Twinkle, Twinkle

When I consider my photography, I notice a trend. I tend to take a lot of photos that includes the sky - and lots of it. I really love watching the sky, watching clouds form and evolve. I love watching storms roll in and hit. I love watching the light dim as the sun sets and the stars begin to appear. I feel that these photos are my most successful. So, I guess that its natural that I point my camera towards the sky.

However, I continue to try to branch out and grow as a photographer. One area I would love to improve in is photographing people. Recently, I "discovered" a well know photographer Clay Enos. I find his portraits amazingly compelling. I'm especially impressed by his street studio series where he gets wonderful portraits from random people passing by.

All I can say is wow. Something to shoot for.

Be sure to visit SkyWatch Fridays for more photos of the sky (and less rambling about portraits).

From Deep Within

Leadville has had long history of mining in Colorado that continues to this day. All around Leadville are lots of ruins, mine tailings, and other debris.

This week's Thursday Challenge is "EARTH" (Sky, Clouds, Mountains, Rivers, Trees, Plants, Flowers, Rocks, Soil,...)

Skull on Adobe

Be sure to visit Sepia Scenes and Wordless Wednesday for more great photography.

First Light

First light from the rising sun on mountain looming over Turqoise Lake near Leadville, CO.

Be sure to visit Ruby Tuesday for other photos containing the color Red.

Nemo Me Impune Lacessit

This macro shot is of some sort of Thistle growing in my backyard. This as always been one of my favorite flowers.

As you may know, the thistle is the national emblem of Scotland (at least, the scottish thistle is). The story goes that invading Vikings, while sneaking upon some outpost, stepped barefoot on some thistle, cried out in pain, and alerted the defenders.

I don't know if this thistle in Colorado is the same type of thistle found in Scotland, but it amuses me to imagine Vikings sneaking around my backyard. Of course, I've not a clue why a Football team from Minnesota would do that...

This was my first entry into Macro Mondays (be sure to visit).

A Very Good Morning.

During our recent vacation, we stayed in Leadville, Co for a few days prior to the Leadville Marathon and Heavy Half. One morning, while I sat at Turquoise Lake enjoying the sunrise, Kelly got in a little shoreline run. The only thing I was missing, was a coffee.

For more great scenes, be sure to visit Scenic Sunday.

Duck and Cover

This is my first attempt at this type of picture. I've always loved those cool pictures of lightning. Colorado Springs has a lot of lightning, but it's usually not visible to a large extent, at least near where I live.

Last weekend when I went to Albuquerque I ran into an amazing sunset. I wanted to get to the hotel a descent hour and passed the photo-op by. I reckoned that I'd have a good chance the next evening. Armed with some suggestions from my cousin Leslie, my mom and I took off for a spot up near the Volcanoes. I setup my tripod and took a few test shots. I was good to go! Only the weather didn't cooperate. I started seeing lightning from an approaching storm. In the back of my mind, I keep thinking of how lightning and a metal tripod would interact. I pulled out a list of alternative spots that Leslie suggested. With my eye on the evolving sunset, I drove around and tried a few. Sadly, none of the spots offered the view I was looking for.

By the time the sunset was history I had no photos worth keeping. However, the lightning from the storm was putting a quite a show. We started brainstorming on where to find a good vantage point with which to capture this show. I used to live in Albuquerque, but left almost 20yrs ago. I remembered a “make-out” spot of old and guessed that it would be a good vantage point. We had to drive all the way across town to reach it. We followed a couple of dead ends, but finally found it. It turns out that it is a decent spot, not great, but OK. It’s also still a “make-out” spot. It was a bit strange being there with my mom (not to mention a camera – what a perv, right?).

I took around 30 shots, each 2-3 minutes of exposure. This final photo is a stack of 5 photos that actually captured lightning (while still being sharp). I mentioned in the Storm I post of the difficulty of using a gorilla pod to attach to a car window. Because this is not a steady arrangement for the camera, the camera shifted position between some of the shots making it a challenge to align the photos for the stack in post production.

For those interested in trying the same sort of shot, here’s what I did:

• Used the shortest focal length I have (17mm) to capture as much of the sky as possible
• Put the camera in manual mode and used a fairly small aperture (f/11).  You need good DOF and a long enough shutter to randomly capture lightning bolts, but not too long as to get a lot of noise.
  
• Focused at the approximate hyperfocal distance
• Used a cable release to minimize vibrations when taking the shot
• Stack the photos (fairly complicated procedure that I'm not sure I could explain)
  
• After stacking the photos, cropped out the uninteresting upper section of the sky

This composition has room for a lot of improvement, but I’m happy with this first attempt.

