Last week, Angela brought home a single yellow rose. The flower gradually opened over a few days. After breakfast, I was captivated by this rose, so out came the iPhone. This first image was processed with Snapseed to give a soft-focus edge blur.

Soft Yellow Rose

Standing next to the rose were three wooden vases, turned from Aspen wood.

Three Aspen Vases

Continuing with the yellow theme, I setup a bunch of bananas in the kitchen, before they were eaten. Processing with Shock-My-Pic gives the image a painterly look, with brush strokes as though done with oil paints.

Shocked Banana

Later that evening, the rose was lit by an overhead table lamp. Here is another soft-focus edge blur.

Yellow Rose

I made several experimental images of some of the rose images with Simply HDR.

Sepia Rose

This image got the Black and White HDR treatment, with a sepia tone.

Some more pictures from our trip to Bosque Del Apache last weekend… Soon after we arrived, we made a tour of the ponds and lakes around Bosque. These Sandhill Cranes were alerted to some action or possibly raptors, near this pond.

Sandhill Cranes At Bosque Del Apache

The following morning, we made our way out to Bosque from Socorro. The wind was really pumping. After watching the Snow Geese fly out, I captured these grasses being blown about by the wind.

Windblown Grasses At Bosque Del Apache

Later in the day, we made a tour round the ponds, observing several ducks and raptors. Stopping at one of the ponds, I made this image of the trees that were submerged by water.

Submerged Trees At Bosque Del Apache

The ponds are drained during the summer months. In the fall, water is allowed to flow into the ponds to provide a winter habitat for ducks and shore birds.

We made our way to farm road where the Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes were busy feeding. Several flocks of geese were flying in from other areas. I lowered my shutter speed to capture the motion of the wings on incoming Snow Geese.

Incoming Snow Geese At Bosque Del Apache

During the course of the day, the geese made their way down to one of the drainage ditches for a drink of water. While in the ditch, the geese were vulnerable from from predators. Snow geese are very skittish and are easily alarmed. This pair of geese were alarmed by some activity — probably visiting tourists.

Snow Geese On Sentry Duty

During the weekend, other birds that we observed included Shovelers, Pintails, Harriers, Bald Eagles and American Kestrels. We even observed a pair of Javelinas, our first sighting of this animal.

This weekend we made a birding trip to Bosque de Apache National Wildlife Refuge. We managed to arrive here before sunset. After seeing the Snow Geese return to the wetlands, the sun set illuminating the clouds.

On Saturday, I had planned to join the Denver Photowalk Meetup group that was making images of the city lights at sunset. Along the way, I got distracted by the Platte River and never made the meetup! I noticed that several power lines would obstruct the view of the skyline, so I felt that there were more promising locations! The sunset over the city was spectacular. I made this image of the clouds lit by the sunset above Speer Boulevard.

Sunset Over Speer Boulevard

Back to one of the earlier images that I made. The Cherry Creek Trail crosses the Platte River on this bridge. This bridge is for use by pedestrians, joggers and bicyclists.

Cherry Creek Trail Bridge Over The Platte River

Looking up from the Platte River trail, the sun lit up the road bridge that carries Speer Boulevard over the river.

Speer Boulevard Bridge Over The Platte River

As the sun sets, the underside of the bridge steelwork reflected the sunlight.

Bridge Sunset Steelwork

Once the sun sank behind the mountains, the clouds lit up with the red light of the setting sun. Here is one really amazing cloud formation that was present on this evening.

Clouds In The Sunset

I headed back to the light rail station by way of Auraria campus. I remember that the parking garages new the Tivoli Center provided unobstructed views of the city skyline. I made my way up the stairs to reach the fifth floor of the garage. This was one of the images that I made here.

Denver Downtown Skyline At Night

I made my way back home, had dinner and watched the Broncos play against the Patriots.

Yesterday afternoon, we had another winter snowstorm. This morning, we woke up with 2-inches of snow on the ground and branches covered with a layer of snow on the trees under clear blue skies.

Snow Branches And Blue Sky

Another view of the snow covered branches.

Snow Covered Branches And Blue Sky

The low morning sun created long shadows that showed the texture of the snow.

Morning Winter Street Scene

A few minutes later, a father and son passed by, taking their dog for a morning walk.

Walking The Dog

Within a couple of hours, the warmth of the sun melted all the snow, putting an end to the blanket of white.

Tonight (January 3), I gave a presentation on “High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging” to the Colorado Urban Wildlife Photo Club. My presentation notes may be found on the Files page. I have also created HDR processing notes. This document details the workflow steps that I use with Lightroom, Photomatix and Photoshop when processing HDR images. This document may also be found on the Files page. Thank you to the Colorado Urban Wildlife Photo Club for giving me the opportunity to give this presentation.

On New Year’s Day, Susan flew back to London. After taking her to the airport, I headed to the gym. For aerobic exercises, I make use of the cross trainer. When in use, the instrumentation has this really cool heart.

Heart In The Gym

After working out, I noticed icy reflections in the parking lot. There was still plenty of ice remaining from the last snow storm a couple of weeks ago. The surrounding buildings reflected sunlight into the ice.

Reflection In Ice

Where the water had refrozen, the ice trapped air bubbles and formed intricate patterns.

Ice In The Parking Lot

I found this huge patch of ice that reflected surrounding buildings and the blue sky.

Icy Parking Lot

After much procrastination, I have decided to resurrect a new Project 52 for 2012. I had so much fun with the project in 2010, that I decided to do this again this year.

Wednesday night a snow storm moved in… Just in time for a White Christmas. At the parking garage, traffic was moving slowly along I-25.

The next morning, the train pulled in to the station…

Walking down to work, I passed these red umbrellas at Tokyo Joe’s.

Returning from work that evening, the street lights lit up the snow in the parking lot.

Last night I purchased some bell peppers for salad ingredients. Usually, I try to find some peppers with interesting shapes so that I can attempt to do make an image like Edward Weston’s “Pepper Number 30″. After some breakfast inspiration:

Time for some more iPhone fun…

Exploring some more, I noticed this interesting arrangement on the table:

Enjoy!

Yesterday I updated the image galleries on this website with new images. Here is a sample of some of the new images. Last year I visited White Pocket, where I made the following image at sunset.

White Pocket Sunset

A summer storm passed through the metro area this year. Here is an infra red image of the storm.

Summer Storm Over The Front Range

While photographing the fall colors at the aspen forests near Beckwith Mountain, an afternoon storm passed through.

Fall Storm Over West Beckwith Pass

Sunbeams lit up the aspen trees and the rain showers. The forest became alive under an atmospheric light show.