Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — For photographer Rod Hanna, even a high-resolution digital image is not enough to capture the unique beauty of the Yampa Valley.

"I wasn't really satisfied with doing straight photographic prints, so I started playing around with the software," Hanna said. His photographic experience spans 40 years and includes stints with newspapers and the Denver Broncos. The software he's referring to allows him to make a photograph take on some of the qualities of a painting.

Tonight, Hanna will showcase a collection of digitally-altered autumn images at the Wild Horse Gallery. The event, which includes a reception from 5 to 8 p.m., is free and open to the public.

The show is one of two the gallery hosts each year, said Shirley Stocks, Wild Horse Gallery owner. Stocks said Hanna, who she described as a "local celebrity" for his marketing work with Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. and his involvement in the arts, "does wonderful, wonderful photography."

To create his landscape images - prints that look like photographs from far away, but reveal brushstrokes when viewed from close range - Hanna loads his digital images into Photoshop. He puts the colors through filters and adjusts layers, until an already striking photo of a Steamboat sunset takes on a new set of lights and colors.

Hanna said the Yampa Valley inspired his shift from sports photojournalism to landscapes.

"This valley is so beautiful, and the light is so incredible here, that I really started doing that after I arrived," he said.

"There are certain places where the landforms and the weather systems and the surrounding mountains come together to form a quality of light that's unique and different from other places."

Adding to his computerized effects, Hanna uses archival quality paper and pigments for his prints, ensuring quality and color integrity.

"It's basically on a fine arts surface," Hanna said of the archival quality photos. "It gives it a more saturated, somewhat softer look and feel to it."

And as far as showing and selling prints goes, the technology serves another purpose: keeping a color print from losing its colors. "That's been a major step in giving people like me the opportunity to show prints - and be sure the person buying it won't see it fade in 10 or 15 years," Hanna said.

This will be Hanna's first one-man gallery opening for Wild Horse, and his third overall. Hanna's book of fall-themed images from the Yampa Valley, "Seasons of Light," is set to go on sale in early October. The book will be available for pre-sale at the opening. The exhibit is set to run through Sept. 21, though Stocks said it could possibly stay up for longer.