The lobby of the Beaumont Hotel in Ouray, Colorado.
When I travel to the San Juan mountains of Colorado, from time to time I like to stay in historic hotels. One of those hotels is the Beaumont Hotel in Ouray, Colorado.
The Beaumont Hotel was built in 1886 and is still in operation today. I made this photo on my first visit to the Beaumont in 2007. I took my camera and tripod to the lobby late one evening when it wasn’t busy and with permission I photographed the interior of the historic hotel. I bumped into several photographers who were staying there at the time, and some of them remain friends of mine to this day.
Ouray, Colorado is an interesting place. It’s a tourist town, located in the heart of the San Juan Mountains. Many people don’t know how to pronounce “Ouray”, so here’s how. Your-eah. Just think of the Y as missing. It’s named for the Ute Indian Chief Ouray. The town of Ouray is sometimes referred to as “The Switzerland of America.”
The town itself and the local San Juan Mountains are very scenic and is nestled in some of the most photographic geography in the State of Colorado. I love going there.
My first real introduction to the San Juan Mountains was on this particular trip when I signed up for a Autumn Foliage workshop with the famous photographer Kathleen Norris Cook. Kathleen was instrumental in showing me the area and where to get the best photographs. She’s a long time resident of Ouray and one of Colorado’s finest landscape photographers. She was my first real landscape photography inspiration and to this day I have a lot of gratitude and respect for her.
I am proud to have followed in Kathleen’s footsteps. My San Juan Mountain photos have done very well for me over the years, including being used by Google as the reference photos for The San Juan Mountains.
