Photographer in Colorado

Yesterday was the Spring Equinox. It snowed for much of the day. This morning, we were greeted by a layer of snow covering the branches of the trees. I made some images of the snow covered trees.

With the Corona virus pandemic currently sweeping the planet, we need some relief, so here are some cheery spring images.

This week, I have been working from home, so I made these images before starting work this morning.

We have a bird feeder in the backyard. This is wrapped with a slinky to discourage squirrels from climbing to the feeder. There has been little or no wind since the snow stopped, so the snow not been blown off the trees

Stay healthy.

Friday was the second day of snow storms last week. It was also the First Friday, so I headed to Santa Fe Blvd to visit some art galleries. With the snow, there were few visitors to the galleries. However, there was plenty of snow still falling that night. Several street lights light the street with blue light. On leaving one gallery, I came across this street corner, where the blue lit the shadows with a deep blue.

As I made my way along the street, I noticed “Clown Town” lit up across the street.

I stopped to make some images of the grasses planted at the sidewalk. The snow had some really coarse texture, so I converted this image to monochrome black and white

After visiting three of the galleries that were open that night, I headed back to the parked truck to return home. I found this flower pot in the snow on the steps of a church.

As I passed by West High School, I noticed un-tracked snow around the buildings.

After the snow had stopped falling, a total of 12 inches of snow had fallen during the two days.

The other night, I was riding back on light rail to DU during the snowstorm. Nearing the destination, the floodlights were lighting up the snow that was falling on the playing fields. The view from the train was spectacular. Once in the parking garage, I managed to capture a few images of the lights and and the University tower.

The adjacent Cable Center had incandescent lights that cast an orange glow on the interior.

Yesterday, I was inspired by some monochrome images in black and white. I made the trip downtown to find some architectural subjects that may work as black and white images. The target location was Auraria Campus. Leaving the light rail station at the Convention Center, I passed by the Theater Arts Center, that has arched roof composed of white structural members. With the blue skies, this creates a great contrast of light and dark.

Switching to a longer lens, I made a detailed image of the white arches.

After crossing Speer Blvd, I reached the campus. One of the campus libraries has shades over the windows, probably to reduce the glare and heat from the afternoon sun, that I captured in this image

Several buildings have glass brick walls.

Here is another wall that has some chairs lining the wall on the second floor.

As I as leaving the campus, I noticed that windows on this building creating an eye-catching repeating pattern along the wall.

That was all the day.

Sunday afternoon, we headed downtown to Union Station. From there, Angela and I crossed the Millennium Bridge to head for the South Platte River. We strolled along the riverside — Angela was spotting birds along the river while I made the some photographs — some of the first images for 2020.

Close to the bridge that carries Speer Boulevard across the river, I noticed the sunlight that reflected off the river onto the underside of the bridge arch. It took a while to find an ideal location to capture an image without the sun in the frame. Later, after downloading the image, I noticed the star shape of the sun peeking around the bridge.

Later, when we headed back to Union Station, we crossed the sidewalk that was recently cleaned by water spray. I made this image of the reflections from the wet surface.

While, waiting for the light rail, the low afternoon sun created some amazing light on the towers located at the station. Reflections off the nearby buildings also contributed to creating more shadows and also filling in some of the shadows.

Here is another image, that looks really stunning converted to monochrome.

Several people were walking between the towers. I waited until one passerby was caught as a shadow on the tower

Finally, time to return home.

So, sometime during the year, I must have added an extra post. So here is a bonus. This afternoon I headed down to the Platte River to check out the bird life. At this time of year, there are several hundred Northen Shovelers in this section of the river. However, they are very skittish, so it is difficult to approach them.

There was one Hooded Merganser that I found. The banks of the river are wooded, so one has to wait until birds come out of the shadows. I waited patiently until the Meganser paddled down into a clear area for this image.

Several Shovelers were grooming themselves. While doing this, they often flap their wings. I made several images while this male Shoveler proceed with flapping his wings. This was the best one that shows his outstretched wings.

Finally, close to where I had parked, were some Canada geese. This group allowed me to get really close, so I made a portrait of one individual.

That concludes my Project 52 work for the year. Best wishes for 2020.

After visiting our daughter, I headed up the Pacific Coast Highway to Monterey. From here, I headed back to Lone Pine for the return trip home. Soon after sunrise, I arrived at the Alabama Hills, where I made this image of the granite boulders with Mount Whitney and the Sierra Nevada as the backdrop. The morning sunset lit up the Sierra with a pink light. I was too late to capture this.

A short stretch of the road to Death Valley has Joshua trees growing at the roadside. Stopping for a break from driving, I made some images at this location.

A detailed shot of one of the trees, has the remains of a flower

The next stop on the return trip was at Zion National Park. The canyon adjacent to the tunnels have these magnificent sandstone cliff walls that are a few hundred feet in height.

Later that day, I stopped at Devil’s Garden where there are some rock arches in the sandstone.

Also at this location are some hoodoos, that I captured in this image.

Those are the final images from my road trip before returning home for Christmas.