Last night I attended the monthly Illuminate Workshops night photo shoot. This month, it was held at Cherry Creek. Soon after we arrived at the meeting location, it started to rain. This was great because the streets and sidewalks become slick with reflections. I made this image just before meeting the rest of the group.

Sidewalk Reflections, Cherry Creek

Soon after starting the photo walk, we met in a parking garage for group shots and then we headed out. I met these three red ladies, part of the window dressing in one of the stores.

Three Red Ladies

Heading down one of the side streets, I noticed the limp, wet, red flags hanging from the flag staffs. These flags were located in a dark area, and required several seconds of exposure.

Red Flags At Night, Cherry Creek

Heading further down to 2nd Street, this bench was covered with puddles of water. I waited for a passing car to provide some additional lighting for this scene.

Wet Bench, Cherry Creek

Nearby is a large pergola covering the street. The underside is lit by several green and mauve floodlights.

Mauve And Green

I seem to remember a hat store where I made some images at another night shoot last year. However, I made a poorly focused image then. I took extra this time. Also, I noticed several reflections in the window that could be distracting on the second attempt, so I moved off to one side when making this image.

White Hat, Cherry Creek

An adjacent store had some menswear that added some color to the window. Looks like these may be neck ties?

Window Dressing, Cherry Creek

I continued down the street, where I had seen some patios chairs at the entrance to a 2nd floor store. Climbing up the stairs, I made this black and white image.

Covered Patio Seats

These three lamps provided the lighting for the chairs.

Three Lamps, Cherry Creek

Head over to the Meetup group website for some more images.

With all the flowering plants around, it was time to use the Lensbaby again. The irises in our garden have started to open this last week. A couple of plants got blown over by the strong winds, so I snipped them and put them in a vase this morning. With the Lensbaby attached, I made one image of the stem below the flower.

Lily

The Lensbaby is really great for making images of flowers. The lens has a sweet spot that is in focus; all other parts of the image are thrown out of focus. For the iris, I decided to use a really colorful vase — we did not have much choice for a single tall thin flower! Here is an image of part of the vase.

Colorful Vase

Then I moved onto the roses bushes. Early this morning this rose started opening — by this afternoon, it had opened.

Opening Rose Bud

Here are three rose buds, just about to start opening.

Three Rose Buds

Finally, I returned to another rose, to get some detail of the edges of the petals.

Rose Bud Petals

Now that the trees and plants have developed green foliage in the Spring, we have the opportunity of doing some great infrared photography again. Green foliage radiates lots of infrared wavelengths. Of course, this is not visible to the human eye, but can be recorded by camera. These images were made during two days this week.

Aspen In Infra Red

So what color is infrared? We cannot see the color. I prefer to convert to a black and white monochrome image. Objects that radiate lots of infrared (leaves and clouds) render as light tones. The leaves of the aspen trees above and below show as white and light grays.

Aspen At Tuscany Plaza

Objects that don’t radiate infrared (blue skies and water) render as dark tones. The reflections from the blue sky show as dark gray, almost black in the image below.

Infra Red Window Reflections

Returning home on light rail, I made the following image from the parking garage. The clouds, blue sky and the setting sun creates really spectacular images when capture with infrared.

Approaching Clouds

At the end of the work week, I stopped by Tuscany Plaza to capture the trees with their fresh green leaves.  I excluded the sky above the background office block in this image.

Office Block And Trees

Earlier in the morning, I had eyed the bushes along the sidewalk and decided that an afternoon shot, with the possibility of clouds in the sky, would make a great image. These bushes have drab green leaves for much of the spring and summer. However, with infrared, they have a totally different appearance.

Bushes Along Sidewalk

During the walk back to the light rail station, I had been following some light clouds in the sky. When I reached the station plaza, I waited until the clouds reached an optimum position above the fountains to capture the following image.

Infra Red Fountain

I have made several images of these fountains over the last couple of years, but none have captured the reflections in this water like this one.

This last week our three tulip plants (red, yellow and white) started flowering. This afternoon, the sun lit up the flowers. I waited until the sun started setting before making images. Here is a selection of some of the images that I made.

Tulips No 1

Tulips No 2

Tulips No 3

Tulips No 4

Tulips No 5

Tulips No 6

Tulips No 7

This weekend I was hoping to visit Doors Open Denver. Yesterday it was overcast and windy so it was shelved til today. After leaving the house today, the rain came. Change of plan — I returned and decided to try out some studio shots of flowers. Whilst shooting these lilies, I found that the best composition was the following image of two lilies. This angle makes also shows the orange stamens against the dark gray background.

Two Lilies

Most of the flowers were either fully open or completely closed. There was a single lily that was half-open.

Single Lily

We also had a bunch of alstroemeria flowers. All those small flowers, disappeared among the green leaves. This is an ideal candidate for black and white image. The flowers now contrast nicely against the surrounding greenery.

Alstroemeria Flowers

These images were made with a speedlight. This light was softened by reflecting into an umbrella. Doors Open will have to wait until another time.

Last night, I attended a night photoshoot with the Illuminate Workshops Meetup group. We met at the parking lot for a briefing. Soon after we got to work. Here are the shadows of other photographers at work!

