Here are some more images from last Sunday’s Chalk Art Festival. This continue from the my last blog post. I found this imaging amusing. I wonder why the ballerinas were using iPads?

Ballerinas, With iPads

This lady on the bike was another amusing image.

Phone From Bicycle

A lot of work goes into creation of these images. Here these artists are taking a welcome break after all their hard work.

Independent Artists

The following work won the award for “Best of Show”.

Denver Beer Disk Jockey

The Grand Hyatt sponsored the artist to create the image of the monkey below. I just waited until a few spectators entered the scene so I could capture something different. I was fortunate that the two guys created the “YAT”!

Grand ..YAT.. Monkey

There was a lot of color with all the flowers in the planters downtown. This artist’s clothes matched the colors of the flowers.

Artist… And Color

Looking down Larimer Street, here are several images along the pavement, lined with crowds of spectators.

Larimer Street Chalk Art

I like this girl’s purple mohawk.

Purple Mohawk

There was also a 3-D image, that is visible when reflected from a mirrored surface.

3-D Chalk Art

I found the detail of all those legs far more visually interesting.

Long Legs

That’s all the images for this event. More information about the Chalk Art Festival may also be found here.

This last weekend was the annual Denver Chalk Art Festival along Larimer Street. On Sunday afternoon, I made a trip downtown. Last year, it was really hot and there was at least one rain shower that washed out some of the artist’s work. Images from last year’s festival may be found here. The weather was great on Sunday with some light overcast weather that made photography easy.

Something Independent

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a Fuji XE-1. This is a retro rangefinder style camera with electronic viewfinder. This last week I have been making images to get used to this new camera. I have always been a left-eyed shooter with SLR’s for many years. Rangefinder cameras are designed for right-eyed shooters. This was the biggest adjustment that I had to make. Left-eyed shooting does have some advantages — check out Joe McNally’s blog for details.

The image quality from the XE-1 is astounding. Most images here were made with aperture priority auto exposure. These images have minimal post processing in Lightroom. “Something Independent” just has a contrast tweak. The RMCAD artist below, made in afternoon sunlight, has no adjustments!

RMCAD Chalk Artist At Work

Walking along Larimer Street, I made a few images of the artwork on the pavement. The artist below was was in the shadowed side for the street. The crowds in the distant right were in the sunny side of the street. Adjusting the Lightroom “Highlights” slider, toned down the potentially distracting bright highlights.

Artist’s Gaze

Mythica chose to make an image to honor Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn’s birthday was on Saturday. This was a spectacular image of Marilyn, with saturated pastel (or chalk) media. Mythica won an award for the best Color image.

“Marilyn” By Mythica

This artist was deeply immersed in this image.

LEG Artist At Work

Near the food vendors, a manikin was put out on display. Of course, this attracted a crowd of visitors and well-wishers (!) wanting to include him in a picture. This guy was no exception.

Greeting The Manikin

“The Great Gatsby” is currently showing on the movie circuit. This was the subject of the following chalk art.

Gatsby

Here are two of the artists having a discussion about their work.

Gatsby Artists

More images to follow…

For this week, I found some colorful images that I made over the last couple of weeks. My gym recently acquired some kettle bells. Walking past these, I was drawn to the color of these weights that were haphazardly left at the edge an exercise area. This image was processed with Simply HDR to add some gritty texture to the bells and flooring mat on which they were resting.

Colorful Kettle Bells

Returning home after work, I passed by Tokyo Joe’s where their outdoor tables were adorned with red umbrellas. The overcast afternoon light was great for this scene, providing a giant softbox with few harsh contrasty shadows. This image was given the tangled treatment with the Tangled FX app. This added nice bright highlights to the image.

Red Umbrellas

Near the Light rail station are these slick shiny chrome water valves with red handles. The image was processed with Snapseed, adding some more contrast to the shadows from the overcast weather.

Shiny Chrome Water Valves

While passing outside the building above, cleaners were busy sweeping the floor inside the lobby. The lobby also has towering yellow strip lights illuminating the lobby. Tangled FX was used to give a pencil sketch-like effect to this scene. Only after processing the image, I noticed the shadowed reflection of myself at the left edge of the image. I decide to leave this patch of brighter color in the image to add to the color.

Yellow Strip Lights

The Downtown Denver Arts Festival takes place every year over the Memorial Day weekend. This is my favorite art show in the area. We meandered around the booths admiring various works of art on display. At one booth, an artist had several sculptures on display. I liked the effect of the orange lines radiating from the orb.

Sculpture, Silver And Orange

Adjacent to the above was another silver sculpture of a vase. The orange reflection, from the sculpture above, was reflected in the vase. This is what drew me to make both these images.