Be sure to visit Sky Watch Friday for more views of the sky.

Elephant Heads

As mentioned in the Lemonade post, we saw a lot of dead and dying trees in the Steamboat Springs area. As a counter point, this picture was taken in the same general area and time as the photos of the stricken trees.

This is flower is know as the 'Elephant's Head Lousewort' (Pedicularis groenlandica). Or, just simply 'elephant's head'. It's a common sight in the mountain wetlands and near streams of the Western United States.

According to Utah Weeds and Wildflowers, Louseworts are named such "because it was once believed that animals eating them would become infested with lice". People can believe the funniest things...

Don't forget to visit Purple Photo Passion.

Mysterious

What can I say?

Be sure to visit Wordless Wednesday and Sepia Scenes.

Lemonade

Almost anything can look good in the right light. Take for instance, this tree. It has a nice warm red tone that goes well with the green surrounding it. That warmth is only enhanced by the early morning sun.

However, I can only see what it represents. I don't think that this will ever look pleasing to me. This tree is dead as a result of Mountain Pine Beetle damage. This bark beetle is native to North America from Mexico to Canada. The beetles bore into the tree for food and egg laying. This usually results in the death of the tree.

The current epidemic is much bigger than epidemics in the past, and effects millions of acres of trees western North America. The severness of this outbreak is believed to be caused by a number of factors, such as: recent droughts weakening trees, a series warm winters, past fire control strategies.

During our recent vacation, we spent some time in Steamboat Springs. I was appalled at how bad it had become. I was last in the Steamboat Springs area about 2 yrs ago. The difference between then and now is astounding and very depressing.

All I could think about was the loss of beauty and wildlife habitat, the future fires feed by all the dead wood, the erosion, etc.

While it’s not good, it’s not all bad. While in Kremmling, Co, we talked to the lady at the Visitor's Center. She says it’s a mixed bag - the death of all those trees is providing a lot of employment. There are a lot of dead trees that if left standing could be very dangerous. Besides providing fuel for fires, there is also danger from the trees falling. There are many campgrounds, picnic grounds and even forest roads that are becoming increasingly dangerous due to the threat of falling trees. Many people are finding employment logging these dead trees.

Additionally, the pine beetles leave behind a blue fungus that stains the wood. There are some that consider it beautiful. I've seen decorative items carved from it as well as furniture, paneling and cabinets. I think that it's better to use the already dead wood rather than cutting down new trees. However, apparently the market for beetle-killed wood is rather small.

Another use for the dead wood is as a source for creating cellulosic ethanol. According to the Rocky Mountain News, a Canadian company plans to build a cellulosic ethanol plant in Colorado, which would convert beetle-kill, among other wood waste, into ethanol fuel.

But more than that, the death of these trees open up eco-zones for other plants (aspens, wildflowers, and grasses) and animals (deer, elk, etc).

I don’t think that these thing make up for the death of many millions of trees. It is simply an attempt to make lemonade. It does however, leave me wondering “What can I do”?

That’s my world this Tuesday. Be sure to visits other worlds at My World Tuesday.

Sands of time

I'm still away visiting family (the girls are SO cute!) and also way behind on processing the photos from our recent vacation. So, I'm again going to the archive. This is a photo taken back in Dec 1999 at Whitesands, NM and was taken using slide film. A few months ago, I took a few slides to a local lab to get them scanned. Most of the scans were crap - including this one. I think that I was able to save the scan by cloning out dust and scratches and applying some art effects.

Be sure to visit Scenic Sundays for other great scenes.

Five Minutes More

This morning finds me in Albuquerque, NM to visit family. It's been years since I've seen my cousins. And I've never meet their kids. I can't wait!

I was supposed to wake up much earlier today to go for a run and scout out some sunrise locations for tomorrow. I got in way to late for that. Now I've got to go eat some terrific New Mexican food at Weck's with out the benefit of pre-burning the calories. If you ever find yourself in Albuquerque, I highly recommend a breakfast at Weck's.

Yesterday the sunset in Northern New Mexico was absolutely spectacular. I couldn't bring myself to pull of the freeway and find a good vantage point. Sometimes I'm way to goal oriented, and last night my goal was to get to Albuquerque. I guess I should have taken the time since I wimped out on an early rise this morning. Hopefully this evening is as amazing.

