A vivid orange sky intensifies as the setting sun catches the clouds over ranch lands near Paxton, Nebraska, USA.
As the sun sinks below the horizon, grain storage silos stand in silhouette against a vivid evening sky near Paxton, Nebraska, USA.
Seemingly out of place on the prairie, this group of cottonwood trees interrupts the rolling, otherwise treeless, landscape of the "sandhill country" grasslands near Sutherland, Nebraska, USA
An idle old windmill turns in the breeze on a Nebraska ranch in a field of native pasture grasses. No longer needed to provide water, it has become a relic of a bygone age.
A railway line cuts across a seemingly endless plain in farming country near Worland, Wyoming, USA. As heavy clouds gather in the distance, crops growing beside the railway catch a patch of passing sunshine.
After an afternoon storm passes by, fading sunshine lights the hillside pastures and forests of the hinterland near Apollo Bay, Victoria, Australia.
A rainbow sets up in the sky over the Australian bush after an afternoon storm passes through.
Sunlight clips Byers Peak near Fraser, Colorado, USA as the early morning fog lifts from the valley floor and mists rise from a water catchment pond. An old unused barn and dilapidated log-rail fences yield to the ravages of time.
The salt tolerant sedges and grasses covering a coastal floodplain near Holkham in Norfolk, England, give a colourful, textured contrast against the cloudy skies and distant sand dunes.
As winter approaches, the leaves of Aspen trees in the high country of Colorado , USA, change from their summer green into brilliant golden yellow colors. They provide breathtaking contrasts with the surrounding evergreen forrests of Blue Spruce and Lodgepole pine trees.
On the slopes of Mount Goliath in the Mount Evans Wilderness Area near Denver, Colorado, USA, the gnarled skeleton of a dead Bristlecone Pine tree stands where it has for many hundreds of years. Some of these trees at Mount Goliath are believed to be over 1,700 years old while some in California are over 3,000 years.
Time and decay has taken its toll on this historic barn and stockyard, built with a slab-wood roof by a pioneer rancher in Evergreen, Colorado, USA. Sited on the edge of Troublesome Creek it sits alone, amidst various species of wet-land grasses and pasture where elk now graze in a nature reserve known as Elk Meadow Park.
An old and weathered log fence marks property boundaries and divides pasture lands in the high country of Colorado, USA. Drifting snow covers the pastures and the afternoon shadows create interesting textures on the landscape.
Snows from a brief overnight autumn storm have already melted away on the sunny side of a gully in Genesee, Colorado, USA, while the stand of pine trees growing on the shaded side of the gully were still covered with a dusting of snow.
In the early morning light, canyon walls glow under a clear blue autumn sky. The vivid colors of the orange sandstone rock walls contrast with the Cottonwood tree foliage as the trees change colour from green to shades of gold.
Views from the Fiery Furnace region of Arches National Park, Utah, USA, overlook the Salt Wash and beyond towards the distant, cloud coverd, La Sal Ranges. Juniper pines seek refuge from the harsh desert conditions along a sandy drainage line where at least a little moisture helps them survive.
Now discarded and decaying in a field, an old horse-drawn Surrey Cart gives a glimpse into the past and an appreciation of how tough and uncomfortable transportation was in earlier times.
The clear waters of Cathedral Lake near Aspen, Colorado, USA, reflect rugged cliffs below a dramatic ridge line leading towards Cathedral Peak. (One can almost imagine two heart shapes in the image; one inverted heart in the partly cloudy sky above the ferruginous rock layers and yet another, formed by the scrub growing on the scree slope beyond the lake.)
Weather changes quickly in the high country... clouds move onto the north face of Longs Peak, (14,259 feet=4346 m), in the Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA. The scree slopes of Mt Lady Washington are on the right.
