Photographer in Colorado

Last weekend was spent camping in the mountains. Heading towards Gunnison, I turned onto the Ohio Creek road to check the fall colors of the Cottonwood trees along the creek. It was too late to find some decent fall colors in this area — the previous week would have been a better choice for visiting. I did find this Halloween decoration at the entrance to Mill Creek Ranch. This ranch always seem to have fun with bales of hay close to Halloween.

Continuing on, I took the road that followed the Cimarron River. The late afternoon light cast long shadows on the river banks. I made several images near the river, when I noticed one deer grazing along the banks.

After camping the night at Ouray, I headed up towards Yankee Boy Basin to find some Aspen trees. Very soon, I found many trees that had dropped their leaves for the season. Heading back to Ouray, the morning sun had just started to light up the valley to reveal Aspen forests down below.

I headed out of Ouray following the same roads that I had traveled the previous day over Owl Creek Pass. The Cottonwood trees along the creek had started to turn to the fall colors.

The western slopes of the mountain had aspen trees in various stages for fall color. In this image, the aspen colonies had dropped most of their leaves to reveal the pale gray trunks.

Along the roadside, there were still plenty of aspen with their yellow-green fall colors.

I like this image where the morning sun lit up the aspen trees in a dark corner of the mountain road.

I stopped farther up the road to make this image of the aspen trunks with a hint of yellow fall colors lurking in the background.

Last week brought the first major snow of the season to the mountains. The cold weather and the winds had accelerated the fall of leaves from the forests. However, while driving through Kebler Pass, I found one spot where the aspen still had yellow leaves, with snow on the ground.

This was one the last images that I made on the return trip home.

Last Friday was First Friday, when I visited the Sante Fe Blvd art’s district. As usual, the district is humming and buzzing with so many people out for the evening. So when Saturday came around, I thought, “What was the day after like?” After completing some construction at home, I headed down to the area to see what could be found. The late afternoon sun created some shadows on this red brick house.

I headed down one of the alleys. At one end of this mural, I found some peeling paint.

Further down the alley, is a building with a black painted wall. The reflections in the windows that I found interesting. And then there are those yellow eyes.

Nearby was a huge mural. I chose to make an image of one small part of the blue flower.

I like this guy on the hammock. This must be the mural artist with his spray can after completing this piece!

Crossing over the street to another alley, I passed one building that was painted a lime green. So now, what could I find the contrast with this vast area of green? A dumpster!

Another late afternoon shadow on #842.

Further down this alley was a building with a pink wall. However, When I saw those two statues…

After heading back to the main street, I found this yellow chair, with a floral decoration.

During the visit, I only encountered a couple of dozen people meandering through the streets. However, the exception were the restaurants, some of which were packed.

Last weekend, I headed to the mountains to view the fall colors. Heading down Ohio Pass, I stopped at several locations to capture the Colorado gold colors!

Strong winds were blowing for much of the day. Below these aspen trees, the wind had blown down several leaves. I found this composition where the leaves fell among some small pine saplings.

There were still plenty of green leaves in the aspen forests. In this one forest, I found one colony of trees with yellow leaves in the middle of the green.

There are a few areas, where some trees have red and orange leaves.

Making my way back up the pass, I found one spot where the forest presented a palette of colors.

At one location, several aspen trees grow at the edge of a scree slope.

I headed out west when a storm started moving in. When the sun broke through a gap in the clouds, it lit up the storm over West Beckwith Mountain.

Yesterday, I headed downtown to the Highlands to enjoy the fall weather. The Highland Bridge crosses over I-25 and is the main pedestrian and bike thoroughfare to get there from downtown. It has been a while since last visiting, and a large apartment block cluttered the skyline, so I soon headed back towards Commons Park. The late afternoon sun lit up the bridge against a deep blue sky, so I made a monochrome version for this image, to show this tonal contrast.

Along the South Platte River, the late afternoon sunlight creates a lot of interesting reflections and opportunities for abstract compositions. In this image, the reflections caused light to shimmer in the shadows of the bridge.

Along the banks of the river are steps that remind me of a Greek or Roman amphitheater, but with an inverse curve. Most people had moved out the shade into to sunlight, but I did get curved leading lines, and those reflections in the river.