This picture is from the archives and was taken near Crested Butte, CO along the Rocky Brook Rd.

~~~~
The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more.
~Wilson Mizener

The Storm I

This is a photo I took a few weeks ago during an early evening storm. This was an incredible storm to watch. During the course of the storm there was much lightning, a rainbow and a sunset. Later shots depict the deepening sunset going through yellows, oranges, and reds. I’ve never seen a rainbow during such a deep red sunset (not to mention the lightning). What a sight.

I sat at this location for about 1hr. Because of all the lightning, I didn’t feel safe standing outside with my camera on a metal tripod. So, I stayed in my vehicle. I have a Joby Gorillapod that I use as backup, lightweight tripod. In this case, I used it to attach the camera to the partially open window. It was very unsteady and required constant adjustment, but it did let me get 2-3 minute shoots. After that experience, I’m now looking into getting a car window mount clamp that sports a tripod mount.

Be sure to visit Sky Watch Fridays for more images of the sky from around the world.

Busy as a Bee

Our next stop in the vacation was the Denver Botanic Gardens. This is one of my favorite Botanical Gardens. Its big, beautiful, and there are a lot of little hidden corners to explore.

Currently, they have a bunch of statues of dinosaurs running around. It was fun to watch the kids hunt for them, and then find them.

Is that a camera in your pocket?

One of the first things we did during our recent vacation was to take my parents to the Mollie Kathleen mine near Cripple Creek, Co for a tour. You can ride down a very packed elevator car down 1000 feet (305 meters) and have a guided tour through the mines. And I do mean packed. We had 6 people crammed into this tiny elevator. Luckily I knew three of the people already. The other two, I soon became acquainted with during the two minute descent.

It was really an interesting tour. I found the demonstrations of the machinery really interesting. They also played a recording of how the blasting would sound in the mine. Very spooky. I've been on a number of mine tours, and this was by far the best.

Even through I drive by it fairly often, I have never before stopped at the Mollie Kathleen. It's funny how one ignores local attractions until visitors arrive.

This photo is an old truck left in the mines lot. According to the paint on the door, it once belonged to the Woodland Garage of Woodland Park, CO.

Be sure to visit Sepia Scenes for more great sepia images.

Not the stargate?

This is the Julie Penrose Fountain at America the Beautiful park in Colorado Springs. The park is named after the poem that Kathryn Lee Bates wrote after visiting Pikes Peak. The most prominent features of the park is the Julie Penrose Fountain which "is a sculptural fountain representing the life-giving movement of water between the atmosphere and the earth."

Due to budget constraints, the city of Colorado Springs cannot fund the operation of the fountain. If you're interested in donating some money to help the fountain, please visit The Friends of Julie Penrose Fountain.

That's my world! Be sure to visit My World Tuesdays for others.

The fun is just starting!

I'm back from vacation. We had a great time. I really enjoyed getting away from it all. Later in the week I read no emails, had not one cell phone call, nothing!

Now I'm back in the real world. I've got a bazillion emails to catch up with at work (as well as meetings - ugh!).

I've also have a lot of blogs to catch up on, as well as comments in my blog. Please excuse me if it takes me awhile...

While on my travels, I took over 1000 photos. I hope to spend some time over the next few weeks removing the chaff. Hopefully there is one or two really good shots in there somewhere.

This photo is the only picture from that set that I've worked on. It is of a store front in downtown Leadville, Co. EDIT: Apparently, I've forgotten how to do this while I was away - I left off the photo on the original post!

Check out Monochrome Maniacs for more monochrome images.

Backlight

Pikes Pink

A 10-shot panorama of sunset on the north face of pikes peak.

Some of our 4th of July plans got rained out yesterday. I still fired up the grill, but did so under an umbrella while dodging lightening. Regardless, it was a great day to spend time with the family.

Off to the art fest!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Pretty in Pink

This is an early Sky Watch post for me, I usually post on Friday. However, tomorrow starts vacation and I may not be around a computer. Yeah!

Here's the tail end of a spectacular sunset earlier this week. By the time I got to a place that I could shoot without houses, the sunset degenerated to this.

Not too bad in itself, but you should have seen the one that got away!

Be sure to visit SkyWatch Friday for more.

Someone need new glasses?

A field of wildflowers at Roxborough State Park. I applied an Orton Effect to the photo. I really like this effect on some photos. It gives the image a real painterly feel to it. What do you think? Do you like or dislike this effect? How do you feel about manipulating photos in the first place?

Starting tomorrow, I'll be on vacation for the next week. We have some family visiting and we'll be doing some travel around Colorado. I may or may not have a chance to post.

Until then, happy shooting!

The View

Today's photo is a continuation of yesterday's series. This is the view from the Devil's Head Fire Lookout towards the south at Pikes Peak. Sure looks small from this distance.

Be sure to visit Sepia Scenes to view some other sepia-toned images.