Breaking the Pattern

On October 19th, I blogged about hiking up to Angel's Landing in Zion park.  To reach the top of the plateau, one needs to climb up "Walter's Wiggles".  The wiggles are a set of 21, sharp and very steep switchbacks (zig-zags).  It was named Walter's Wiggles after Zion's first superintendent who helped engineer the this section.

This photo is one section of the retaining wall.  Even building something as mundane as retaining wall, the builders add a touch of art by breaking the pattern of the regularly shaped sandstone blocks with this strange looking rock.

Be sure to visit the Monochrome Weekly meme for other great monochrome images.

Johnny O

Late post today. Here it is the first day of my sabbatical, and I spent all day doing chores. Included in that was processing some pictures taken at the 2009 Belvedere Blues Festival. As stated in Saturday's post, I was invited by one of the organizers to take pictures of the event. The organizer knows my wife, and I sent him some pictures that I took at the Brew Ha-Ha festival from earlier this year (click here for one photo). I guess he liked them.

It was very flattering and a very intimidating. I think that I'm a good landscape photographer, and I'm trying to learn how to photograph people. But the idea shooting three days at a festival was a bit overwhelming.

All in all, it has a great learning experience. I also got to see some great bands as well.  This is by far the best musical experience I've had since leaving Austin, TX. This photo is of the very talented Johnny O Band out of Boulder, CO.

Be sure to visit Monochrome Weekly.

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.

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.

YAPP: Yet another Pikes Peak

Generally, I like Blogger. However, I really wish it had a better system to allow communications between people - maybe something more like Wordpress where you can have threaded comments. I've considered moving to Wordpress to get that feature, but their version of comment threads is only a partial solution (imho, it needs the ability to subscribe just to a thread) and I don't have the time to learn and create a new blog just for a partial solution. Anyway, I find it very, very awkward to maintain conversations.

This image is another shot of Pikes Peak. I never get bored of looking at the ever changing view of this beautiful Peak.

Be sure to point your browser over to Monochrome Maniacs for some great monochrome images.

Red Rock in Black and White

Here's another shot from Red Rock Canyon Open Space. The textures present in this rock formation look a lot like wood.

For other monochrome photos, visit Monochrome Maniacs.

Edit May 21: Some how I had the wrong link to Monochrome Maniacs. It is now fixed.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Here's a shot of my brother practicing his guitar. I think I surprised him, because he jumped when the flash went off. He also makes some pretty tasty beer - it's hard to capture that because I'm too busy drinking it!

For other great monochromes, use your keyboard and play Monochrome Maniacs.

Juniper and Red Rocks

According to Wikipedia, there are over 70 canyons in the United States with the name "Red Canyon". This photo was taken in Red Canyon Park near Canon City, Colorado. It's a beautiful little town, and a beautiful park. The 500-acre park has lots of picnic grounds scattered around as well as hiking trails. Apparently, it's also a popular place to climb.

Click over to Monochrome Maniacs for other great B&W photos.

Stretching

This is my first entry to Monochrome Maniacs. I almost chickened out :) But, the only way to learn is to practice. I'd love b&w photos. However, I've rarely created one that I'm happy with. It probably stems from the fact that I do not really understand the "language" of monochrome. I suspect it also results from the fact that creating a monochrome image comes after the fact. That is, I shot with color in mind and then try to convert to monochrome. Perhaps, I need to dedicate some time to taking monochrome from the beginning.

Have a great Monday. Point your browser to Monochrome Maniacs for more monochrome goodness.