Photographer in Colorado

Continuing with last month’s road trip… Leaving Zion, I headed out to Death Valley. After setting up the camp site, I headed out to the Mesquite sand dunes before sunset. I located a spot where there were few footprints so I could capture pristine ripples in the sand.

Sand Dune Ripples, Death Valley

At this time of year, the sun is very low in the sky, so I had limited time to capture the dunes. The following day, I explored the area around the Furnace Creek campground. Along the edge of the golf course are several palm trees. These would make a distinctive image with infrared.

Palm Tree, Furnace Creek Golf Course

My trip continued on to the Alabama Hills, where I made this image of the Mobius Arch after sunset on the following day. Through the arch one can see Mount Lone Pine, one of the peaks in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Sunrise, Mobius Arch

I met a Swiss photographer who had spent the week making images around the South West. He had made some panoramas with his iPhone. That gave me an idea for my first image that I made with an iPhone on this trip! This image was made from the other side of the arch.

Mobius Arch Panorama

After leaving Moab, I headed out to Escalante, stopping at Hanksville and later at Capitol Reef National Park. At the entrance of the Park are several Cottonwood trees along the banks of the Fremont River. There was light overcast which allowed me to capture the contrast of the dark branches against the fall colors of the leaves.

Fall Cottonwood Tree, Capitol Reef

The drive from Boulder to Escalante is over spectacular terrain, often along a knife-edged ridge. Along the roadside are views directly into Calf Creek.

Looking Down Into Calf Creek, Escalante

Before arriving at Escalante, I headed off to Devil’s Garden. With all the clouds scudding across the sky, the sunset promised to be spectacular that evening. For this image, I positioned myself int the shadow of one of the “statues” to make this image.

Statues In Devil’s Garden, No 2

After spending the night in Escalante, I headed to Zion the next day. Along the way, there was a snow storm in Red Canyon that deposited some 6 inches of snow. Continuing on, I headed on, stopping at Lidia’s Canyon, where a small pond reflected the fall colors from trees on the opposite bank.

Fall Color Reflections, Lidia’s Canyon

The east entrance to Zion follows Pine Creek down to the tunnel. I always like to stop here to capture the Maple bushes along the Creek.

Fall Colors, Pine Creek, Zion

As sunset approached, I was located near the camp sites. I setup camera, facing The Watchman, and made this image before the sun dropped below the canyon walls.

Sunset Detail On The Watchman, Zion

A couple of weeks ago, I made a road trip that included driving to Moab along the Colorado Riverway. Here are a sample of some images made on that first day. They sky was full of fabulous cloud formations, with the moon just visible among the clouds, in the late afternoon. I stopped near Castle Valley, just past Fischer Towers, that may be seen on the far left of this image.

Castle Valley, Colorado Riverway

Further along the road was a knoll, that I climbed to make the following image.

Parriott Mesa, Castle Valley

Before the sunset approached, I stopped beside the Colorado River, for this image of the sandstone cliffs on the north side of the river. The river marks the south boundary of Arches National Park.

Colorado Riverway Sunset

This image shows one feature of sandstone in the south west — the blue-black patina on the rock face is known as “Desert Varnish”.

Here are some more images from the Zombie Crawl this weekend.

Green Girl

More elaborate and colorful footwear.

Colorful Footwear

Minnie was out with her friends…

Minnie Mouse And Friends

Here is Teddy with with his chainsaw. I did not notice that guy in the left sided background until this evening. That gave made be laugh!

Chainsaw Teddy

I really love this gleeful expression of the lady! Must have been tasty!

I Love That Expression

There are a bunch of really creative costumes that people have made, as can bee seen by Maleficent, below.

Maleficent And Diaval

This was one of the last images that I made for the day.

Come Play With Us… Forever

Play forever at your own risk!

For more images, head over to the Illuminate Workshops meetup group here.

This weekend was the annual Zombie Crawl that took place along 16th Street. Once again, I joined the Illuminate Workshops meetup group. We started out at Skyline Park. Here were located many Zombie Makeup booths. This lady was busy applying makeup at the police booth.

Applying Zombie Make-up

This event is a family event, so even kids were having makeup

Having A Zombie Makeup

Da Vinci and his model were not immune to zombies.

Mona Lisa And Da Vinci

This guy was busy drumming.

16th Street Drummer

Here is one ugly dude

One Ugly Dude

At one balcony, a crowd of spectators had gathered to watch the crawl.

Zombie Crawl Spectators

With all the gory zombies, around one misses all the fun footwear and leggings.

Colorful Legwear

Yesterday was the Worldwide Photowalk event. This is an annual event that was started by Scott Kelby. I registered with the Five Points photowalk that was arranged by Andy Johns. About a dozen photographers met at the “Coffee at the Point”, where the walk started at 8am. I have included some of the images that I made. More images may be found on my Flickr photostream here. Images from other photographers in our group may also be found here.

The Five Points neighborhood is very colorful, as can be seen in the following image of Sax Player mural, that adorns one of the historic buildings in the area.

Sax Player Mural, Five Points

I found this blue morning glory along the shaded side of the street.

Blue Morning Glory, Five Points

One of the murals, comprised a wave of mosaic tiles.

Mosaic Wave, Five Points

There where several embedded fractured mirrors that were included in the mural. In the following image, I positioned myself the capture reflections from the sunlit street.

Fractured Mirrors, Five Points

Here is another reflection of murals from the other side of the street.

Fractured Mural Reflections

Along the shady side of the street was one store with frosted windows. Behind the window were several jars containing various goodies! In the following image, I included reflections from the sunlit side of the street. That’s a reflection of me on the right side of the image.

Jars In The Frosted Window

Adjacent to a bike store, several tires were discarded in the alley.

Discarded Tires

Along one street, we passed some apartments with this line of satellite dishes. Couldn’t they just share one dish?

Couldn’t They Share One Dish?

For more images of this fun event, head over to the the Flickr page.

Last weekend, cold weather was forecast. Freezing weather usually this signals the end of the cosmos plants. This incited me to make some images of these fabulous plants. Fortunately, the temperatures did not plunge below freezing, so I managed to shoot these images over the course of 3 days.

It is always challenging making images of cosmos flowers, especially macro images. Flowers are grow from buds at the end of a long thin stem. The slightest breeze causes the flowers to move. During the course of making this images, there was a slight overcast and very little air disturbances — perfect conditions for making images.

Most of our plants are either white, red or pink. However, there are plenty of variations that have red and white coloring, as in the following image.

Red Cosmos

In this image, I captured a red cosmos flower before it was fully open.

Red Cosmos, No 2

Cosmos flowers are always difficult to capture because the leaves are so fine. This means that one has to find a decent background that is not busy.

White Cosmos

Looking through the variety of plants, I found this following flower having white petals, fringed with pink edges.

Pink And White Cosmos

Yesterday I made an image of a pink cosmos, but failed to notice an out of focus leave obscuring most of the flower.  Today the stamens had withered, so I had to find another pink flower that had opened earlier in the day.

Pink Cosmos