The Monday After

Hi everyone! I'm back from my vacation. The main goal of our vacation was to visit Glacier and Waterton parks, relax, see the sights, do some hikes, and spend time together. Along the way I was able to take a few photos.

On the way to Glacier, we visited the Little Bighorn National monument, Bozeman Montana, and Flathead lake. On the trip back home, we spent a day touring some of the highlights of Yellowstone and made a brief stop at the Tetons National Park.

I've not had a chance to process any of the photos that I took during this trip. So, for today's post, I present this macro of a South African succulent seen at a botanical garden earlier this year.

Check back here for photos from our trip over the next week or so.

Be sure to visit Macro Mondays.

The Storm II

This photo was taken about 20 minutes after Storm I. The small rainbow in the lower right corner is well camouflaged by the rich sunset colors.

Be sure to visit Skywatch Fridays.

Calibration

The sun rises on the distance peak behind the ruins of an abandoned mine near Leadville, CO.

What color is this photo? On my home system, it is a nice Sepia toned image. At work, its a bit of a sickly radioactive green color... Hopefully the monitor at home is the correctly calibrated monitor! Perhaps its time to get the necessary hardware to properly calibrate my monitor.

In other news, I'll be out in the sticks in and around Glacier National Park all next week. So, I will not be able to post anything next week (I can almost hear the wife cheering). But, hopefully, once I return, I'll have lots of new photos. Have a great week everyone!

Be sure to visit Sepia Scenes!

The Portrait Session

Be sure to visit Wordless Wednesday.

Pikes Peak Marathon

The Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon were held this weekend. On Saturday, the race starts in Manitou Springs, elevation 6,300' (1,920m) and finishes at the Pikes Peak summit, 14,115' (4,302m). That's a 13.1 mile climb of 7,815' (2,382 meters) with an average grade of 11%. On Sunday, the Marathon is held. It's pretty much the same route, except that, at the summit, the racers turn around and run back down.

If you think the marathon is hard, consider that a number of people complete both the marathon and the ascent in the same weekend.

The photo above shows both the starting line and the summit house on top of the peak.

Kelly ran the marathon this year and finished in 7:09:41. That's about 1 hour improvement over last year. Awesome!

Sunrise on the peak before the Marathon start

That's part of my world. Be sure to visit My World Tuesday!

Splash of Color

A field of flowers seen in Denver, CO. I spent some time in this area taking a variety of shots with different compositions - from macros to wide-angle. It's good practice for novice photographers to take a subject and takes lots of shots in different light, angles, formats, compositions, closeup and far away. It's a great way to see what works and why.

Be sure to visit Mellow Yellow Monday!

Spider

While eating lunch, I spied a big spider watching me from the window sill. I grabbed my camera and pulled out the ladder. While tottering on top of the ladder I got a few shots.

This big guy is now missing after the last, very nasty hail storm.

Dawn of a New Age

Old mine structure near Leadville, Co.

I've been playing with Photomatix (software for creating HDR images) for awhile. This is one of my better attempts. There are a rather complicated and bewildering assortment of adjustments used to control the effect.  I still learning which types of images and situations that I think work well with HDR and how best to process them.

This shot was made up of 3 images taken at -1, 0, and 1 EV.  One interesting side effect is that the clouds are very soft due to the movement between shots.  I find the sharpness of the building against the softness of the clouds rather pleasing.

Be sure to visit Skywatch Fridays.

Past and Present

While in Cripple Creek, CO this weekend, I found that I walked into the middle of a war zone. Ok, a re-enactment of one. Cripple Creek honors the United States Armed Forces with their military appreciation weekend, during which there were a number of WWII battle re-enactments. This photos shows spectators and actors between battles.

Be sure to visit Sepia Scenes.

