Steamboat Springs — In between the summer and winter seasons, downtown Steamboat Springs is a montage of fall leaves on empty streets, snow-hungry locals and the quiet buzz of a town waiting to swell with winter’s arrival.

It’s the underbelly of a bustling resort town that intrigued the students in Keri Searls’ digital photography class at Colorado Mountain College as they spent the fall semester exploring alleyways, new perspectives and sentimental images of the downtown in which they live and attend school.

In other words, don’t expect to see the standard shots of Mount Werner framed by Lincoln Avenue.

“We tried to avoid the classic postcard shot,” Searls said.

From their semester of work, each student chose his or her favorite image, which were compiled into a package of unusual postcards the students plan to sell to benefit Tread of Pioneers Museum. The students had the chance to tour the museum this semester and spend some time with the Tread’s extensive historic photo archives.

The postcard packages are $5 each and are available at the museum and at the CMC campus bookstore.

Student Anna Ogden said her photo — a colorful shot of the Downtown Halloween Stroll — was taken from the rooftop of her downtown home. She said the postcard could offer someone across the country or globe a different perspective of Steamboat.

“People might not know that so many people come downtown for this,” she said.

As she pointed out classmate Walker Mates’ photo — a half-eaten doughnut and a green tea drink sitting on top of a Steamboat Today newspaper dispenser — she said, “It’s not really a ‘postcard image,’ but to a local it is.”

Lifelong Steamboat Springs resident Greg Rudolph took the class this fall as one of his first forays into photography. His chosen photo depicts the flower baskets on the ninth block of Lincoln Avenue overflowing with color on a brisk, fall day.

“I think you realize the importance,” he said about his experience touring the museum with the class. “You wish you had documented more in the past and gotten things of interest documented.

“There are so many things important to local people that really mean something.”

Museum executive director Candice Bannister said the images the students shot — glimpses into everyday life — could end up on the walls of the Tread of Pioneers Museum of the future.

“These students are creating the photo archives of tomorrow,” Bannister said. “Because history is happening every day.”

To reach Nicole Inglis, call 970-871-4204 or email ninglis@SteamboatToday.com