This week’s subject is color! I headed down towards the Platte River near Mile High Stadium. There was a power generation station in the vicinity that might offer some interesting images. There was construction work along the river. The bike paths had been redirected so access would have been difficult to get a decent setup for images. While driving in the area, I noticed a street that I had not visited before. I drove around the area that showed this to be a promising location. So I parked and walked along the re-routed bike path. This led past a derelict building on Colfax Avenue. At the back was a red desk that had a green bush growing underneath.

Bush Under The Red Desk

The derelict building had red painted brickwork with green bushes growing in front. A stormy sky was present, offering some interesting possibilities. The broken windows also revealed some interesting details. All this made for some great HDR treatments. Here is one of the image that I made from several exposures.

Red And Green Behind Colfax

I continued to explore the neighborhood. Along Colfax I spotted several brightly painted buildings. Looking up, the yellow and orange walls contrasted nicely against the remains of the passing storm. This ladder was located some 20 feet above the ground, reaching up into the sky.

Ladder To The Sky

Looking south, the clearing storm was revealing blue skies hiding behind the clouds as the setting sun highlighted the colorful wall.

Colorful Wall And Stormy Sky

I made my way around to the rear of the building, where this elevated deck complemented the colorful walls and door.

Door And Deck

The adjacent building was painted a lime green hue. The stairs leading up the the back door was painted a contrasting purple-magenta.

Lime And Purple Steps

Making my way round to Colfax, the setting sun was lighting up the turret at the corner of this historic building. This is now the site of Brooklyn’s restaurant.

J Solf 1896

Heading back, I passed tall stacks of plastic — maybe they are concrete forms or barricade sections — that were stacked neatly under the Colfax flyover. The blue and white of the regular pattern made for an interesting picture.

Blue And White Abstract Plastic

Nearby was an orange drain pipe that carries away water from the elevated flyover.

Orange Drain Pipe

The light was fading rapidly as I headed back towards the parked truck. Earlier another photog was busy with a portrait session in front of the interesting wall. A red shoe was abandoned on the sidewalk together with this abandoned building.

Abandoned With The Red Shoe

It was only later that I noticed the red shoe!

A different subject for this week! Our garage had this really ugly window in the north facing wall. It is doubtful whether it ever met local code standards. After examining the house plans, I noticed that the window was not part of the original house construction. It was obviously a poor DIY project by previous owners.

Window, Outside, Before

To make matters worse, the window was installed so that the bug net could never be removed. Some years ago, I noticed the movable pane jammed occasionally. It has been installed upside down. We have made gradual improvements to our house over the years. This year was the garage’s turn — new steps were installed a few months ago.

Window, Inside, Before

Now it was the windows’ turn. Over the weekend, I started a construction project to replace this window, and to install a new window in the south wall. So I made some before and after images to record my endeavors.

The project started by removing the old window and re-framing to accommodate a larger-sized window. Whilst re-framing, I noticed the shoddy workmanship of the previous framing. It did not take long to rip out the old framing. But I spent time to ensure that the new work was done to a higher standard. Here is the interior of the window after completion.

Window, Inside, After

And here is the outside of the window. I ran out of materials for the trim strip around the window. I purposely get fewer construction materials of rarely used parts and materials. This way I can verify that items are correct and I don’t have the hassle of returning excess items to the store. Anyway, this window will be completed later this week.

Window, Outside, After

Here is the new window that I installed on the south wall. I decided to complete this window so that I did not have to be attacked by the thorns on the rose bush twice in one week!

New Window, Complete

After completing the window trim on the north wall, both windows will be sealed properly and the trim strips will be painted.

This south facing window has made a tremendous difference to the garage. Angela commented that we now get sunlight in the garage; this will get better later this year as the sun moves lower in the sky. There was an added benefit of completing this project. We cleaned out the garage, and have a big pile of stuff to go out with the trash.

This week I started the Third Eye class (with Greg Cradick) at Working With Artists. After discussing critique, we proceeded to discuss the influence of time in photography. This gave me inspiration to try making a few different images.

My morning commute starts at the University of Denver light rail station. While riding the light rail on Thursday, I made several multiple exposure images of the busy traffic on I-25. This image is the one that best shows frenetic busy traffic, with cars rushing towards their destination.

Traffic On The Interstate

This is not the first time that I have experimented with in-camera multiple exposures. You can see some more images using this technique in World Wide Photowalk – wk31 and Garden Flowers and Bees – wk32.

On Friday, I made another attempt by making more images. This time I wanted to make an image of the train arriving at the station. A skateboard came riding down the platform while waiting for his train.

Multiple Skateboarders

His train arrived and then he was gone, so I turned my attention to the station bench for another subject.

Multiple Benches

Soon I heard my train arriving behind me. I hurried to make a series of exposures that included at least one image where the train had passed by. Just what I was hoping for!

