http://melissaliptonphotography.com/

Melissa Lipton Photography, Edwards, CO (2026)

11/12/2024

A Leap of Faith:

In my travels, I've realized that the only impossible journey is the one you never begin. So I plan on never giving up on my passions for travel and conservation of our wild spaces. I hope I'll see you on my journeys around this amazing world!

This image was captured at the summit of Mount Blue Sky in Colorado (formerly known as Mt. Evans, elevation: 14,264 feet) on the last day this road was open for 2024. Every year, this breathtaking highest paved road in North America closes in the fall, but this visit was particularly special and bittersweet for my daughter and I, because this road will not open at all in 2025, due to planned extensive repairs of the road.

We saw numerous mountain goats, big horn sheep, marmots and ground squirrels, in addition to catching the gorgeous colorful sunset at the summit.

There was another hiker on the peak to my west, and I just happened to catch him silhouetted as he leaped over this large gap on the highest pinnacle in the last light of the day. What a magical summit, and I can't wait to hopefully see it again in 2026!

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Nikon Z9 full frame mirrorless body with a Nikkor Z 70-200 S lens handheld at 160 mm, f/10, 1/320 sec, ISO 2500, edited in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Nikon National Geographic U.S. Forest Service U.S. Department of Agriculture PhotoPills

10/31/2024

A Roof of Stars:

Here's an image I dreamed up in my head and went out on October 21, 2024 at dusk to capture. Click to see the full image

This is a photo of my favorite ancient homesteader's cabin in the far back corner of my mountaintop neighborhood. The roof has long ago collapsed, so I thought it needed a "Roof of Stars," the triangular celestial peak of which is made up of the adjacent Milky Way core on the left and the Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, C/2023 A3 on the right.

If you enlarge the image, you can even see a few faint Orionid meteors flying through the sky, as the meteor shower coincidentally also peaked that night.

It was freezing cold unfortunately, and I have to admit it was a bit creepy to be standing solo in a remote field after dark knowing that we have lots of mountain lions, bears, and coyotes up here, but that's the price we pay to go after our dream shots...haha!

Details: This is a single image captured with a Nikon Z9 full frame mirrorless body with a Nikkor 20 mm prime S lens, f/3.2, ISO 8000, 8 second exposure, on a tripod, edited in Lightroom and Topaz Denoise.

Lighting: I set a small headlamp light inside the cabin at a dim setting and covered it except for a tiny sliver to illuminate the interior with a warm glow. During the exposure, I used another dim headlamp to paint a bit of light on the exterior of the cabin and foreground for about 1 second with a cooler color light. Since it was taken shortly after dusk, there still was a slight glow in the western sky above the town of Eagle, Colorado in the distance visible with the long exposure, even though it was fully dark to my eyes.

Apps: I use Photopills app with Night Sky AR to see where the Milky Way will be at any time, and I use iPhone CometBook app to see where comets are in the sky at any time.

Please let me know what you think! The comet is still visible in our sky, though here in Colorado we now have snow storms clouds

Nikon PhotoPills Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Adobe Creative Cloud National GeographiceNASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Topaz Labs

10/02/2024

Fall Fantasy:

"Color"ado is really living up to its name again this year! The fall colors are always amazing in southern Colorado. And though I enjoy capturing images of the huge mountain vistas, I also love intimate scenes which show the beautiful details. Here's one from yesterday that demonstrates the incredibly vibrant pallet of color of our aspen trees.

I have so many images from my adventures around the world this year, so I hope you'll hit Like and Subscribe and Follow my page so you'll get alerts and never miss a post.

09/27/2024

Glorious Grizzly Greeting

Nine days ago I had an amazing day with Campbell River Whale Watching and Adventure Tours and the Homalco Wildlife & Cultural Tours First Nations Guides.

We toured the Bute Inlet and Orford Bay and the Dupont and Algard Creeks on the remote west coast of British Columbia, and of course the highlight was observing the grizzly bears up close!

Our guide, Kalvin, was knowledgeable and taught us about the culture and language of the Homalco First Nation and most incredibly, he enabled us to safely see 8 grizzlies fishing in the rivers on 12 separate encounters during the 3-4 hours that we were with him.

Click to enlarge the image to see the amazing details! This mother grizzly unhurriedly ate the fresh salmon carcass at her feet for 10 minutes, while the cub seemed more interested in the strange group of humans watching from mere meters away. What an incredible adventure and privilege to look these gorgeous creatures in the eyes in their own wild habitat! It's a bucket-list experience of mine for many years now fulfilled!

05/04/2024

Solar Eclipse Totality April 8, 2024 at the Cape Girardeau Bridge in Missouri.

This cable-stayed bridge over the Mississippi River is called the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, suspended by two 356-foot-tall main pylons (this is the west side concrete pylon structure, and I positioned myself at the river bed near the base so I could get the totality directly overhead).

I found out this cool bridge would be directly in path of maximum totality using two of my favorite photo planning apps, and GoogleEarth, and by using the solar eclipse app Totality.

Though my plans for a composite of the complete tracking of the sun across the sky as it arced over the bridge that day were foiled by my auto accident that morning, I was able to capture a couple of images during the dark dusk of totality at 2 pm that were pretty cool, so I thought I'd share. It was so amazing to see some stars and planets visible too...enlarge photo to get a glimpse. Enjoy!

PhotoPills NASA Earth NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Geographic

05/04/2024

Solar Eclipse Prominences 2024!! -

A lot of you have been messaging me to ask me how I have been recovering from the motor vehicle accident I was in on April 8, the day of the total solar eclipse in Missouri (see my prior post), and also to ask if I was able to get any photos at all that day.

