On my trip to Colorado with some friends to capture some fall color, we searched for and eventually found these curved aspens close to a country road winding up a mountain near Ophir.

According to my reading, the pronounced curves of these aspen trees are the result of "soil creep" from winter avalanches, causing the soil to shift. As the trees grow, they develop curves in their quest to reach sunlight. What I found fascinating were the adjacent aspens and elsewhere on our trip with completely straight trunks. Clearly, this is not a common occurrence.

On this day, we had cloudy skies and light rain, which actually worked to our advantage to reduce contrast and increase colour saturation. Fortunately, we had the place to ourselves and took our time to capture various compositions of these strange, comically curved trees.