The Train Is Arriving

At class, Greg described how to make a video from several images with iMovie. I made several sequences of images while riding on the train. After several unsuccessful attempts with iMovie, I did manage to create a video with Lightroom. Here is the result of my attempt.

A Story Of Time – wk34

This is a nine second time lapse using three separate image clips. I had to wait until the camera had written its buffer to card before doing the next clip. Hence the two breaks in the sequence. More time was spent in trying to get this video into this blog post than making images and assembling the video. But it was all fun.

Now that it is summer, there are plenty of green leaves around. This time of year makes a great opportunity to take advantage of making some infra red images. This week I have been carrying my infra red camera. Leaving the light rail station, I composed this image of a sculpture at the Arapahoe Station plaza.

Sculpture, Arapahoe Station Plaza

Infra red is not visible to the human eye. It does not have a “color”. The sensor of an infra red camera blocks much of the visible spectrum. This means that a monochrome image may be a better choice than an image that has “false” colors. Infra red images are distinctive because green leaves reflect a lot of infra red wavelengths. As a result, leaves are rendered very light. In a monochrome image leaves render as pale gray or white. Open (blue) sky does not reflect infra red and renders as dark gray or black. Water in ponds and pools absorbs infra red, and also renders as dark gray or black. Cold metals also absorb infra red and usually render dark.

Returning from the office at the end of a work day, I passed the Tuscany Plaza en route to the light rail station. The grass lawns render as rolling white fields! The stormy sky forms a dramatic backdrop to this image. Also, the darker pond in the foreground balances the pale tones of the grass. This is a good example of the dramatic images that can be achieved with infra red.

Tuscany Plaza And Stormy Sky

Across the road, outside Samson Park, this shelter contrasts against the dramatic sky. There are several metallic objects in this image, including the fence, trash can and the metal sheeting of the roof. These items are render almost black. Behind the fence is a row of burning bushes. They are usually green in the summer, except during the fall when the leaves turn red before dropping to the ground. In this image, are they burning white hot?

Museum Of Outdoor Arts Shelter

Some weeks ago, I made some images of Samson Park, where the was a strange building — see Wonderland in Samson Park (week 19). This was a temporary structure for storage whilst construction proceeded on new art work. Here is the pentagram foundation that is all that remains of the original structure now that art work is complete (in the background).

Pentagram In Samson Park

Finally, on the last leg of the walk to the light rail station, this sidewalk contrasts against the light bushes, grass and avenue of trees.

Sidewalk To The Station

More infra red images can be found on several web sites. Search Google and Flickr for these images. A couple of years ago, I converted my old camera to infra red. You can find more information at Life Pixel on camera conversions. There are also tutorials and information post-processing that may be found on this same site.

Working With Artists have an Annual Members Show. This is a fun show that is not juried and is open to all members. Members can hang up to two photographs each. Friday night was the reception, where awards were announced. Over 180 photographs were hanging in the gallery.

I submitted two mounted prints. The town of Como, Colorado, used to be site of a station serving the narrow gauge railroad that once ran across South Park. The line split used to serve a line to Brekenridge over the Como Pass. This is one colorful house and garage that I found in 2008 on a trip to make aspen photographs in the area during the fall.

Pink And Blue In Como

Prior to visiting Zion in 2008, I made a trip over the Kaiparowitz Plateau to Escalante. There are several sandstone formations in Devil’s Garden that I photographed. This is an HDR image that I made just before the sun set.

Statues In Devil's Garden

Be sure to visit Working With Artists in the Belmar Arts District, Lakewood to view all photographs. The exhibition runs until September 26. Visit their website at http://workingwithartists.org for more information.

The cone flowers (echinacea) are currently blooming in our garden. I was experimenting with macro shots and attempted some in-camera multiple exposures. This image was made from several frames, making minor movements between each image. A total of 8 frames were exposed to create this image.

Cone Flower Multi Exposure

And here is another image of a different flower.

Cone Flower Multi Exposure, No 2

The bees were visiting the flowers, but I was not successful in capturing an image. Bind weed are a common plant in Colorado. They grow upwards, twisting around a stem or a branch of an unsuspecting plant. They even have pretty little pink flowers. Here is one bind weed that overtook the cone flower. The curling leaf provides a nice balance to the head of the cone flower.

Cone Flower And Bind Weed

In a nearby bed, the spiraea bush had recently started to bloom.The bees were attracted to these bushes in large numbers. There were at least four different species of bees gathering nectar. Each branch of the bush has two or three clusters of flowers at the base of a leaf node.

Blue Spirea

Eventually I got lucky capturing an image that included a bee. This was not easy, because there was a light breeze and the bees were only spending a few seconds on each flower cluster. I had plenty of rejects with moving flowers or moving bees.

