underexposed to match them.

The crossing is the one unmovable frame: sky still holding colour at about the brightness of the buildings’ own lighting, so one exposure holds couple, building and sky. In dry air at altitude that window is shorter than in a humid climate and it arrives earlier than a table implies — so it is a scheduled ten minutes rather than a leisurely wander.

Inside, ranch buildings are timber-lined, which means they absorb: a timber-lined room sits a stop or two below a pale one with identical fittings and returns very little to a bounced flash. One test frame aimed at the ceiling settles it, and the usual answer is to light directly into a modifier, gelled warm with white balance set to the gel.

Steep fall-off is the compensation: three metres of distance in a timber-lined room puts natural darkness behind a subject with no equipment. And warm bounce from timber arrives on the shadow side of a face from several directions at once, which one warm-gelled source handles and a global correction does not — because correcting globally turns skin grey and the timber the colour of ash.

The windows are the good interior light and a ranch building oriented to look at a view tends to have generous ones: largest on the shaded side, fittings off, two to three metres back. And when there is snow outside, a window becomes dramatically brighter and softer because the ground is an enormous reflector — a ranch window in February beats the same window in July.

• Use the first hour: open shade, and the only balanced range of the day
• Ponderosa does not shade — porches, barn openings and north walls do
• Two or three metres inside a barn opening, facing out
• Protect the last hour on open pasture; low sun rakes it strongly here
• Expect the crossing early; the mountains take the sun before the table says

The Colorado year

Colorado’s governing photographic variable is elevation, and on the plain-to-foothills transition the year has hard edges and one serious hazard.

Summer afternoons bring it and it needs naming plainly. Convection builds over the mountains almost daily from July into September and moves east, and these storms produce lightning — which on open pasture with no shelter is genuinely dangerous rather than inconvenient. Colorado has one of the highest rates of lightning casualties in the country, and exposed high ground under afternoon convection is precisely the reason.

Hail is the second risk on this side of the range and it deserves a word to whoever is responsible for the party: this part of Colorado sees severe hail more often than most of the country, it arrives with very little notice, and it ends an outdoor event rather than delaying it.

So a named covered alternative with a known capacity is a requirement — and at a ranch with barns and covered structures that is easier to arrange than at a garden venue, which is one of the type’s advantages. It also argues for an earlier ceremony in July and August, because mornings are stable and afternoons frequently are not.

The compensation is that a storm approaching across open ground is visible for a long time before it arrives, which is both a useful warning and the most dramatic sky the location produces. And building cumulus is the best diffusion the state offers: under it the dappling problem disappears entirely and the middle of the day becomes usable for once.

Outside the storm season the sky is frequently cloudless, so waiting for diffusion is not a plan. The buildings and the timing are the plan.

Autumn is the best window of the year: the air is at its clearest so the long view west holds detail, the afternoons stabilise, temperatures are comfortable, and low sun arrives at a civilised hour. The pasture also turns from green to straw through late summer and autumn, which is a warm background and a completely different one from spring.

Any aspen among the pine turn gold in the second half of September into early October, and because a grove is clonal the whole stand turns at once rather than tree by tree — a uniform gold mass against dark pine, and a short sharp window of about a week either side of peak.

Winter is long at this elevation and it is quietly excellent. The December midday sun at this latitude reaches only about twenty-seven degrees above the horizon, which means the whole short day is raking light — exactly what timber, pasture and bare branch structure all want, and the one season the middle of the day works outdoors.

Snow lies at six and a half thousand feet and it does two things: outdoors it is the best natural fill available, lifting exactly the shadows a low sun carves while fooling a meter by about two stops toward underexposure; and indoors it turns the ground into an enormous reflector, which transforms the windows of a timber building whose main problem is absorbent walls.

Snow against dark pine is the widest natural brightness range here — expose for the snow and let the conifer go near-black. And the diurnal swing is large at altitude in dry air, so a party comfortable at four is genuinely cold by seven, with coats the answer and ultraviolet a real consideration even under cloud.

More frames from Spruce Mountain Ranch

Spruce Mountain Ranch wedding photography: common questions

Why doesn't the pine give shade?

Ponderosa has a high open crown that filters hard altitude light into patches rather than blocking it, so a pine stand dapples rather than shades.

Where is the shade then?

The buildings — porches with solid roofs, large barn openings, and north walls, which are shaded all day at this latitude.

Can the timber be used as a light?

Yes. Unfinished timber is a mid-toned warm reflector, so a sunlit elevation is a source the size of the wall, with a custom white balance set on a face.

Which hour matters most?

The last hour on open pasture. Low sun in dry clear air rakes the ground far more strongly than the same angle at sea level.

What are the seasonal hazards?

Afternoon lightning from July into September, and severe hail, which this part of Colorado sees more often than most of the country.

When does the crossing happen?

Earlier than a sunset table says, because the mountains to the west take the sun before it reaches the horizon — and it is shorter in dry air.

More Colorado venue guides

We are writing a photographer’s guide to every venue we would happily shoot in Colorado. Here are three more, plus the full index:

• The St. Regis Aspen: The Light Through a Day
• The Sunrise Amphitheater, Boulder: What It Suits, and What It Does Not
• Windy Point Camp, Colorado: Field Notes on a High Mountain Camp

All Colorado →

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