Photographer in Colorado

On July 3rd, the Illuminate Workshops Meetup group met for a fireworks night shoot at Civic Center Park. This fireworks event takes place on the night before July 4th to celebrate Independence Day with music and fireworks. Crowds of people had made their way to Civic Center Park since late afternoon. Outside the State Capitol building, folks sat on the lawn to get a view of fireworks that would start later. I had never made an image with our State Capitol building, so after the sun had set, I made this image with a deep blue sky to contrast the golden dome.

Crowds At The Colorado State Capitol

A few of us had gathered in the incorrect location to meet the main body of photographers, so we headed over the the Justice Center. Outside the building were polished granite blocks that served as outdoor seating. The stone columns of the building were reflected in the highly polished surface.

Granite Reflections At Justice Center

In this image, I used the lights in the hand rails as a leading line to the little boy who was watching fireworks on the steps.

On The Justice Center Steps

Outside the Justice Center, people were gathered to view the firework display.

Watching Fireworks At Civic Center Park

While making images outside the Justice Center, I noticed the bugs circling in the warm air above the pavement lights, leaving lighted trails as they caught the light.

Bugs In The Light

Another firework spectator sitting among the columns…

Watching The Fireworks

In the past I had not had much success making images of fireworks. So I decided on a different approach for this image, where the firework trails were reflected in the windows.

Firework Reflections

Finally, I managed to make a decent image of the fireworks. The slight breeze in the air blew clouds of smoke that were lit by the blue lights of the City and County Building, below.

Fireworks Over City And County Building, No 2

Later we met up the main body of photographers at a nearby pub for a meal and beverages. Check out some more images of the firework show at Illuminate Photography Workshops Meetup site.

Last week, I made a business trip to Phoenix to attend a 2-1/2 day IRMSummit conference that was held at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. On arrival in Phoenix, the first thing to notice was the heat – 103 degrees in the late spring. A big change from the 70+ degree temperatures in Denver. During the time in Phoenix, the weather reached a record — not a high heat — but a low humidity of 2% with a temperature of 106 degrees!

The most striking feature of this prestigious hotel is the architecture. The buildings are constructed from square blocks, either plain or with a palm tree design. The design of the blocks represent the pattern made where palm fronts are cut from the trunk. In this image, I managed to find a palm tree adjacent to one of the hotel buildings that echoes the palm tree design of the hotel.

Biltmore Architecture And Palm

After checking in, the route to the room (in a cottage), was along a path that ran through putting greens! As the sun set, long shadows were cast along the manicured greens, that are captured in this image.

Long Shadows On Putting Green

Phoenix had some high altitude clouds that I captured in this image with the palm trees and fountain.

Palm Trees And Fountain

The water in the fountain was enticing in the late afternoon heat. Approaching the fountain, I selected a low shutter speed so that the motion of the water was not frozen in mid air.

Fountain, Up Close

In the hotel grounds was this sculpture. I was immediately enticed to capture the green patina.

Biltmore Sculpture

Later, as the sun was setting, I made this image of sunlit clouds in the skies above the main hotel building.

Biltmore Sunset

Driving up to the Biltmore, one is greeted by many Oleander bushes in the hotel grounds and lining the street approaching the hotel. Walking through the hotel grounds, I found this pink oleander bush tucked away in one of the corners of the buildings. The palm tree design of the blocks can be seen up close in this image.

Oleanders In The Corner

On entering the hotel, one is greeted by this indoor fountain with the characteristic palm design walls.

Indoor Fountain

Past the fountain is the lobby.

Biltmore Lobby

Some of the other features of the hotel include the Paradise Pool. This image was made after dark, to capture the pool lights reflecting off the water.

Swimming Pool Reflections

Finally, this is the patio located outside my room.

5102 Patio

Several times during the conference, the architecture of the hotel kept reminding me of Ayn Rand’s book, “The Fountainhead”, which tells the story of Howard Roark and his radical architectural designs.

