Photographer in Colorado

First Friday art walk was on again for Labor Day weekend. Apart from enjoying the artwork and the crowds of people, I enjoy the opportunity to do street photography during the art walks. This month, the street was not closed to traffic, but there were fewer people than during previous months; maybe because of other events taking place? While upstairs in the Grace Gallery, I made this image looking down from the second floor window. After adjusting for the color temperature of the street lighting, the skies turned a deep blue.

Galleries Under Blue Skies

This month, several bands were busy playing in the street. I made several images of this band. With the low light levels, their faces and bodies were blurred. This was my favorite image that showed just enough detail of their faces but movement of their hands and instruments.

Street Band At Art Walk

The Point Gallery, always has interesting artwork in the main entrance. But I also like to go the back and up the stairs. Below the stairs were various pieces of abstract pictures on the walls, where I captured this guy admiring one of the pieces.

Admiring Artwork, Under Stairs

After visiting several galleries, I headed back on the far side of the street. I stopped by Jiggs Barber Shop to see what would develop. As people were walking by, I started making images of the blurred motions.

Jiggs Barber Shop, Santa Fe

After several images, I waited until the crowds had passed to capture the following image of art walkers outside the shop.

Art Walkers, Pausing By Jiggs

Jiggs was closed for business for the night. But nearby was another hairdressers that was a hive of activity, where a guy was having his haircut. I liked the mural on the left wall that is looking down on the customers.

Getting A Haircut, Santa Fe

Enjoy.

While in the parking garage for the gym this week, I found some abstract images. Plastic sheets, covering some construction work was blowing in the wind. I wanted to slow down the movement of the plastic. So this image image was made the the “Slow Shutter” app.

Parking Garage Plastic Abstract

While the wind continued to blow the plastic sheet, I made the following image.

Plastic, Blowing In The Wind

The plastic was opaque enough to get some soft-focus effects. This image was made from the other side of the plastic looking in.

Cone And Mysterious Lights

Leaving the gym today, I made my way into the parking garage. This sun was streaming at just the right angle to cast my shadow across the garage floor.

Shadows In The Parking Garage

Returning to the plastic sheets, I found the kissing silhouettes! What could this be?

Kissing, Silhouette

It turned out the the kissing couple were the top of a traffic cone!

Kissing, Traffic Cone

Several wildfires were burning in the western states (California, Oregon, Washington) this week. The sunsets have been really amazing with intense red and oranges from the smoke. On Friday, I headed to a park that had some elevation above power lines to capture the sunset. This was a park that I discovered that day — Kunming Park. This park used to be called Rosedale Park, but was renamed when Kunming became a “Sister City”. At the park there are three boulders that were imported from Kunming, China. The orange light from the sunset really enhanced the color of the boulders.

Kunming Park Boulders

About this time, several people had arrived at the park, mainly locals, to enjoy the sunset at the end of the work week. In the following image, I captured the sun as it was about to set below the mountains behind the tree.

Sun Setting, Kunming Park

Panning towards the south, away from the sun, the orange was more muted. Also, the layering of the mountain ranges and clouds was more distinct.

Smoky Sunset, Kunming Park, No 1

The park had some interesting steps, with an S-curve, that creates a leads into the image.

Curved Steps Kunming Park

When the sun dropped below the mountains, the orange color of the sky became more intense, as can be seen in the image below.

Smoky Sunset, Kunming Park, No 2

I zoomed in to capture the cloud bank that was hanging above the mountains.

Cloud Bank Above Mountains, At Sunset

I waited, watched and experienced the sunset. Finally, after the sun had dropped further down, the underside of the clouds were lit by the orange sun beams.

Last Rays Of The Sunset Catching Clouds

A few minutes later, the colors faded as the sun disappeared well below the horizon.

Last Sunday, the Colorado Photo Festival continued with a workshop program. Several workshops were offered. I chose the Guanella Pass hosted by Stephen Weaver. Seven of us traveled from Golden to Georgetown by van and headed up the pass. We stopped at one location before reaching the summit. Then we headed down to a meadow that had a variety of different wildflower species. I made to following image of a pair of asters located in the shade of willow bushes. The sun grazed the top of the willow bush to light up the flowers.

Two Asters, Guanella Pass

We spent a couple of hours making images in the meadow before heading down Duck Creek. Crossing the creek, I found a location where algae formed a nice tasty brown scum on a pond in the slow flowing creek.

Algae Scum In Duck Creek

We made our way back up towards the parking lot. Looking over the the west side of the pass, I made this image of the distant grassy mountain top. I included the ridge with willows and pine trees as the foreground for the image below. There were two elk grazing in the meadow at the lower left corner.

