Photographer in Colorado

This week we received some 10 inches of snow. After a couple of days, the skies cleared. Walking to work, I passed by these Christmas decorations at Arapahoe Station.

Xmas Decorations, Arapahoe Station

Near the pond at Tuscany Plaza, I found some tracks left by a critter that had been running across the snow the night before.

Tracks In The Snow, Tuscany Plaza

This year the pond was frozen over. Usually there are a couple of open areas in the ice, directly above some water jets that circulate water around the pond. Those critters may have been out looking for Canada Geese, that were absent this morning.

Yesterday morning the warmer weather added to the snow melt. Earlier that morning, a bright green dumpster was parked in the parking lot outside the office. The green was reflected off the wet pavement. I also included the three red cones into the composition for this image to provide some contrast to the green and black.

Green Dumpster And Red Cones At The Office

Leaving work, I was curious to see how the lobby would look with a fisheye lens. The light levels were low at the end of the day, so I placed the camera against the wall to reduce camera movements before taking the image. This lens distorts all lines so careful composition is required. In this image, the leading lines converge upon the lady carrying packages. I like the effect of the reflections of the water in the pond.

Lobby And Fountain, Office

This evening, I made the following image of our Christmas lights. In previous years, the lights were attached to our house. Recently we have bee decorating our spruce tree.

Christmas Lights At Home, 2015

This is the first time that I captured our lights.

This morning a snow storm arrived in Denver. After leaving the gym this afternoon, I noticed these colors in the wet pavement of the parking lot next to the spot where I had parked the car. This is the first time that I had attempted to capture one of these interference patterns.

Colors In The Oil Spill, Parking Lot

Later, when I got home, my Twitter feed had a reference to a video about the photographer Ernst Haas. Hass was know for his images in color during the 1950’s and for some abstract images. What a coincidence! After seeing the video, I checked out this image and decided to include in this week’s post.

Earlier in the morning, I went to the Post Office to mail a package. After leaving, I found this colorful trailer in the adjacent parking lot.

Trailer In The Snow, Parking Lot

Yesterday, I found a reference to a 500px group that had a staircase collection. So, after leaving the gym, I headed into the parking garage to see whether there were interesting staircase images. Unfortunately, the gap between the stairs were too narrow, so the images were not as spectacular as those from the group. Getting out on one of the empty floors, I made the following image.

Empty Floor, Parking Garage

In this final image, the snow was falling, causing the tall building in the distance to be hidden by the misty atmosphere.

Skyline In The Snow

This week, Angela and I took a trip to Socorro, NM, to do some birding at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. We took a break at Santa Fe, visiting an art gallery and had a coffee break. Along the sidewalk were several red chilli ristras hanging outside a store. In this image, I used the Tangled FX app on the iPhone to brighten up the deep red of the chillis.

Red Chilli Ristras, Santa Fe

During the first day, we made a trip to the VLA (Very Large Array) radio telescope located about 40 miles west of Socorro. This is an array of 27 dish antennae arranged in a three legs of a Y-formation. The dishes were in a configuration that spanned 1 mile. These dishes are re-configured during the year; the largest having each leg 13 miles long! A panorama is definitely required to get all the dishes in the images. However, I cropped this image to include just a few of the dishes.

Very Large Array Panorama

During a break from birding, we returned from Bosque to Socorro. Walking around the Plaza, I found this colorful building (Chamber of Commerce) on one side.

Chamber Of Commerce, Plaza, Socorro

After spending three nights in Socorro, it was time to head home. This time we stopped at Taos. After parking the car, we headed to the Plaza in search of coffee. I made this image after noticing the reflections of the sky in a storefront window.

Xmas Decorations And Window Reflections, Taos

Along one of the streets, I found this blue fence. I opened the image in Snapseed and gave the HDR treatment to show the texture of the painted planks and the shadows on the ground.

Blue Fence, Taos

In one of the alleys, I found these windows with bars mounted to the adobe exterior. The blue diamond and the saw-tooth pattern on the steel work are typical elements of New Mexico.

