Photo a Day Challenge Day 20: Fave Photo You've Ever Taken

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs - 1986

Fave photo you've ever taken. This one was a no brainer. In the summer of 1986 I flew on a plane for the first time ever and visited Colorado for the first time ever. I fell in love. With Colorado, not flying, but that's another story for another time!

The beauty and enormity of the Rocky Mountains was something for which this Jersey girl was not prepared! And then I saw it: The Garden of the Gods! Impossible to do justice with words (and nearly impossible with photos) basically the Garden of the Gods are a bunch of "blades" of red rock jutting out of the earth. If you have never been there, you really must go.

Armed with my Pentax K1000, several lenses and loads of black and white film, I snapped away.

This is where my love of photography was ignited. I was a photography fanatic when I was a teen. Took every photography course I could in High School (Mr. Glaser remains a favorite teacher to this day!) so when summer was over and I got back to High School I developed this film (remember film?!) and printed it in one of my classes. I took this on an overcast day and had to mess around with the printing exposures. I was obsessed with getting this one "just right." In the end, this is the photo that Mr. Glaser deemed me his "Little Ansel Adams." Now, professionally framed, it hangs in my home.