An Evening Well Spent

Sunsets near my home are often not very good. I live in the shadow of the Colorado front range. To get a sunset, I find that I either need to head west to the other side of the front range, or head east far enough that the front range shrinks to be closer to the horizon. Unfortunately, I don't get the opportunity to do this often.

Last night, the girls went to see some 'girls only' play up in Denver. I took the opportunity to head east. I decided to go to the Paint Mines Interpretative Park (click to see some past posts about park). I didn't try to get any shots of the hoodoos that the park is famous for. Instead, I walked around looking for a representation of the prairie and the big sky.

I really didn't plan this trip well. I went out there in a tee-shirt, shorts and sandals. And, by the end of the shoot, I was shivering uncontrollably.

But it was worth it. The sky and the land was beautiful. There were, seemingly, millions of birds singing. I caught sight of one Western Meadowlark. Sadly, he was too far away to get a photo. I also glimpsed what was probably a Longspur of some sort.

To top it off, I took what may be one of my favorite pictures (not this one, I'll post it on Sunday)

Happy Friday everyone!

For more SkyWatch Fridays, click the link.

Scenic Sunday: Colored Soils

Here's another shot from the Paint Mines Interpretive Park showing three of common color soils that you can find there.

Be sure to check out other Scenic Sunday posts.

T'would be Lonely without friends...

Here's another shot from my last trip to Paint Mines park. This little knob of a hill has a great vantage point over the entire park.

In other news, I'm still still having problems with the PC :( Turns out a lot of data on my drive was corrupted. I suspect it was caused by Elements crashing so often. Luckily, I have a backup. I can't stress enough that you must back your data up!! A few years ago, I lost years of photos on a drive that crashed. Now, I have a dedicated disk to back the data up. I also back up a lot of favorites to my SmugMug Vault. Redundancy good - lost data bad!

Geologic Layers

Earlier this year I spent some time shooting at the Paint Mines Interpretive Park. I got there early on a clear morning. Although the light was gorgeous, it was unsuitable for photographing the canyons. In retrospect, I realized that I what I really needed was diffuse light. I reckoned that it would fill in the shadows. Friday, I got the chance to test this hypothesis. This time, the sky was overcast. I arrived at the park around 11 AM. The light was bright and very diffuse, lighting up the interior of the canyon nicely. Overall, I think the light was easier to work worth. I can't wait to try again - in this canyon and others. I will be back to the Paint Mines as I don't feel that I've captured it adequately yet.

Follow this link for other scenes from a very Scenic Sunday