Spiraea With Bee

It will be interesting to try for some more images of these flowers — maybe next weekend.

Last Saturday was Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photowalk. I registered for the Downtown Denver group, led by Timothy Tonge, that met at the Pepsi Center at 6:15pm in the evening. About 35 people attended the event. You can see all participants here. Tim welcomed us and explained how the walk operated. We could submit images to the official Photowalk website where prizes would be given. Although we could only submit one image on the official site, Tim had set up a Flickr group for attendees to submit their work. Tim briefed us on the route that he had planned, advising us of traffic hazards that we might encounter. And then we set off.

The sky was filled with light overcast clouds. Temperatures were pleasant for summer. Perfect for making images. You can see more images that I made by visiting my Flickr Photostream. At the southwest corner are four stainless steel towers surrounding this structure that holds the “Pepsi Ball”.

Pepsi Ball

Looking up one of the towers, we see the saucer in the sky.

Pepsi Tower

Walking past one of the entrances to the Pepsi Center, the sky was reflected in one of the doors.

Photowalk Reflection

We continued on. In the parking lot, someone had deposited a bottled water contained in one of the fence posts. Having made an image with the big camera, Tim jokingly commented that he would me $500 for a good image! I just love a challenge. So out came the iPhone. Here is the “GlowMe” treatment for the image. You can find out more about GlowMe in my post “And Now Something Different“.

Glow Bottle

And here is the “ShockMyPic” treatment for the same image. More information about ShockMyPic in “More Shock Treatment, After The Storm“.

Shocked Bottle

So I showed these images of the bottle to Tim. He preferred the glowing image. “Now I have to pay you $500″, he proclaimed!

Walking near Kacey’s, one of the planters in the street contained a hibiscus plant with giant pink flowers. Some digital cameras have the capability of performing in-camera multiple exposures. This hibiscus was the perfect subject. I made 8 exposures making slight movements between each to create this image.

Hibiscus Multi Exposure

Soon after, I crossed the road and made my way the Auraria Campus of Metro State College of Denver; this was the location of the 2009 Photowalk that I also participated. The college has several unique architectural buildings located on the campus. The Tivoli Center is one such building that housed the a brewing company. “I Lov It” spelled backwards!

Tivoli Or I-Lov-It?

In the foreground of the Tivoli Center are the Athletic Fields. Here is the track and field.

Track And Field

Meandering through the campus, I found a dumpster loaded with lots of lovely trash from construction work in nearby buildings. This looks like some insulated tubing from ventilation ducting.

Dumpster Tubing

Nearby is this clock that I have dubbed “The 8 O’Clock” after the design on of the hands.

The "8" O'Clock

I made several other images that you may find on my Flickr photostream. As the sun set, I made an HDR image from several frames of the sun setting over the parking lot.

Metro State Car Park Sunset

After returning to the Pepsi, I stopped at the location where we started the Photowalk. Here I captured an image of the Pepsi Ball with one of the towers against a backdrop of the deepening blue night sky.

Dusk At Pepsi Center

After making these images, I headed into Brooklyn’s where we had arranged to meet after the walk. Here I met and chatted with several other photogs. We shared stories and images over dinner and drinks.

July is the month that many of the wildflowers start to bloom at higher elevations in the Rocky Mountains. Last weekend, I made a trip to Crested Butte and Ouray to make images of the flowers. Heading north from Crested Butte, the dirt roads leads to the village of Gothic. Once a mining town, Gothic is now home to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. Heading north, past the village of Gothic, the dirt road climbs up Gothic Valley to Schofield Pass. The valley was full of wildflowers. Although not a difficult dirt road to drive, one spot along the road caused a Texas registered vehicle to hold up all traffic for 20 minutes! This year was very dry with the result that all vehicles kicked up clouds of dust as they passed by. Near the top of the pass is Emerald lake, where I parked the truck. The lake drains through a creek that passes behind this boulder.

Wildflowers And Boulder, Emerald Lake

Near one end of the lake is this pool where I captured reflections from the sunlit mountainside.

Reflections, Emerald Lake

The sun was disappearing fast behind the mountains so I worked fast to capture the light before the mountainside fell into shadow.

Reflections In Emerald Lake

Soon after, I set up camp for the night. The next morning, I took a drive down the north side of Schofield Pass. The road leads down to the Crystal River and the remains of Schofield town site. This area was the site of mining activity in the 1800′s but all that is left now are some mine dumps. There are several cabins in the area that appeared to be occupied for the weekend. But I did find one cabin that had fallen into ruin. There are remains of the frames of bunk beds both inside and outside the cabin. There is also an old cast iron stove standing on concrete bricks. The post which supports the roof proclaims “Do Not Remove Braces”.

Derelict Cabin At Schofield

Heading back, I took to road towards Paradise Basin. The Crystal Creek flows down from the basin. While setting up my tripod, a biker rode his mountain bike out of this creek!

