Photographer in Colorado

For lunch on our first day of the Sonoma County Autumn Photo Workshop, we stopped at Bodega Bay Harbor. After a delicious lunch, we headed down to the marina. I found this single stalk of a Pride of Madeira plant, along the quay.

This stalk was the only one that still had color. All the remaining stalks had withered and dried earlier in the season. I made a monochrome image of some of the remaining withered stalks.

I found that this harbor had a lot of material that would make for some interesting photographs. There was a stack of fishing baskets with coiled ropes and floats close to quay side.

Farther along the quay was a boat that had been loaded onto a trailer in the parking lot. I made an abstract image of the patterns of rust on the bright blue keel.

There were some birds that were flying from tree to tree along the parking lot, so I attempted to capture some images of the birds. They were obscured behind the mosses that were growing on the trees. So I turned my attention to the mosses — at least they didn’t move!

Later that afternoon we made our way to the Bodega Bay Head. There were several colonies of Cormorants along the coast. On one of rocks along the cliff, a group of Cormorants were drying off and preening themselves.

Farther inland from the cliffs was a group of Cypress trees. A footpath led to a tunnel formed by the surrounding trees. I made several compositions of some of the trunks and branches of these trees in the tunnel. In the following image, I converted the capture into a monochrome rendition.

Later we headed back to the workshop headquarters to complete the day’s events.

Continuing on… One of the locations that we visited during the Sonoma County Autumn Photo Workshop, was “Safari West”. This is a wildlife park that is home to many African wild animals. Soon after arriving and greeting our host, we boarded the safari wagon. We made our way through to the first fenced enclosure where we were greeted by this fabulous giraffe.

I was amused by these two Waterbuck. “Kids These Days!” is what I titled this image. This reminds me of two elderly people commenting on kids.

There is a herd of several Watusi cattle at Safari west. They are distinguished by their huge horns. Apparently, Texas Longhorn cattle are descendants of cattle breeds that were bred from Watusi cattle.

There are several Cape Buffalo at Safari West. Cape Buffalo are notorious for their aggressive behavior. The following is the alpha male of the herd; he was busy at the feeding station.

Safari West is located in Oak forests on rolling hills. I captured this image of the oak trees that were backlit as the sun sank lower during the late afternoon.

Several Ostrich roam through the park. I like how the back lighting of the sun lit up the hairs on the bird’s neck and feathers.

One of the Wildebeest strolled past us and made it’s way over the crest of the hill.

Towards the end of our trip, we passed this female Ostrich. Our guide loves the animals and birds in the park. This ostrich was showing off to our guide by lifting her wings.

At the end of our tour, our safari wagon developed some mechanical issues. We were close to the enclosure when this Abyssinian Ground Hornbill was showing off!

I noticed this Cattle Egret perched on the fence. Apparently, Cattle Egret can also be found in Africa, that is the original home to many of the birds and animals of Safari West.

We all enjoyed our afternoon at Safari West. We made our way back to the workshop headquarters to complete the day’s events.

While on the beach at Salmon Creek, there were plenty of waves crashing against the rocks. This was one of my successful images that showed the peak action of the crashing waves.

The view towards the north was also spectacular. In this image, I was lucky to include several gulls in flight above the stormy seas and crashing waves. Also, there are several birds swimming in the sea between the rocks.

Several surfers were taking advantage of the surf. This surfer had just left the water.

Several people were busy fishing along the beach. I managed to capture one fisherman with all his fishing rods lining the beach.

While at the beach, I found this really interestingly shaped rock being engulfed by the sea. The tide was gradually rising, so this rock was almost surrounded by the flow of water rising. I had waited for several minutes for a wave that would surround the entire rock. Unfortunately, I had to abandon that idea since our schedule on the beach was coming to an end!

We moved to another location further north along the coast. This location offered some interesting images of the sea from a different viewpoint. This image looks like a maelstrom swallowing a rock.

I made to make a second image of another rock that was swallowed by the maelstrom. For both these, I converted the images to monochrome. This enhanced the contrast of the raging sea.

Our next port of call was lunch at Bodega Bay.

Early last month, I attended the Sonoma County Autumn Photo Workshop hosted by Derrick Story. Our first location was the beach at Salmon Creek. There was a large accumulation of driftwood that was spread over the beach.

