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.
Three “Tents”, Art Museum.
There were a variety of activities that people could explore. Two people were riding in Zorbs, and collided.
Zorbs In Collision.
Stella Artois had set up a bar in an Airstream. 1366 was the year that the original brewery had been established in Belgium.
Anno 1366.
This Airstream had been cleaned and polished, so I explored some reflections from shiny surface as the sun was setting.
Reflections In Airstream.
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.
Remus Tucker Band.
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!
Denver City And County Building Under A 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.
City And County Building In Blue.
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.
Dwight Yoakam In Concert.
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.
Park Up Here And Save.
On the top floor, the parking garage announced “Park Up Hear And Save”.
At this time of the year, the sun is lower in the sky, creating great light and long shadows in the morning and evening. During the daily commute, I started to capture some images at both ends of the day. This building across the road, had some reflections of another building in its windows. I had to wait awhile for the traffic to clear in the street before making this image.
Building Reflections.
The new Spectrum building is one of the buildings that has plenty of glass that gives the opportunity of capturing reflections.
Spectrum Walker Reflection.
There was some work around the building that required the use of a lift. The workmen had left it parked in an ideal location to capture the morning shadows.
Lift Shadows.
Returning to the light rail station that same evening, I pass by several planters. Exploring the different planters, I settled on making an image of the translucent red flowers — lit up by the late afternoon sun.
Translucent Red Flowers.
Several planters have plants with really bright yellow-green leaves. It took some time to locate a planter with some decent leaves, where the leaves are in good condition and are in the shady side of the planter. Direct sunlight falling on the leaves would have created bleached highlights on the leaves. Looks like those holes in the leaves were created by beetles!
Green Leaves, Hanging Over Planter.
Finally, I stopped by the fountains. The water pressure is varied during the course of the day. When arriving, the water pressure increased, allowing fountains to rise to some 20-25 feet above the water. The sun to lit up the full sheet of water, allowing me to create an image from a reasonable distance without getting wet!
Backlit Arapahoe Fountains.
Just in time, before the water pressure dropped, lowering the fountains to about 5 ft in height.
After a day of painting our kitchen, it was time to head out for some fun finding sunflowers. A few weeks ago, I scouted potential locations. Making my way to the field, I found this flower. After setting up on tripod, the sun hid behind a cloud, providing nice shadow free lighting for a few minutes.
First Sunflower Of The Day.
Working the scene, I made some other images after the sun re-appeared. There was slight breeze that was blowing, so several images were discarded due to movement, leaving this one
Sunflower Seed Head.
For this image, I raised the camera to capture this image with the sunflowers receding into the distance.
Field Of Sunflowers.
Most of the sunflowers face the morning sun, so most of the images are backlit with the afternoon sun. However, I did found one sunflower that faced the setting sun.
Sunflower Facing The Sun.
There was one spot where I found a group of 5 sunflowers, with petals and leaves backlit by the sun.
Backlit Sunflowers.
For a different viewpoint, I re-positioned the camera so that the sun was directly behind the sunflower and re-shot to create this image.
Sun Behind Sunflower.
Soon after, the sun dipped behind a cloud, put the sunflowers into the shade. I switched lenses and made a series if images looking down the alley behind these flowers.
Head Of The Sunflower Alley.
After the sun dipped behind the horizon, I found another sunflower, now in the shade. The main stem of a sunflower is covered by hairs. Also, the leaves have a really interesting ribs and texture that I really like to capture.
Sunflower Head Detail.
In this final image, I had to make a sunset shot looking towards the Rocky Mountains. Since we were close to the airport, several aircraft were taking off at sunset. I waited until on airplane had entered the frame for this image.
Sunset Over The Rockies.
This was a great day to experience the sunflowers, even though it was another hot summer’s day.
While walking to work every morning, I often find looking up. So I thought, let’s make some images with this theme. Street lights line the sidewalk near the light rail station; these have flags that advertise “Village Center”.
Looking Up, Village Center.
Farther along the walk, I passed by this street light against the fabulous, early morning, blue sky.
Looking Up, Street Light.
Looking up behind me, three treetops and blue skies were reflected in the glass windows.
Looking Up, Trees In Glass.
At the end of the work day, I pass by building 2. When there are clouds in the sky, these always create interesting distorted reflections in this building’s windows.
Looking Up, Cloud And Reflections.
Soon after this, it was a rush to get home so that I could get some more kitchen remodeling work done while the sun was still up.
On the patio outside work are several red umbrellas that offer welcome shade from the sun during the hot summer days. I waited until the sun had moved to the west side of the office building, so that the white marble is out of the shade. This gives a strong color contrast of the red against the white of the building and the blue reflections of the sky in the windows.
Three Red Umbrellas.
Continuing with the theme of red umbrellas, I moved under the umbrellas to make an image of the line of umbrellas receding into the distance.