Last weekend was the annual Chalk Arts Festival in Larimer Street. On Sunday, I headed to Larimer Street. This year it was fortunate that we had good weather. Last year work for several artists was washed away. During this middle of the day it stared getting hot. Also, with the  high sun, it was a challenge to find good lighting, especially when including artists and other figures in the images.

Artist, Drawing In The Midday Sun

The midday lighting often makes it easy to capture the saturated colors of the chalk on a flat surface. In the following image, the artist had completed the collar for this masked lady, leaving the chalk on the pavement.

Masked Lady And Chalk

This teenage artist was busy completing the subjects hair.

Teenage Artist At Work

While working on the chalk images, the artists usually follow a small scale image of the image that they are drawing. Often, several artists work as a team on a single image. In the following image, the artist is drawing the dragon while a team member was working behind her, on the right.

Drawing The Dragon

This artist was taking a break from drawing for a beverage break. I was intrigued by the was that here hat fell across her face.

Behind My Hat

She soon continued to work on here complex image under an awning.

Artist With Hat

Mythica, whom I met at a previous year’s festival, is always dressed with colorful clothes. This year her hat was livened up with multi-colored flowers.

Mythica’s Hat

Sometimes the artist’s work includes large areas of white background, as in the following cartoon-like image. This is great for making photographs in the midday sun, because the white background acts as a reflector for fill-in lighting.

Drawing Finishing Touches

I found the following family enjoying their lunch in the shaded side of the building while listening to the band play.

Eating Lunch

Further along, several people were enjoying the shade and the band. The following gentleman was curious as why I was making images of the spectators and not the artists and the band!

Onlookers Near The Band Stage

Later, during the afternoon, the sun had moved, putting this following artist’s work in the shade.

Artist With Chalk

Behind, a couple of guys were busy sitting back in their chairs! I made this following image of the boxes of colorful chalks, making sure the I included a right foot and sandals.

Right Foot And Chalks

Somewhere, Over The… not the rainbow. This was an interesting image with a rainbow of colors.

Somewhere Over The…

When I arrived here, the artist had just completed the image and proceeded to remove the border tape.

Removing Border Tape

Meanwhile, here partner, also an artist, was busy with a phone call with their child sleeping in a baby carrier on his back. During the course of the day, both artists took turns in baby carrying while drawing.

Artist And Child

The final day in Boston was spent visiting the end of the Freedom Trail. We waited at the TD Garden center for the rest of the party. While waiting, I noticed the window cleaners busy working on an nearby building.

Window Cleaners At Work, Boston

We walked across the Charleston Bridge to make our way towards the old naval dockyards where the USS Constitution is docked. This ship was built in 1797 using white oak and live oak laminated together for the hull. The combination was successful in resisting bombardment by cannon balls during the War of 1812. The cannon balls bounced off the hull.

USS Constitution

I found this floating barrier at the side of the dock. I carefully found a good location where I could make an image.

Slickbar Floating Barrier

With the overcast weather, I was looking for other backgrounds. Reflecting from the water were the three masts of the USS Constitution.

Reflected Masts

We lined up to visit the Constitution. At the stern, the rudder chains were reflected in the water.

USS Constitution Waterline

The Constitution has the main gun deck fitted with some 40 cannons.

USS Constitution Gun Deck

On our way out, I made an image of some of the rigging.

USS Constitution Rigging

Soon after this, we parted ways with Wojtek and Kerril, and made our way back to the hotel by subway and bus. The subway system has some turnstiles that are no longer used. Walking behind the turnstile, I made this image of where the young lady on the right was looking towards the direction of the approaching train. On examining the image, I noticed the person framed on the left side of the image looking back the other way.

Subway Scene, Orange Line

We all enjoyed a great trip to the Boston area, enjoying meeting up with family again.