This driftwood provided plenty of resources to construct shelters along the beach. This was one of server shelters that we found.

Crawling into the shelter, I captured this image looking out of the shelter towards the pacific ocean.

There were a variety of methods used to construct these shelters. I found this cord that was used to bind driftwood.

Included among the driftwood were several strands of kelp that were washed up onto the beach. The following image reminds me of the Borg Queen!

Several pieces of driftwood had been buried below the beach sands. I found this large piece of partially buried driftwood.

After leaving the beach, we headed farther up the coast. Here I captured an image looking back towards Salmon Creek.

Those Sumacs in fall colors just keep lighting up the neighborhood. While, out for daily exercise, I stopped to capture some images. In the following image, I like the contrast of the duller foreground leaves in the shade, against the bright out of focus sunlit Sumac leaves in the background.

The City Ditch runs through our neighborhood. At this time of the year, water still flows through the ditch. Several bridges are installed to allow trails to cross the ditch. In the following image, the water provides the ideal medium to reflect the fall colors.

Here is another image that shows the contrast of the red Sumac leaves against the green leafy background.

Continuing through the neighborhood, I found another tree that was backlit by the setting sun. There were some interesting shadows that were cast onto one of the leaves.

My neighborhood walk takes me past a school. Overlooking the parking lot are several rows of grasses. Interspersed between the grasses were some bunches of flowers. On this day, the last rays of sunlight lit up these grasses before the sun dropped behind nearby houses.

Finally, I made this image of the high clouds that were lit up by the setting sun.

Last weekend, I headed down to the South Platte Park. Maybe there would be some birds that had migrated here for the winter. Most of the summer visitors moved off during the last few weeks, but the returning winter visitors had not arrived back! However, the Rabbitbrush bushes were in flower, so I decided to give more attention to the fall colors instead. A Painted Lady butterfly was moving from flower to flower.

Here is another image of the Painted Lady that shows the hairs glowing when backlit by the sun in the late afternoon.

I headed out under the bridge, hoping to find some birds on the other side of the highway. The concrete bridge was reflected in the slow flowing South Platte River. This created some interesting abstract patterns in the water.

Not finding many birds, I returned back under the bridge and headed downstream along the river. Sitting on a rock was a female Common Merganser and some friends! We had seen several resident Mergansers during the summer months, so maybe this female was a resident. Or maybe she migrated south?

Further downstream, water flowing over shallow submerged rocks had developed some interesting patterns. These patterns broke up the fall colors reflected from the opposite bank of the river.

Returning to the parking area, I passed Blackrock Lake. Here the setting sun highlighted the fall colors and created some nice reflections in the water.

Close to the parking lot was a patch of grasses that were lit by the setting sun.

I approached closer and made a second image.

Within a few minutes, the sun had dropped below the mountains for the day.

This last couple of weeks have seen the fall colors work down into the city. Whilst doing daily walks, I passed by some Sumac bushes that had started to turn. One bush had several flowers that had turned into a red fruit earlier during the summer. I found this Sumac fruit that was surrounded with a ring of green leaves.

Sumac typically turn from green to yellow then orange. Finally, when the leaves turn red, they are spectacular. In the image below, the fruit has a backdrop of bright red leaves.

There are several species of Sumac. The one that I had found was the Smooth Sumac. In the following image, I concentrated on the leaves.

I found another Sumac bush that had a branch with red leaves which was flanked by another branch with green leaves.

Often during walks, I cross Harvard Gulch where there is a spillway. Here I found some leaves with their fall colors that had fallen into the gulch. They were then trapped under running water that was flowing over the spillway.

During another daily walk, I found a Sumac branch where the leaves had turned to a striking orange color. Here I found an dark background that contrasted with the orange leaves.

Close by, was another Sumac bush that had started to turn from green to yellow. Sun light streamed through a gap in the tree canopy to highlight the leaves in this image.

Finally, crossing to Rosedale Park, I found several trees that were in the process of turning colors.

In the image above, one can see all the colors from green, through yellow, orange and red. These leaves were shiny, so I made sure to include the light shiny surfaces that reflected the sky light on the leaves.