Barred Windows In Alley, Taos

We go to lunch. While reviewing some of the images that I made on the iPhone, Angela placed her glass of water in front of the phone. I flipped to the camera and found the yellow of the table shining through the water, ice and glass. I also liked the way the phone exaggerated the taper of the base of the glass.

Glass Of Water, Bent-Street Cafe, Taos

Soon after, we got back to the car and resumed our journey back home.

This afternoon I headed down to the Platte River. After parking the car, I crossed to the east side of the river, where an alley backs on to a park and trail. I brought along the ultra-wide lens to see whether I could find some fun images with lots of curves. This sign is a well-known feature along the alley — just right for old farts like me!

Old Farts, Pets, Kids, Slow Down

This lens exaggerates  straight lines, and further enhances curves. I found this colorful house along the alley.

Red House On The Alley

Further along the alley, orange-brown pine needles created some interesting patterns on the alley.

Pine Needle Patterns In The Alley

After spending a half -hour at this location, it started getting really cold! I headed back towards the bridge. In this image, I got low down — this allowed me to emphasize the curved of the arched bridge so more.

Footsteps In The Snow On The Arched Bridge

Next to the parking lot is a wide sweeping curve in the trail. The wide angle of the lens emphasis the curve and also allowed me to capture the full expanse of the curve.

Curved Trail Along The South Platte River

Off to a warmer location…

The snow that we received earlier this week has melted and today we had clear blue skies. This afternoon, I headed to the Five Points neighborhood, just east of downtown. Walking down Welton Street, I stopped by this building. Earlier this year the brick work was painted. The last time I was here, the walls were a beige-gray color. Now it is a striking red!

Mosaic Tiles, Five Points

Across the road was an empty building, with “No Trespassing” signs posted all around. I could not help stopping to make an image of the pink door.

Pink Door, Five Points

Deep Rock Water is located a few blocks away. Walking around the block, I noticed that the white water towers catching the late afternoon sunlight against the blue sky.

Deep Rock Water Towers

I found two wine glasses resting on a cabinet. I could not help making some images by shooting through the glass. Focusing on the foreground glass, the background was out of focus.

Wine Glasses, Five Points

Moving around to the other side of the glasses, I focused on the scene within the glass. The rest of the image was thrown out of focus.

Through The Looking Glass

The sun disappeared below the surrounding buildings, cast deep shade on the ground. However, these yellows stripes in the sky were still illuminated, with the moon in the distance.

Yellow Stripes In The Sky

I had the opportunity of processing some of my images from this last week in Utah. The trip to Moab is always more interesting when one takes takes the route through Cisco and the Colorado Riverway. There are always great reflections in the Colorado River.

Colorado Riverway Reflections

The fall colors arrive a little later than in Colorado. I made this image of a lone Cottonwood tree along the bank of the river.

Cottonwood Tree By The Colorado River

The next day, I headed to Hanksville and Caineville. At the base of the Blue Hills, Cottonwood Trees line the edge of a field of green.

Cottonwood Trees, Caineville Blue Hills

Entering Capitol Reef National Park, this tree was hugging the edge of the canyon.

Cottonwood Tree, Capitol Reef

Finally, I stopped by the Fremont River, to make some images of some more fall colors. Here the grasses along the river bank was backlit.

1686-0047-Grasses-Along-Fremont-River-Capitol-Reef

This week I headed to Zion National Park for the Fall Colors. The first day was a trip from Denver to Moab. The next day was a trip from Moab, through Hanksville, Escalante and Zion. The east entrance to Zion is at Mt Carmel Junction, where I stopped to take a break at the White Mountain Trading Post. The north wall of the store is covered with a long mural. I made this panorama with an iPhone, walking parallel to the the wall.

White Mountain Trading Post Mural, No 1

I made a second panorama further along the wall.

White Mountain Trading Post Mural, No 2

Today I made a trip to the Hopi Nation in Arizona. On the way back, I stopped at Coal Mine Mesa, where the following panorama was made near sunset.

Coal Mine Mesa Panorama