Red Rock on Blue

As I'm sure I stated ad nauseam, I spend a lot of time with my camera in Ute Valley Park and Garden of the Gods. That may seem boring. But, I believe that constantly returning to the same place helps the creative process. I see the grand vistas everyday. I've taken the iconic pictures of Garden of the Gods that everyone else has. However, there are millions of other shots that require only the vision to see them. For some things, familiarity does not breed contempt, but rather it breeds appreciation.  Hopefully I'm learning to open my eyes and see what is in front of me.

Be sure to visit Ruby Tuesdays.

Stark

One of my learning processes is to take some concept or technique and concentrate on it for awhile. In photography, that means that I look for images which enforce the thing that I'm working on. For example, over the last few months, I've been working on getting images with back lighting. That doesn't mean that I ignore other principles and techniques that I've learned. For example, I few months ago, I was concentrating on monochrome. I think this example successfully incorporates the two.

I think that the next concept I want to play with is minimalist landscapes. I ran across this idea on flickr (see Best of Minimalist Landscapes). Very interesting stuff.

House Cleaning

I'm currently going back and reviewing all the photos that I took in 2008. The first step in my normal work flow is to immediately delete photos that are obviously bad. I find though, that I'm not as strict with that as I should, and have a large supply of crappy images.

Reviewing the photos that I took from the distance of a year really lets me separate myself from the emotions involved when I took the picture.  Over the last week I've deleted many dozens of photos.

However, I've also been able to save some.  In the last year, I've learned how to better handle RAW images and post-processing.  This image is a great example.  Straight out of the camera, the image of Lake Tahoe lacked contrast.  All that was needed was adjusting the curves. Back then, the curves adjustment was a big mystery to me.

This house cleaning has been very enlightening.

Cloudscape

Sunset on a cloud bank (5-shot panorama using a 200mm).

This SkyWatch Friday is an anniversary of sorts for me - I started this blog 1 year ago on Aug 7th, 2008 (here's the first post). The month before that first post, I took the plunge in buying a new DSLR and re-started my dormant interest in photography.  I'm not sure  exactly why I decided to restart this hobby, but I'm glad I have.  I've had a great time, seen some awesome scenery, and meet some cool people. 

Thanks, ya'll!

Be sure to visit SkyWatch Friday for great images of our skys.

You mean that I could buy one?

The historic Delaware Hotel in Leadville, CO has a number of these ladies scattered around the lobby.  This would make a rather interesting side table that would start a few conversations...

Be sure to visit Sepia Scenes!

Climber

Wordless Wednesday

Unknown Beauty

This is some sort of succulent growing at the 12,095ft (3686m) along the continental divide near Independence Pass. State highway 82 traverse the pass and is the second highest paved road in Colorado. The road is open only during the summer, from late May until the first heavy snow storm in fall.

It's a great place to see a variety of alpine plants and animals. When I visited there last month, the wild flowers were at their peak.

If anyone knows the name of this plant, please let me know!

Be sure to visit My World Tuesdays!

Pollinators

I'm sure many of you have heard that the North American population of Honey Bees are in decline. These honey bees are not native to North America, but rather, were introduced by European colonist in the 1600s. Besides producing honey, the honey bee is also important as a pollinator for many food crops. I have heard that that the loss of the honey bee bodes ill for food production in North America.

However, there are also over 3500 species of native bees (also known as pollen or solitary bees). These bees don't produce collectible amounts of honey but are extremely important pollinators.

I believe that is photo is of a honey bee, but I'm not positive.

For futher reading, take a look at Alternative Pollinators. Included in this site are some strategies to attract these species to your garden (don't worry, native bees are said to be less aggressive than honey bees)



Be sure to visit Macro Mondays for more macro photos.

My What Big Ears

Early this summer, a number of the local deer gave birth. We've been watching the fawns for weeks. This little family travels through our yard everyday.

For awhile, a doe would hide her fawn in a little copse of Grambel's Oak at noon while she fed. I discovered this by accident when I went out to take some pictures of a cactus bloom. It sure startled me when the fawn took off!

These fawns seemed to have doubled in size since I first saw them.

Be sure to visit Camera Critter's for more animal photos.