Reflections In Crystal Creek

I drove down from Paradise Basin, back through Crested Butte. Then I headed over Kebler Pass, through Somerset, Delta and Montrose before arriving at Ouray. Here I made my way up to Yankee Boy basin. Now here is a road that would have really freaked out those Texas drivers!

The Columbine is the Colorado State Flower. These are pretty lilac and white flowers that appear to have “tails”, as can be seen on these flowers.

Columbine At Yankee Boy Basin

On nearby boulder scree slopes, this little Pika was calling out to neighbors.

Pika At Yankee Boy Basin

Sneffels Creek flows down the basin. Many waterfalls may be found in the basin, as the creek flows down to Ouray, where it meets the Uncompahgre river.

Waterfalls On Sneffels Creek

Another common flower in the Rocky Mountains are these Paintbrush flowers. I found these red and orange varieties growing next to a rock face.

Paintbrushes At Yankee Boy Basin

Here is a another trio of Columbine that I found.

Columbine Trio

Yankee Boy basin gets its name from a mine with the same name. Many remains from the mining past may be found among the wildflowers. This looks like the hub of a paddle wheel that may have powered some machinery with water power.

Yankee Boy Mine Artifacts

Lower down the valley from the basin, is the Sneffels town site. At one time there were 2000 people living in the town in the 1800′s. Towering above the Yankee Boy basin is Mount Sneffels, a 14′er. Today this is a popular location for hikers climbing one of 59 mountain peaks over 14,000 feet elevation in Colorado.

Sculptures are common features at several stations along the Light Rail lines. Returning on the homeward commute, I stopped off at the Colorado station. Here may be found the “Big Boots” with steel toe caps.

Steel Toe Cap

These boots are made for walking.

These Boots Are Made For Walking

In reality, these boots stand about 7 feet high and appeared to be constructed from welded stainless steel. Much of the area of the boots comprises welded rings as can be seen near the toe cap. There is also a plaque announcing the name of the sculpture (Big Boots).

Big Boots

I retraced my steps back to catch the next train to the Louisiana-Pearl station, two stops away. Here may be found more sculptures in the form of leaves. These leaves form the roof above the elevator and stairwell to the station platform.

Leaves In The Sky

Adjacent to the station exit are these benches laid out in the form of an S-Curve. When the sun drops low in the sky, some distinctive shadows are cast below the benches.

S-Curve Benches

This day, I rode my bike between light rail and my destinations. Returning down Pearl Street, I spent most of the time walking! Along the way, I passed these two child-sized chairs.

Twin Chairs

Across the street, the wall of one store was mounted with a drawer unit, apparently suspended in mid-air.

Outdoor Drawer

The windows were dressed with these colorful green lanterns and one umbrella.

Green Lanterns

Outside, the gas meters were fortunate to be located near some colorful flowers in a planter.

Colorful Gas Meters

Finally, we discovered the scene of the crime.

He Was Murdered Here

Those boots must have done some walking! This outline was located outside “Murder by the Book”.

Saturday saw the two of us down by the Platte River. Angela headed south on her recently acquired bike. I headed north towards Overland Pond. This pond is set back from the Platte River by a few hundred feet, and is popular with anglers attempting to catch some fish — the fish are probably too smart to be caught in this location. Being backlit, I decided to give this image the HDR (or High Dynamic Range Treatment), so that I could capture the full range of tones.

Overland Pond Reflections hdr

I picked picked out some more detail of the reflections here.

Overland Pond Reflection

Walking around to the far side, nearest the river, I found this composition of the reflections of branches arching out over the pond.

Overland Pond Reflection, No 2

Continuing around the lake, I encountered a Night Heron standing on a sunken branch. Close by was a Great Blue Heron, hiding in the bushes at the shore. A beaver was also to be found swimming out towards the center of the pond. I captured these reflections of branches that had fallen into the pond.

Reflections In The Pond

There was a lot of greenery along the banks of the Platte River and around the pond. I had to find some more colors to reduce the monotony! Walking along the Platte River, the footpath passed under this bridge. Here was a Canada goose, who was sitting at the side of the path, tormenting passers-by with hissing. I setup under the bridge to capture another HDR image that reveals the range of tones under the bridge and along the river banks.

Platte River Bridge

The sun was getting very low in the sky, hiding behind the distant clouds as it headed down behind the mountains. Beside the footpath is Sante Fe Drive. Here is located an RV dealership and a billboard announcing “Coaster-Rific”. With the huge range of tones at sunset in the scene, this image got another HDR treatment.

Coaster-Rific Lakeside Sunset

If you want to find more information on HDR, you can look on the Naturescapes website, Trey Radcliffe’s HDR Tutorial and the Photomatix site. Also, search Flickr for more HDR images.