Late Afternoon Skies Over Guanella Pass

We moved over the the east side parking lot for some late afternoon snack before continuing with some more photography. We headed down to the lake where the plan was to later catch the sunset. The clouds had built up on the east side of the pass. In this image Mount Bierstadt is the peak on the right, with the Sawtooth Ridge on the left of the peak.

Clouds Over Mount Bierstadt And Sawtooth

We made our way to the lake shore. In this image, I captured the reflections of Mount Bierstadt behind the grasses at shore.

Reflections Of Mount Bierstadt

Here is another image looking across the lake to the south of the pass.

Lake Below Mount Bierstadt

Finally we moved to a mound on the eastern shore of the lake. As the sun dipped down below the peaks in the west, the clouds were lit by red light of sunset.

Sunset Over Guanella Pass

Soon after, we packed up and headed back to the van for the return trip to Golden.

Yesterday I attended the Colorado Photo Festival in Golden. During the lunch break, I headed down to Clear Creek. As I left the American Mountaineering Center, I passed by these bicycles lurking behind corner of the building.

Bicycles, American Mountaineering Center

Last year, at the same event, the trail along the creek was closed and under some 3-4 feet of water. This time, the trail was busy, with people taking advantage of the water in the summer heat. So I found a spot under the bridge to observe the action.

Hurrying Along, Under The Bridge

I zoomed out, to capture the leading lines formed by the concrete joints in the following image.

Under The Clear Creek Bridge, Golden

A gap in the bridge, allowed the sunlight to stream down into the creek, creating these stripes in the water.

Sunlight Stripes, Clear Creek

Tubers were lazily floating down the creek. At the bridge, they would leave the water, pick up their tubes and head back upstream. I was intrigued by the clear centers of the tubes, that showed a hint of the tubers. Following a couple of tubers, I made this image.

Tubers, Clear Creek Golden

Samson Park has several sculptures based on “Alice In Wonderland”. Last week, a new sculpture made its appearance — “The Walrus And The Carpenter”.

Walrus And The Carpenter, Samson Park

On the pedestal, surrounding “The Carpenter”, are a group of marching shells. The main sculpture appears to be bronze, but the shells appear to be like some other (non-bronze) material.

Walrus Pedestal Shells

Leaving the park, I made this image of the brass lettering in the entrance gate.

Entrance To Samson Park

Later in the week, the median sprinklers were running, to water the trees and grass in the median. I chose a backlit composition of the water sprays in the morning light.

Backlit Median Sprinklers

Across the road, in Tuscany Plaza, the aspen trees were side-lighted by the morning sun. These two trees created formed a Vee.

Aspen Vee, Tuscany Plaza

On Saturday, I had planned to make a trip to photograph wildflowers in Shrine Pass. Heading out on I-70, traffic was backed up for several miles before Floyd Hill. This would delay the journey by a couple of hours, so I turned back to Evergreen and headed to South Park from Conifer. I turned off to Weston Pass and took a break from driving. The South Fork of the South Platte river flows down the pass. There are several beaver ponds in the river. These always make for great subjects for infra-red.

Beaver Pond In Weston Pass

Water tends to absorb a lot of infra-red, so pond often render as dark tones. The blue sky also does not emit and infra red, so appears almost black. In the following image, I concentrated on a closer, more detailed image of the beaver pond with willow bushes reflecting from the water.

Reflections In Beaver Pond, Weston Pass

After a while, I headed over the pass, stopping along Big Union Creek. There are some interesting waterfalls in the creek that can make for some great images. However, there was dappled sunlight falling the creek that did not make for easy images. After about an hour, I left the pass on the western side joining the highway to Leadville. This was a short drive away. The road forks after Leadville, with one road heading to the Tennessee Pass and Red Cliff, about 20 miles away — the gateway to Shrine Pass. I slowly worked my way up the pass, practicing shooting videos. Near the top of the pass, the wildflowers became more prolific. I found this clump of Asters at the roadside.

Asters In Shrine Pass

There were several groups of Arnicas in the meadows. However, there was a breeze together with falling light levels. Time for some “intentional camera movement” to create some blurred images.

Arnica Blur, Shrine Pass

At the roadside was a large boulder that was surrounded by wildflowers. The boulder shielded the flowers from the breeze in the following image.

Boulder Surrounded By Flowers, Shrine Pass

There were some Arnicas sheltered here in this detailed image.

Arnicas And Boulder, Shrine Pass

Finally, I reached the top of Shrine Pass, just before the sun set over the mountains. Here the Indian Paint Brushes were quite prolific. I made this image about a minute before the sun disappeared over the mountain peaks for one of the last images of the day.

Indian Paint Brush On Shrine Pass

That concluded a long journey to Shrine Pass. Fortunately, there was less traffic on the return trip home on I-70.