Photographer in Colorado

At this time of the year, the South Platte River near Foxton is covered with ice. This year, with the colder winter temperatures, the ice covered much of the river, from one riverbank to the other. I expected to make some images of water flowing past the ice. There were only a few holes in the ice, most of them distant from the riverbank. In this image I found one location where the water flowed close to some boulders before disappearing under the ice.

Ice On The South Platte River, Foxton

Moving to another location, the far bank of the river was reflected in the river. The late afternoon sun reflected the oranges and greens of the canyon walls in the water.

Reflections In Platte River, With Ice

Working this area, I made a few more images of the reflections.

Reflections In Platte River, With Ice, No 2

At one spot, I noticed the trunk of a Ponderosa pine tree reflected in the water that is captured in the following image.

Reflection In Ice And Water, Platte River

In the following image, greens from the pine trees were reflected in a “water hole”.

Hole In The Ice, Platte River

Looking back up the river, the slope with pine trees on the far riverbank were in the shade of the canyon. The low afternoon sun created rim light around a large boulder and created a back-light for the pine trees in the foreground.

Slope With Pine Trees, Foxton

This is a great time of the year to shoot the ice along the river. Will need to head back again when some of the ice has melted.

On New Year’s day, I posted the first image of the pine tree in Kunming Park. For something different, I applied a texture in Photoshop. Here is the final image, where the texture can be seen in the sky. This image, where there there is a plain background, like our blue Colorado skies, makes a good choice to apply textures.

Pine Tree, Kunming Park, New Years’ Day

For this image, I chose two textures from Flypaper Textures; these textures were “Pro Eau de Giverny” and “Pro Ambrosia”. I was inspired to create this image after listening and watching a podcast on the TWIP network with Sean Duggan and Tony Sweet.

On New Year’s Day, I stopped at Kunming Park to make the first image for 2016 — a sunset shot.

Pine Tree, Kunming Park, New Year’s Day

Yesterday we were packing up our small Xmas tree. Sunlight passing through a crystal cast a spectrum on the tree, that I captured in this image.

Spectral Light On Xmas Tree

After making this image, the tree was packed away for the season.

Leaving work today, I decided to make some of the final images for 2015. The pond by Tuscany Plaza is still frozen over. However, there were goose tracks in the fresh snow.

Goose Tracks In The Snow

I found these shadows cast by the traffic light steel work.

Tracks And Shadows On Frozen Pond

There were three goose prints that I found on the snow covered bank.

Three Goose Prints In The Snow

Finally, at Arapohoe Station, the low sunset lit up the office building against the blue sky.

Arapahoe Station Building, Near Sunset

Best wishes for 2016.

A few weeks ago, we returned from Taos, NM by heading north to Fort Garland and then down La Veta Pass to Walsenburg. Earlier this week, I made a day trip to La Veta Pass to catch the afternoon light on the willows growing along the highway. This is one of the more beautiful mountain passes in Colorado — not particularly high and no aspen forests. However, at this time of the year, after the willows have lost their leaves, their branches glow red, orange and yellow. With the setting sun, I hoped to capture some of these fiery colors. This is one of the last images that I made for the day.

Willows Along The Creek, La Veta Pass

It had snowed along the pass at the weekend. At the roadside there was about two feet of snow. I found this Rabbit Brush growing at the top of a snow bank, with some fiery willows in the background.

Rabbit Brush Bush And Snow Bank, La Veta Pass

There were gusty winds blowing through the pass, with blowing snow across the highway. Near the top of the pass, I stopped at roadside where there were some abandoned farm houses.

Abandoned House, La Veta Pass

Close by were one of CDOT’s igloos, where snow plows store their materials. I made this image of the sunny side of the igloo. With the deep blue Colorado sky, I converted this image to black and white, to show the contrast of the white snow and pale beige igloo against the dark sky.

Igloo Dome In B&W, La Veta Pass

After exploring the area around the roadside for about 1/2 hour, I stopped on the shadow side of the igloo. Here I made this image, with some fast moving clouds in the sky.

CDOT Igloo On La Veta Pass

In this image, one can still see the fiery red willows in the background.

This is the last post for my 2015 Project 52 that has kept me occupied for this year. Happy Christmas to everyone and best wishes for a Merry New Year in 2016.

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