Keystone Lake and River Run Village

Author's Comments

The lake at Keystone is small. I want to say that first, because the photographs make it look like more than it is, and the disappointment of arriving and finding a modest pond at the base of a ski resort is a disappointment I would rather you not have. What the lake does well, it does very well. It holds a reflection. The peaks behind River Run Village come down into the water cleanly on a still summer morning, and the resort buildings with their pitched roofs and timber balconies read as something borrowed from the Alps, which is the entire point. Winter is when this place earns its photograph. The lake freezes and they keep it cleared as a skating rink, and at blue hour the whole village turns on - string lights along the pedestrian streets, warm windows in the buildings, skaters moving in slow arcs across ice that picks up every color above it. The sky goes that particular cobalt that only happens at altitude in January, and the resort lights read gold against it. You have maybe twenty minutes when the balance is right. Earlier and the sky is too bright. Later and the lights overwhelm everything. I shoot from the far side of the lake looking back toward the village. A longer lens compresses the buildings and the peaks together in a way that flatters both. Bring something warm enough to wait in. The temperature drops fast once the sun is gone, and the photograph you came for is the one that happens after most people have gone inside.

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