Glenwood Springs resident Matt Nuñez snapped a photo of southwest Colorado’s Mount Sneffels, one of the state’s 58 peaks over 14,000 feet, with its lower slopes blanketed in fall colors on a road trip back in 2017. When the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles announced its Iconic Colorado contest this summer to redesign the state’s driver licenses, 400 photos, including Nunez’s shot of Sneffels, poured in from photographers around the state for consideration. This month, Nuñez received word from the state’s Department of Revenue and Gov. Jared Polis’s office that his photo of Mount Sneffels was picked to grace the front of the new IDs.
“That part of the state is so stunning and the colors were in their peak form,” Nuñez said of the photo. “I felt like I was stopping every few hundred feet to take photos. I took several hundred if not thousands of photos that day.”
Nuñez, an economic development specialist with the city of Glenwood Springs, has been running a side business as a photographer for years. He submitted three photos for the Iconic Colorado contest. Colorado residents voted on their favorites, and a panel that included motor vehicle administrators, artists and the governorpicked the top three; all three of Nuñez’s submissions were selected as finalists. A final public vote solidified the shot of Sneffels as the winning selection.
“There are such incredible artists and photographers throughout Colorado and we live in such a beautiful state,” said Nuñez. “It’s very cool that my photo will be in the pocket of millions of Coloradans.”
Colorado photographer Gabriel Dupon’s photo of Sprague Lake in Estes Park was selected for the back design of the new IDs. The new licenses will be rolled out sometime in the fall.