I appreciate all your messages and I'm recovering little by little and I hope to replace my vehicle soon. And yes, I was thankfully released from the urgent care shortly before the eclipse started, so I was able to get a few photos, though not the elaborate tracked set-up I had planned.

These red filamentous streaks were visible only at totality, when the moon blotted out the extreme brightness of our sun, and are eruptions of plasma, a hot gas made of electrically charged hydrogen and helium, extending outward from the sun's surface. I thought they were so cool I had to post 2 images taken at 560mm focal length, the first in complete totality and the second just as the sun emerged from behind the moon and caused the Bailey's Beads and Diamond Ring effects.

My excitement during those 4 minutes actually made me temporarily forget about my traumatic accident, and I could only stare in grateful awe at this event that I was privileged to witness.

Did you get to see the totality? Let me know your experience!

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PhotoPills NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA Earth Nikon Nikon Group NASA Solar System Exploration National Geographic

04/12/2024

Saying goodbye to “Lucy” and how my life changed in an instant:

Trigger warning for some blood / trauma!

I’m sharing my story for all my friends who have been with me in my beloved red 4Runner SUV over the last few years, on countless photography trips, as I cannot contact you all to let you know why I’m taking a break for a bit until I can get back to work.

After weeks of planning and days of driving cross country from Colorado to Missouri, my plans changed in the blink of an eye.

On Monday morning of Eclipse Day on April 8, 2024, at around 6:50 AM, as I was 1 mile from my destination, driving carefully on a 2 lane small road in some dense fog, we were rear-ended very hard by a large truck & trailer.

As blood trickled into my right eye, I realized that though I was a bit dazed, I was alive and did not lose consciousness. My husband was in the passenger seat and he was thankfully talking. We both were able to get out of the vehicle, despite both hitting our foreheads. Dennis had a large goose egg bruise, and I had a black eye forming and a dime-sized chunk of my right eyebrow had been ripped out down to the fat. Our necks were stiff, but no broken bones or internal injuries. The other driver seemed ok too, thankfully.

Taking a look at the accident scene, I knew that my wonderful Toyota 4Runner SUV “Lucy” had saved us from much greater injury. The strong frame had stopped the huge pickup dead in its tracks behind us and cracked his engine block, and we were miraculously safe, despite the trunk being fully crushed and all the back windows blowing out.

I knew I’d never drive my Lucy again and the thought still makes me cry with the loss. She was the first vehicle I had ever purchased new from the factory, and she was in pristine condition and had taken me into off road places for 6 years that I could have never reached without her.

A whirlwind of police and tow trucks and rental cars and urgent care centers ensued, and my eyebrow will now be permanently scarred and reportedly will likely need reconstructive surgery after it heals.

I’m forever thankful to Toyota USA for making my 4Runner so well and protecting our lives. I’m thankful for each new day

12/25/2023

Peace on Earth and Goodwill Among Men 🕊️

On this Christmas Eve, I thought I’d share a bit of my serene white Christmas with my friends and family around the world. May we all have peace in our lives and love for others in our hearts 💕

Description: Large snowflakes gently falling over a winter forest scene in Colorado from my window today

10/17/2023

“My Eclipse Superhero“ - this image is one of the photos I captured of the amazing annular solar eclipse on October 14, 2023.

This photo took a ton of pre-planning, using 2 of my favorite planning app tools, Google Maps and PhotoPills, plus an eclipse path visualization app called Totality by BigKidScience.

I had a vision of placing a human silhouette in front of the eclipsing sun just as the moon was passing in front. The human figure is so unique, that I knew it would be a striking contrast to the brilliant sun.

But, because the complete annular eclipse took place from approximately 9 AM to noon in the area of central Utah that I chose, the sun was very high above the horizon, so I had to search and search for a way to safely get my subject (my awesome husband and my personal hero) to be hundreds of feet above me in a southeasterly direction.

I finally found a trail to the top of Wild Horse Butte where my husband could hike to the top, and I could race around in my SUV to the bottom of the cliff below to set up for my photos.

This is a single photo. My husband and I were approximately 1000 ft apart and I used a long lens to zoom in on him and make him appear the same height as the sun.

He battled the natural fear of standing on the edge of a cliff, as well as cold and breezy conditions in very light clothing, and I think this photo really looks like the superhero he is in my life!

Check the comments on the original post to take a look at the 2 video clips of the behind the scenes action to see how high up my husband really was above my level on the desert floor *gasp*!!!
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Details:

Nikon Z9 mirrorless full frame camera body, used at crop APSC DX format because I was so zoomed in

Tamron 150-600 mm lens at 600 mm focal length with FTZ adapter ring mount and a 10-stop ND1000 filter in front of the lens

F/6.3 ISO 3200 1/200 sec

on my favorite sturdy ProMediaGear tripod

Nikon National Geographic Tamron Americas ProMediaGear PhotoPills

04/11/2023

Bobcat on the Prowl: I was extremely privileged to be in the right place at the right time a couple months ago to capture this photo of a gorgeous wild bobcat walking along a countryside farm fence in Eagle, Colorado.

The bobcat was using the fence as an elevated vantage point to scope out the field below for dinner, and shortly thereafter, I watched it grab a tasty vole from the snow.

This was the first bobcat I had seen up close, and I was thoroughly thrilled to make eye contact and watch this beautiful animal for several minutes until it disappeared back into the wild.

These cats are very elusive and special, and I want each of us to do our part to preserve their habitats around the world. Do you have bobcats near you?

National Geographic Nat Geo Wild Nature Nikon Wildlife.net Wildlife Planet BBC Earth

Melissa Lipton Photography

11/12/2024

10/31/2024

10/02/2024

09/27/2024

05/04/2024

05/04/2024

04/12/2024

12/25/2023

10/17/2023

04/11/2023

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