Under The Shade Of The Umbrella.
I moved to another area that has umbrellas, stacked against a dark background, that enhances the color red.
Stacked Red Umbrellas.
In this final image, I found a spot where some umbrellas were reflected in the glass windows. Here I framed the reflections in one of the arches that recede into the distance.
It has been several months since making infra-red images. So this week was was an infra-red week. When shooting infra red, deep blue skies typically render as a dark gray and sometimes, as black. In this image, I used the “arch” of the foreground building to frame the lighter colored background building. With the deep blue sky, the building contrasted nicely against the sky.
Building 2 Framed, Arapahoe Station.
The building across the road is reflected in the window glass of this building. However, I have not noticed the unusual reflections until this week.
Unusual Building Reflection.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that the building across the road created a “peak” when reflected in building 2. I decided to wait until shooting infra-red images before shooting the monochromatic contrast of the peak.
Building Peak, Reflected In Building 2.
At the intersection of the road are road markings. So I decided to make this fun image. Nothing special about infra-red in this image. The camera records visible and infra-red in monochrome. So I used this capability to capture a monochrome image
Turn To Left And Right.
Out in front of the buildings are planters that contained grasses and flowers. Leaves of plants typically reflect plenty of infra-red, so they make ideal subjects for shooting. They render as white.
Flowers And Grasses In Infra Red.
Out in front of the building at Tuscany Plaza, a small tree was just catching light from the early morning sun. So this lit up!
Lit Up, Tuscany Plaza.
This steelwork at the plaza can always be used to create interesting compositions. The light color of the building, with the leaves of the trees, are rendered in contrast to the steelwork and the sky.
Saturday night, I was camping in the aspen forests on Kebler Pass. On the next morning, I found several Green Gentian flowers at the side of a creek. These flowers typically grow over 6 feet in height. Rather than attempting to capture the whole plant, I chose this detail of some of the flowers growing around the central stem.
Green Gentian In Aspen Forest.
At the base of Kebler Pass are several beaver ponds. In this image, I captured the reflections of the pine trees in the still water.
Pine Tree Reflections In Beaver Pond.
I have never seen so many summer flowers in Kebler Pass as in this year. The winter snows and snow melt contributed to the large fields of flowers in the area. Heading up the pass, several flowers were backlit by the morning sun.
Larkspur Flowers On Kebler Pass.
Fields full of yellow Mule’s Ears flowers covered large meadows and open spaces in the forests.
Mule’s Ears On Kebler Pass.
In this image, I attempted to capture the large variety of flowers on the hillsides.
Wildflowers On Hillside, Ohio Creek Valley.
The mountains were full of bird calls from a variety of different birds that spend their summer in the mountains of Colorado. Several specifies that I found included Rufous Hummingbirds, Cordillera Flycatchers, Robins and Sparrows. There were also some raptors that included Northern Harriers and Red-Tailed Hawks.
Indian Paint Brush flowers were found every where. I found a spot where several dozen of these flowers were growing in the shade
Indian Paint Brush Flowers.
Another flower that appears to be similar to a yellow paint brush is the Sulphur Flower. I found this single flower growing next to an aspen tree at the roadside.
Single Sulphur Flower Next To Aspen Tree.
There were several of these flowers also growing at the roadside. I don’t know the name of these flowers.
Flowers At Roadside, Ohio Creek.
Returning home, I drove along the Crystal River, stopping at a location where several large boulders sit in the river and shore. About this time last year, the river was almost empty. This year, with all the snow from the winter and the snow melt, the river was flowing vigorously. A couple of week ago, the river caused flooding of some houses along the riverside.
Vigorous Water Flow In The Crystal River.
That was the end of a fabulous weekend of mountain wildflowers and bird life.
Yesterday, I headed out to the plains in an attempt to find some sunflowers. I did find this one small patch of sunflowers at the intersection of two roads. With the late spring and rains, the sunflowers will probably flower late this year.
Sunflowers And Wheatfields.
During the course of the afternoon, storm clouds built up over the plains and started moving through the area. The was a gentle wind blowing through the fields of wheat.
Wheatfields Blowing In The Wind.
In the following image, I included a large expanse of the stormy skies.
Wheatfields Under Stormy Skies.
There were a few outlier clouds ahead and below the main body of the storm. Several of the clouds were lit by the low angle of the sun.
Storm Over The Eastern Plains.
At one location, the wind picked up a lot of dirt from a plowed field, creating a small dust cloud. Looking north above the dust, were some really nice storm clouds several miles away. This monochrome image showed the texture of the clouds.
Storm Clouds To The North.
On my way back, I passed by these grain silos. By this time the sun was very low in the sky. This provided side lighting on the silos and green fields, in contrast to the dark skies in the distance.
Grain Silos And Stormy Sky.
By the time I arrived back in Denver, the storm dumped a lot of rain in the metro area, accompanied by some hail.