The day following the art museum, we visited Harvard University. Arriving at Cambridge, we walked around the town until time to meet family.

Harvard Side Street

These bike racks were full when we arrived, eagerly waiting for daily rentals!

Harvard Bike Rack

We meandered through the campus and paid a visit to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The museum included an exhibit of glass flowers. This exhibit included over 800 glass models of various flowers. These highly detailed models were crafted by a father and son team over a period of 50 years in Germany. These were displayed under glass cabinets with difficult lighting, so I did not have any images. This museum is well worth visiting. Later we also visited the Semitic Museum, where some Egyptian and Mesopotamian artifacts were being exhibited.

After visiting the museums, we made our way through Harvard Yard. Here there is a statue of John Harvard, who founded the university. This statue gathered the attention of several visitors, mainly because of the brass shoe tip that looks like gold. Apparently there is an Asian custom that touching gold helps women falling pregnant! That might explain why this lady is touching the statue’s shoe while onlookers are making photographs. That did not explain why some men also performed the same!

John Harvard Statue

At the southern end of the yard, I stopped to make an image of the colorful chairs, before leaving the campus.

Colorful Chairs In Harvard Yard

We left Salem and moved to Boston. After meeting Wojtek and Kerril, we started along The Freedom Trail. During the course of the next few days we caught up events over the last 5 years. The trail starts at Boston Common, making its way past various sites that trace historic events leading up to the Revolutionary War. The Old South Meeting House was one location where historic meetings were held.

Clock, Old South Meeting House

We made our way to the Old State House. It was outside this building that the Boston Massacre took place. I was intrigued by the semi-circular stair case that is located in the center of the building. This was added many years after the end of the Revolutionary War.

Stairs, Old State House

After lunch, we continued with the trail, making our way to Paul Revere’s House. This is a museum that contains some of the period furniture and artifacts from Paul Revere’s time.

Paul Revere House

The following day, we met at the Museum of Fine Arts. There were some interesting works. The following work, is consists of foot-shaped paper, cut from phone directories, stacked several feet high. This work traces footsteps walking along the floor.

Vertical Walk Sculpture, Museum Of Fine Arts

One unmistakeable work is a Chihuly glass sculpture (green icicle tower) that stands some 40 feet in height. There are over 2000 blown glass leaves that comprise this piece.

Chihuly Sculpture

While admiring the sculpture from the third floor, I made this image of a museum visitor.

Chihuly, With Visitor

On the morning we visited, there were crowds of schoolkids visiting the museum. I could not resist making this image of a group of kids with their yellow tee-shirts.

Schoolkids In The Museum

We made a second day trip from Salem, heading south to Providence, Rhode Island. Soon after arriving, we got routed through some traffic diversions. A marathon run was taking place, with the leaders arriving in the city center when we arrived. We found parking close to Brown University. While walking to the university, I was intrigued by these stairs. The lines of the stairs were repeated by the siding of the house.

Stairs And Steps, Providence

We took a walk through Brown University. This is one of the eight Ivy League universities. All but one we formed during the colonial era in the US.

Brown University, Providence

Walking down the the city center, I found this ring that forms part of a sculpture. Since it was midday, I carefully composed the image to exclude the sun and bright parts of the sky.

Ring, Providence

Along the Providence River, many bystanders were watching and encouraging runners in the marathon.

Watching Marathon Runners, Providence

During the afternoon we headed south out of Providence, where we stopped at Bristol. While exploring the town, I was drawn to the peeling paint on this door.

Painted Door, Bristol

It was spring time, so many of the trees were covered in blossoms. The azaleas were also flowering.

Azaleas, Bristol

Bristol is a coastal town that used to have many industrial and manufacturing plants. Here is the building use to be plant for Robin Rug Inc.

Robin Rug Inc, Bristol

Of course we passed by the marina. Angela pointed out one dingy that was partially submerged below water. However, I found this one, that was almost completely sunk!

Sunk, Bristol