If you look at Colorado on a map it’s boring, blah, meh — as close to a basic rectangle as you can get from something that’s formed on a sphere. As someone who has marketed the state for almost 40 years, I have longed for the iconic shape of a California, Florida or Utah that can instantly represent the state on a T-shirt. However, Colorado’s boundaries may be plain, but what’s inside them is anything but.
What are other rectangles that hold beauty? The photographs showcased in this issue of Colorado Outdoors. Within the state’s boundaries, Colorado Parks and Wildlife manages more than 960 species, 43 state parks and great swaths of state wildlife areas and state trust lands — all waiting to be captured by an adventurous photographer.
When I started The Photography Issue in 2007, I thought it would be a way to showcase the beautiful images that I saw throughout the year but would not normally have the opportunity to feature, while being an easy issue of the magazine to create at the end of the year. I was half right. Beautiful? Yes. Easy? Not even close.
Most people think this is a contest — it isn’t. Many think a committee of staff gets together in a room to go over all the submissions to select the photos — nope, it’s just me, with the occasional assistance from Mindy Blazer, Colorado Outdoors magazine Circulation Manager.
It gets tougher every year. For this issue, I looked through more than one thousand emails (some with one photo, many with 50) to do rounds and rounds of choosing images. The two broad-tailed hummingbird photos below show some of what I look for: One is a unique leucistic white, while the other shows an action many readers have most likely never seen.
I know deserving photographs get lost along the way (I fruitlessly spent most of a morning looking for a profile portrait of a rattlesnake that I vaguely remember seeing). Are these the best photographs that were submitted? No. Some aren’t even the best that an individual photographer sent in, but I would choose a quirky marmot over a majestic elk. If you are looking for inspiration, a photo of a mouse can be as epic as one of a moose.
If your photo wasn’t chosen this year, do not let that deter you from getting out to photograph some more — even the worst photo from a great experience still leaves you with the great experience. Colorado’s boundaries are basic, but the photographic opportunities are boundless.
Wayne D. Lewis
Editor and Art Director
2024 Colorado Outdoors Magazine Photography Issue