Photographer Shadows, Denver

Visit the Meetup website, where you may see some other images that have been posted by the photographers, myself included. As we made our way to the Highland Bridge, I passed near these parking meters.

Green Parking Meters

It is always fun to shoot at night, when I set a white balance for incandescent (tungsten) lights to compensate for the yellow light. The buildings in the background behind Highland Bridge are lit by a mixture of tungsten and sodium lights. The twilight sky becomes more blue. Also, Highland Bridge is lit by lights that have a daylight color. This give a nice blue light for the walkway. Also, the bridge that crosses I-25, is also lit by passing cars.

Highland Bridge Twilight

At the bottom of the steps to the bridge is an art work “National Velvet”, that is red and is lit internally. I like the contrast of the blue steps with red of the velvet in the following image.

National Velvet And Blue Steps

Here is another image of the bridge, with the red velvet and some of the photographers at work.

Highland Bridge And National Velvet

Having setup on the bridge, I made several images, with an 8 second exposure. There was a constant stream of people, on foot and on bikes, making their way across the bridge. I like this image, where there there is ghosting of the approaching people in the blue light.

Highland Bridge, With Ghosts

Efrain made several group shots of the participating photographers. After shooting the images, I made my way towards the concrete terrace that surrounds National Velvet. I had noticed that someone had abandoned a styrofoam cup on the steps.

Abandoned Cup In Blue

Later I crossed to the other side of the bridge, where I made another image looking back towards the Denver skyline.

Highland Bridge And Denver Skyline

I have included National Velvet in the image. In the distance is another Denver landmark, the Millennium Bridge, that crosses railroad tracks.

Yesterday evening, we took a walk along the Platte River. It was a toasty weekend with temperatures in the 70′s and 80′s; too warm for spring weather! With the blue skies, this was a great time of day for making images of reflections in the water. During the last week, many of the trees started sprouting fresh green leaves. Here they are reflected in the river.

Spring Greenery

One the bridges crossing the river was painted in green, that reflected pastel shades in the river.

Platte River Bridge Reflection

As sunset approached, the rocks reflected the warmer oranges in the river.

River Bank Reflections

One final image of reflections in the river.

Platte River Reflections

Today was a totally different day. The skies were overcast, with temperatures dropping by 40 degrees. A forecast for snow and rain to follow.

Last week, waiting for the train, I looked down at my shoes. The morning sun cast some shadows of my shoes across the concrete. So I pointed my iPhone down towards my shoes, and turned around until I found interesting shadows. Later I processed the file with Dynamic Light. The default settings opened up the shadow areas nicely.

My Two Shoes

Returning from work, I pass the exit from the underground parking garage. I was drawn to the curves drawing the eye into the top right of the image. The image was converted to black and white with Snapseed.

Garage Sweeping Curved Wall

Exiting from light rail at University of Denver, the setting sun shone through the back of the station benches. This image looked great with the bright colors of the seat backs. After opening the image with Simply HDR, I picked a black and white rendition. This brought out the texture of the concrete with low setting sun.

Light Rail Bench In Sepia

At the end of the week, I left work along a different route. Along the sidewalk were these footprints embedded in the concrete. Concrete boots?

Concrete Footprints

Are the footprints embedded into the concrete? Or are they raised above the concrete? An optical illusion. This image was processed with Snapseed. This is one of the few that I have included a frame.

Waterton Canyon has been closed for the last 15 months for pumping of sludge that had accumulated in Strontia Springs dam. This operation was completed recently and the canyon was re-opened a couple of weeks ago. This afternoon, we decided to head down to the canyon. Soon after entering the canyon, we encountered about a dozen mule deer. I noticed this herd of 9 deer lying at the side of the trail. The white tips of their ears were very distinctive, making them easy to spot.

Herd Of Mule Deer

As we got closer, several deer proceeded to get up — they must have become wary of me and the camera!

Mule Deer, Waterton Canyon

A cold front started moving through the Front Range earlier in the day. The high wind speeds kicked up plenty of dust into the air. As we continued into the canyon, the wind started pumping really hard, so we turned back. By the time we got back, the deer had moved on.

We did manage to see some bird life in the canyon. Several Mergansers were swimming in the Platte River. A few dozen Tree Swallows had also returned to the metro area for the breeding season. We also spotted an Eagle, a Kestrel and a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks.

This week we had a variety of weather conditions. The week started with a clear day. Passing by this pond at Tuscany Plaza, I was captivated by the watery reflections on the sunset shining on the buildings.

Tuscany Plaza Sunset

Crossing over to Samson Park, the setting sun shone through the dome. The glow of the setting sun was enhanced in this image.

Sunlit Dome

The following morning was overcast. The overcast sky was a perfect backdrop to apply a textured background.

Overcast Streelight

Later that day, the clouds cleared. The Mangia Streetlight was lit for the evening. This was a striking contrast against the deep blue sky after sunset.

Mangia Streetlight

On Friday, I took an alternate route to light rail. Passing the Triad building, there were some interesting reflections from buildings on the far side of the interstate.

Triad Builiding Reflections

With the iPhone, I would need to get much closer to fill the image with reflections. However, as I approached the building, but the reflections changed and lost their interest due to a change in perspective.