Reflection Of Silver Sculpture

At a nearby booth, another artist had oil paintings on display. The following image is a tiny section of some detail of one of the paintings. I was intrigued with how the color was created in the oils. The colorful underlay was covered with a layer of blue paint. This was then scraped off to reveal the underlying colors.

Oil Painting Detail

After leaving the festival, we stopped off to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Angela recently bought a pair of black and fluorescent green Nike shoes. These look really cool!

Angela’s Cool Nikes

While waiting for food to be prepared, I made an image of one shoe. This was then given the Simply HDR treatment to add some texture and contrast to the image.

Spring eventually arrived for our tulips in the backyard. This year the tulips flowered about a month later than usual, just in time for Mother’s Day. Our yellow tulip got the “tangled” treatment with Tangled FX.

Tulip In The Backyard

I made one image of the red rose with the iPhone as close it could focus. There was still some distracting background around the flower. After cropping out the background, this was the result.

Tulip Stamens

Earlier in the week, I bought some fresh yellow and red roses from the store. After a couple of days, the flowers opened out in time for Mother’s Day. After experimenting with “Tangled FX” on other flowers, the results become a bit more predictable.

Soft Yellow Rose

Tangled FX does a great job of detecting the soft edges of the tips of the rose petals. In between the edges, this app creates some great abstract textures.

For the First Friday, we visited the Art Walk on Santa Fe. One gallery that we visited was located on the second floor. That Friday the sunset was spectacular. I could not resist making this image looking out across the roof of the adjacent buildings.

Roof And Sunset, Art Walk Studio

The view through the window allowed me to make a closeup image of the skylight. This was converted to black and white with the “Dramatic B&W” app on the iPhone.

Art Walk Skylight

Behind this studio was a deck with a pair of empty deck chairs.

Pair Of Deck Chairs

Those curved backs just cried out for a change in perspective. Moving close up, I used the chair back in the foreground to lead in to the image. I focused on the far chair. This is one of the rare cases when the iPhone does not give a huge depth of field. After converting to black and white with Snapseed, this was my result.

Art Walk Deck Chairs

For this Art Walk, we made visits to many second floor galleries. On leaving one of the galleries, I noted that the stairs made a nice lead in to the sidewalk down below. I positioned myself and waited for a passer by to enter the image space. Here I was fortunate to capture one young lady perfectly positioned in the doorway and texting on her phone.

Texting By The Door, Art Walk

Outside another studio were bunches of keys hanging from a door knob. This image was made under tungsten incandescent lighting that causes a yellow color cast. This image was processed with Snapseed, desaturating the colors to reduce the strong yellow cast.

Bunches Of Keys

During the previous week, the Light Rail “W” line began service from Denver, through Lakewood and on to Golden. As usual, rides were free for opening day. We joined the hoards of people exploring the new service. At the Broadway station, are walls of glass blocks. These always create interesting pictures with wild distortions caused by the thick uneven glass surfaces.

Looking Through The Glass Brick Wall

That week, Joe Bonamassa visited Denver and played at the Bellco Theater. This was a great concert by a guitarist that I have enjoyed listening to for several years. After the concert, I was waiting for Light Rail at the Convention Center. Looking up towards the roof, I noticed all the cables and lighting, that created strong lines through the image.

Convention Center Station Roof

This was a perfect candidate for processing with “Tangled FX”. During processing, bright highlights and contrasty lines are emphasized by spiky lines, as can be seen above.

Last night was the monthly Illuminate Workshops photowalk. This month we met outside East High School, just off Colfax Avenue. There is this huge red “E” outside the front entrance. Could not resist a really wide angle shot.

“E”, East High School

After a group shot, Efrain gave a quick briefing of the planned route and a tutorial for new participants to a night shoot. While the light levels were falling, I made some deliberate blur shots. At low light levels, it is easy to make blurs because long shutter speeds allow for camera movement to be captured.

Orange And Blue Blur

The East High School has some really neat architecture — built with stone and brick. There are a some other high schools in Denver with similar construction materials. The main entrance was lit with tungsten lighting, giving a yellow glow. The exterior was lit by daylight balanced lighting.

East High School Entrance

The building frontage was lit by daylight balanced lights that created some nice long shadows.

Bench At East High School

After making images at the school, I headed along Colfax, joining some other photogs along the way. At a bus shelter, I set my camera. and focused on the grill. I waited until most of the oncoming cars passed by before making this image that shows the out of focus background.

Bus Shelter Grill

Along Colfax, I made several images that may be found on the Meetup website. However, this one building had green leaves. This was complemented by the green dumpster.

Green Leaves And Dumpster

Last night a cold front with snow storm moved through the Denver metro area. The cold weather reminded me of some cold weather images that I made last month. These images that never made it to the website — it was tax time, so I had different priorities. After a snow storm, I found this leaf embedded in a snow-bank.

Leaf In Snow Bank

Side light from the sunrise picked out the ridges formed by blowing snow in the same snow bank.

