Photographer in Colorado

For the last week in August, we traveled to England to meet our daughter Susan. After a day of travel, we arrived for a one night stay in London. The following day we headed to Wales. After passing through Swansea, we left the M4 and headed to the Gower peninsula, for a break from driving. We stopped at Penrice Castle Park and took a walk through the park. Susan and Angela headed up the path while I made to following image.

Path To Penrice Castle

The castle is located on the top of a hill that we climbed. In the past the castle was destroyed and is now in ruins; the walls are covered in bushes as nature takes its course.

Penrice Castle Ruins

From the castle walls, we looked down over the mansion situated in the park grounds. After climbing down, it soon began to drizzle. This was our signal to complete the journey! The remainder of the journey was in the rain.

Mansion At Penrice Castle

We stopped at Broad Haven for dinner and checked into the hostel at Marloes Sands later that night. During the night, it continued to rain and stopped for a short time in the morning.

We took this opportunity to walk down to the beach. Off course, the rain started again and continued for a few more hours! We headed back to the hostel so that we could dry off.

Rocks At Marloes Sands

As we headed back to the hostel along the cliff path, I stopped to make the following image of the beach while the the rain continued to fall.

Beach At Marloes Sands

During the afternoon, the weather cleared and we headed out to do some more exploration. We made our way to Dale, a coastal town a few miles away. We had some grocery shopping to get done before we enjoyed the sunny weather as sailors were packing up their boats for the weekend. I took a walk through one of the streets where I found these two flower boxes with bright red geraniums.

Geraniums At Dale

Last week, I headed out to Tower Road, where last year there was a huge field of sunflowers. No luck this year. Yesterday, late afternoon, I headed further east along I-70. Near the Watkins exit, I left the interstate. In the distance were fields of yellow that caught my attention, so I meandered through various roads to get there. As I walked along the roadside, I noticed one corn plant growing up among the sunflowers — a case of “pattern interrupted”!

Corn Among The Sunflowers

Most of the sunflowers face the rising sun, so I had the opportunity of shooting back-lighted flowers in the afternoon sunlight.

Backlit Sunflower

One of the flowers was side-lighted against a dark background. This was perfect for a black and white, monochrome conversion.

Single Sunflower

Walking carefully among the plants, I setup with a wide angle lens, and angled down to make this image that shows all the flowers facing east.

Field Of Sunflowers

The sunflowers were planted in rows, aligned east-west in this image. Shooting into the sun was going to be tough — the lens needs to be shaded to prevent flare spots. The lens already had a lens hood, but I had to shade the front of the lens with my hand to block the sun. I just love the all those flowers, with dark orange centers surrounded by yellow petals. In the distance were storm clouds, which added to the drama of this image.

Sunflowers And Distant Storm Clouds

With a long lens, I focused on the clump of sunflowers in the middle distance, so that they were peeking out behind the foreground flowers.

Sunflowers Peeking Out

I made several more images as the sun went down. After the sun disappeared below the horizon, the setting sun lighted up the clouds — pink against the blue sky. The grain elevator was also included to balance the composition in this image.

Sunflowers, After Sunset

While enjoying the sunflowers during the afternoon, I heard voices in the distance. Returning to the car, I found several cars parked along the roadside. Several visitors, some with school kids, had stopped nearby to enjoy these magnificent flowers.

Last Saturday our Meetup group had the August night shoot at Garland Park. This time we had light painting and sparks flying. After dark, we setup for this image of a fire wheel. The sparks are caused by glowing steel wool fragments.

Fire Wheel

Here is another image where we included an orb and light dancing! (on the right side).

Orb And Fire Wheel

Finally, we had a sombrero hat fire wheel, where the sparks fly horizontally.

Sombrero Hat Fire Wheel

After wards we did some light painting. Here is Diane with a light saber. She was moving on a swing in the kid’s playground, waving the light saber.

Diane With Light Saber

For more images, take a look at the Illuminate Workshops gallery on Meetup.com.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Meetup Group that was meeting in a Downtown pub. During the walk from the Convention Center, I made several photographs along 14th Street. At the Theater Center, I stopped to look up at the roof. That star — never noticed that before — so I included it in this composition.

Theater Center Roof And Star

Several visitors were visiting or passing through the Center. I included this handrail as a lead-in to this group of visitors.

Theater Center Visitors

Along 14th Street are several triangular polished blocks. The polished surface has been etched or sandblasted to reveal a 14. The polished surface reflects the high-rise building and yellow building facade in this close-up image.

Reflections On 14

Behind me was some “Alley Art”. The two faces (elk and dog?) grabbed my interest.

Alley Art On 14th Street

Further down the street, was another triangular block. In this image, I chose a near-far composition with the road intersection and office block.

Intersection On 14th Street

Close to my destination, 14th Street meets with Cherry Creek. Several cyclists make use of the pathways along the creek, so I stopped to make some images of the cyclists. I was rewarded by this runner passing by the waterfalls.

Runner On Cherry Creek Creek Path

It was time to join the Meetup group. After the meeting, I headed back to Light Rail along a different route. In the shade of the building, I found the color contrast created by the mixture of the red rock wall panels and blue steelwork.

Rock Wall Panels And Sidewalk

Riding back on Light Rail, I had to switch lines at the Broadway station to reach my destination. The sun had just set and the moon had risen. The evening sky started to take on the deep blue hues that typically follows a sunset.

Sunset And Moonrise From Broadway Station

This sunset was the perfect end of the day.

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