Across the river is a tall apartment block that created plenty of abstract reflections in the water. The reflection of the tree interrupts the repeating patterns of the building in this image.

The bridge that carries Speer Blvd always creates reflections of the trusses in the water.

In this image, the pedestrian bridge and apartment block is reflected in the river.

Now that the water levels have fallen from the high water levels, there is less turbulent flow over this weir. This provides some interesting reflections from the ripple patterns.

A longer lens allowed me to make a tighter compositions of a small area of one of the reflected buildings.

Finally, it was time to return home. On the Millennium Bridge the setting sun created warm reflections in the glass.

In this final image, I stood right under the bridge tower, making this image looking straight up.

Managed to get some of those reflections along the tower as well!

This afternoon, we headed out for a walk along the Platte River. Soon after arriving at the car park, we joined the trail. We found this fisherman sitting, fishing on the rocks out in the middle of the river. The river was flowing slowly, so there were some great reflections of the fisherman in the water.

Within a minute or so, he called “I caught a bass!”. Our fisherman said, “Take my picture with the fish”. He said that the fish was a small-mouth bass, which are common when there are no carp in the river.

As he continued to fish, and we continued our walk, I made this image of his reflection in the water.

The skies had clouded over during the course of the afternoon, but I found a small patch of blue skies with clouds and some contrails.

We passed by a sunflower plant that had several flowers. In this image, I managed to capture the front and back of two flowers. This is not the same species that I shot a few weeks ago — these are just two or three inches in diameter.

Turning back at this point, we passed by the Smash*It Breakroom again, The red door and trim caught my attention. This time, there there was a bike parked outside.

Further down the trail, we passed by a biker who was inspecting his bike.

I made several images, but this was the best of the bunch. Then it was back to home to get a bite to eat.

Yesterday afternoon, I headed back to visit the sunflowers on the Eastern Plains. Even though sunflowers had lost their distinctive yellow petals, they still have big seed heads facing the morning sun. Plus there was an approaching storm that would probably make for some interesting images.

After the sunflowers bloom, their heads get huge with seeds. This causes them to droop under the weight.

The back of the flowers always look interesting, since they are covered with tiny hairs

I found another flower with a big head!

The edge of the flowers also makes a great image.

As the storm was approaching, the wind started picking up, making the flowers sway in the wind. This just required patience in waiting for the right moment to take an image.

Looking out over the sunflowers, the storm clouds became very distinct, with a pale glow.

Soon the storm brought a cloud of dust followed by tons of rain. This caused flash flooding of several plowed fields, forming rivers in places. I headed back home by a different routes. Along the way, I stopped to make some images. Looking north towards Watkins, I made this image of the dark band of sky under the storm clouds

The annual “Taste Of Colorado” usually takes place over the Labor Day weekend. Taking a break from remodeling yesterday, I headed downtown for a break from work. Over the weekend, this festival has plenty of foods to choose from, street vendors and music. While wondering past the vendor booths, I passed by close to the Art Museum. The booth tents echoed the “point” of one of the museum buildings.

There were a variety of activities that people could explore. Two people were riding in Zorbs, and collided.

Stella Artois had set up a bar in an Airstream. 1366 was the year that the original brewery had been established in Belgium.

This Airstream had been cleaned and polished, so I explored some reflections from shiny surface as the sun was setting.

Several bands played on two stages at the venue. I stopped to listen to the Remus Tucker band as per played various good hard-rock numbers.

After the band finished their set, I checked out some of the other events taking place. A new moon had risen over the horizon yesterday evening, so I looked for a composition that included the moon against a twilight sky. By this time, the Denver City and County Build had been lit up in blue. I included the blue buildings against warm twilight sky and new moon. By some quirk of fate, the clock on the clock tower seems to echo the crescent of the new moon!

I made my way to the stage located in front of the building. At this view point, the buildings were blue against the dark night sky.

The last event of the day was a concert with Dwight Yoakam. He started the gig with various rock numbers, before playing country music numbers. This included songs by Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson.

Finally, after leaving the event, I headed off to the light rail station. Waiting for the traffic lights, I made this image of a nearby parking garage.

On the top floor, the parking garage announced “Park Up Hear And Save”.