Snow Bank Patterns

Nearer the office, I found a pool of ice left after a frozen night. Snapseed was used to convert this image to monochrome.

Ice Patterns

While waiting for the light rail at the DU station, I found the bright colors of these bikes parked in the snow. The image was processed in the Dynamic Light app on the iPhone — the “Orton Effect” was applied to soften the bright colors of the bike frames.

Red Bicycle In The Snow

Enjoy the cold weather and the snow. We need all the moisture we can get!

Last night, I joined the Illuminate Workshops meetup group for a night shoot at Red Rocks. We met well before sunset — but there was no sunset — it was overcast. This month there was a large crowd of photographers at the shoot. We met in the amphitheater where we did a group shot. Check the meetup site.

Red Rocks is pretty big so we soon spread out. Working my way around the amphitheater, I eventually ended up on the stage where I made this HDR image. Several areas of the amphitheater were roped off for repairs with marker flags. The red marker flags were flapping in the wind.

Red Rocks Amphitheater After Dark

Spotlights at the theater light up the rock walls on either side of the amphitheater. Walking up the stairs, I was intrigued by the lines formed by the blue sky reflecting from the railings.

Rock Wall, Stairs And Railings, Red Rocks

As the night got darker, I started making images of the the seating in the amphitheater. Several photogs were doing light painting. This upset the images that I was making, but I was rewarded with this one image that included their flashlight and the reflections from the seating.

Light Painted Seating, Red Rocks

Working my way the amphitheater, I noticed the pair of spotlights that was lighting up the north rock wall. These left beams of light against the deep blue sky.

Spotlights Shining Into The Night

Leaving the amphitheater, I noticed this lone pine silhouetted against the night sky that was lit by the lights of the city. This was balanced by the theater lighting on the rocks.

Lone Pine Against The Night Sky, Red Rocks

More images from this night shoot may be found at the meetup group site here.

For the last couple of weeks or so, I have experimented with tangled images. Last night I made a trip to the Art Walk on Santa Fe, where many art galleries remain open till late for this monthly event. Returning home, I noticed some murals in a nearby alley. We had several inches of snow last weekend. In the alley, this had been moved away into a pile in front of the mural. When lit by street lights, the snow took on the color of the orange sodium lighting. After processing with Tangled FX, this was the final image that I made.

Alley, Snow And Mural

Earlier, I viewed art work at several galleries that I had not previously visited. These were mostly 2nd floor galleries. Blue street lights line the street along Santa Fe. At one gallery, a line of water bottles was arranged along the window sill. With the blue light from the street lights shining through, I could not help but make this image.

Tangled Water Bottles

Last week, before the snow storm, clouds had gathered above Samson Park. Stopping by on the way to work, I made an image that included one of the several outdoor art structures under the storm laden clouds. This image was converted to black and white with Snapseed, and later given the tangled treatment. There was a distant bright patch of sky that lit up the branches behind the dome. I especially like the effect this gave in creating white branches against the dark clouds.

Samson Park Structure

One evening this week, the snow in Samson Park had been cleared from the path. I was working late that evening and was rewarded with a bright, colorful scene lit by the street lights. Snow does not usually stay around for long periods at this time of the year, so I made an image of the scene. Returning on light rail, I processed this image with Tangled FX.

Street Lights, Samson Park

Recently, when returning from a trip downtown to a software meetup group, I passed a gated yard where some statues and sculptures were located. In the yard was located a pair of statues of horses, lit by mixed-color street lights and outdoor lighting. Aligning my iPhone to shoot through the fencing, I made this image. This was given different effect by the tangled application. The sodium lights mixed with the other lights improved this image by filling the shadows with orange light.

Wild Horses, Lodo

Enjoy.

Last week, we made a Birding Trip to southern Texas (near McAllen and Brownsville). Angela has been interested in birding for the last few years and attends various birding trips in the Denver area with the Audubon Society. This year we did a really intense birding trip with some members of the local Audubon. Visit this page for a description of our trip. This includes some of the images that I made.

On our last day in McAllen, we visited Quinta Mazatlan for the last birding trip before heading out to the airport for our return to Denver. I made several iPhone images in the gardens around this mansion. In the garden, I found this table with an ornamental bird cage surrounded by two pot plants. Recently I downloaded the Tangled FX app for the iPhone. So this image got the Tangled treatment.

Tangled Flowers, Quinta Mazatlan

There were many Queen butterflies in the flower beds around the garden. After several attempts at capturing images of butterflies during the week, I managed to make this one image with the iPhone.

Queen Butterfly, Quinta Mazatlan

Inside the mansion, I found this lighted corridor, that also got the Tangled treatment.

Tangled Corridor, Quinta Mazatlan

We really enjoyed our trip to south Texas. Go visit this page for more images.