Photographer in Colorado

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped at Joshua Tree National Park while on a road trip to California. It was late in the day when I arrived at Yukka Valley, so by the time I headed into the park, the sun had already set. The next morning I headed to the park, arriving just as the sun was rising above the granite hills. I made my way along a trail where I found this yukka plant, adorned with a long stem that flowered in some earlier season.

The park is named after the Joshua Tree. Here is one of the first images that I made of a Joshua Tree that morning.

I found a pair of Joshua Trees. In this image, the sun was low in the sky. Moving around, I made sure that the sun was located behind the trunk of the tree and created a silhouette of the two trees.

The higher elevations of the park are formed over granite intrusions. I found this granite boulder lit by the morning sun against a wall of granite that had vertical fractures resulting from erosion over the ages.

This was my second season visiting the park, so I headed down a track that led to Wall Street Mill. While exploring the area, I had a familiar tapping sound. Soon I discovered this Ladderback Woodpecker feeding on bugs in a Joshua Tree. The woodpecker was working up through the tree, allowing me to approach closely. Soon the bird reached the tree top, where it perched awhile before finding another tree.

At a lower elevation of the park, which is much warmer that the higher Mohave Desert area, is the Cholla Cactus Garden. On this visit, I reached the garden in the afternoon, when the sun was low in the sky. The Teddy Bear Cholla look like a forest of cactii! I like how the low sun lights the cholla spines in this image.

I made another closeup image of one of the cholla plants.

I had decided to leave the macro lens at home for this trip. However, I did bring a Lensbaby lens that allows a softfocus image to be created. It also had a limited macro capability. I used this to get close to a shaded area of one the cholla, where the remains of the flowers and fruit were located.

Teddy Bear Cholla have nasty spines. Occasionally, a ball of spines fall from the cholla, and roll around the ground. One got attached to my boot so I had to work it off without touching the spines. They can be very painful! In this image below, I decided to focus on the distant cholla heads, leaving the closer cholla soft and fuzzy.

As the sun sank lower in the sky, I headed to a location where a roadside Joshua Tree cast long shadows on the tarmac road. This road was especially busy at that time of the day, so I made several images. This was one of the images made in between the passage of vehicles along the road.

I did manage to capture some with cars passing, but those were deleted!

Here are some of my favorite images for November. Arriving at First First Art Walk, I passed by an alley where there was some new paintwork! These are some murals from the alley.

This is the second one in the pair.

The roll-up door, maybe a garage door, was recently replaced. This mural lost its body!

During one of my evening walks through the neighborhood, I pass by a parking garage. The low sun lit up the floor with warm evening light in between the shadows caused by the pillars.

This month was a quiet time for the birds along the South Platte. A lot of summer migrants had already moved away, and the winter visitors had not yet arrived in numbers. However, I did find this female Gadwall, and was happy to capture an image of her spreading her wings.

Later in the month, the Mergansers arrived. This male Hooded Meganser was enjoying the setting sun lying on a boulder in the middle of the river.

Enjoy.

Mount Elbert is a great location to visit for fall colors. The forest road starts close to a pine forest and then passes up through an aspen forest at a higher elevation.

The previous night it had snowed on the mountain peaks, with rain showers at lower elevations. I chose to capture the aspen tree tops against the background pine and aspen forests. There is a light covering of snow at the top of this image.

In the depths of the forest, one often finds odd boulders under the trees. There was an occasional breeze that afternoon. There were also large cloud banks that moved through the sky. There was a thin long blade of grass that was moving in the breezed. I waited patiently for a cloud bank to provide overcast lighting. When the breeze to paused, I managed to capture this image.

Close to this location on the forest road is a beaver pond that I frequently visit. During the fall, the pond reveals abstract patterns as the colors are reflected in the water.

Once the leaves drop, they become a carpet of yellow. Looking straight down, I captured an image showing some of the leaves. Soon the leaves turn brown and start to decay, so I included them in this image.

Looking towards the base of Mount Elbert, I was fascinated by the layering of the colors in the forest. In this image, there are alternating bands of color from the pine and aspen forests.

After returning home via Buena Vista, I took another forest round that passes several ponds. More reflections as the reeds and grasses at the edge of the pond were reflected in the water. I also included some of the reflections in the pond from more distant aspen trees.

In this final image, I included more detail of the grasses and bushes across the other side of the pond. I like the way that the grasses are mirrored in the water.

All for now.

This year, I made a few trips to the mountains to capture some of the fall colors. While camping, I made a trip to Ohio Pass, where I found these grove of aspen trees, with a mix of green and yellow leaves, growing on the scree slope.

Early the next morning, I headed to Mill Castle about sunrise. Last year, I discovered a great location at Mill Castle during the late afternoon drive. So this year, I made a repeat visit in the morning.

The trees were full of birds, and many chipmunks were running along the fencing and up the trees. I did not have a long lens, so no attempt for any bird photography.

Walking along the forest road, I found this location where the road disappeared into a tunnel formed by the trees.

Later in the day, I headed to Kebler Pass. Aspen forests often have ferns growing below the trees. I have never made any decent images in previous years, but managed to get a couple of images during this trip.

The ferns turn from green to yellow to brown. This year, I was a little early, so the ferns were a pale yellow. After a week or two, the ferns turn a brown color.

That was a great trip, until I got a punctured tire later in the afternoon. After mounting the spare, I headed back to the campsite and dinner. It turned out that the tire was totally written off!

A couple of years ago, I entered some images into the Lenswork publication for the “Seeing In Sixes” book. These images were made at the bridge where I-25 crosses the South Platte River. This is a great location to shoot, especially late on a sunny day. The sunlight is reflected from the river to the underside of the bridge, creating some great patterned patches on the bridge structure. Also, the ripples on the surface of the river create some interesting patterns when lit by the low sun.

These images did not get published. More importantly, I enjoyed the time photographing at this location and taking the time to process for consideration.

The last weekend, a cold front arrived, giving us a break from the hot weather. After completing chores around the yard, I headed down to the Platte River, at Reynold’s Landing. Overcast skies provided some great lighting and maybe there would be some interesting birds along the river. Soon after arriving, I found this Cormorant diving for fish.

I don’t know whether the bird found any fish, and soon took flight. On second thoughts, maybe my presence disturbed its fishing routine.

Upstream, I noticed a Great Blue Heron wading along the far bank. The heron did not stay for long; probably disturbed by some visitors with their dog closer to the its location.

Walking along the river bank, several House Wrens were rummaging through the bushes and calling. I made my way towards their sounds. Here I found 3 immature wrens. Also, there was an adult close by, maybe a parent, that I captured in this image.

In the bushes, and along the river banks, there were plenty of birds singing and calling out across both river banks. However, most of the birds were hidden from view.

On a day off from work, I headed to the “Lair Of The Bear” open space park during the late afternoon. I heard many birds calling from bushes and trees around the park. The birds were difficult to see, being hidden by the fresh leaves of spring. After meandering along the trails for a couple of hours, I stopped close to Bear Creak, that runs through the park. Just as I was about to move on, I noticed these three little American Dippers on the rocks along the creek.

These juvenile birds were just a few weeks old. Moving along the creek, I found a better location to make some more images. American Dippers frequent the rivers and creeks where the live, feed and breed. One of the dippers moved to another rock, leaving these two.

Soon, another one moved on, leaving this little guy on the rock.

Adult birds have a very distinctive behavior; they bob periodically as they work along the creek. These little juveniles must have practicing this behavior, because they were bobbing almost continuously! Still images do not show this behavior, so I captured a few video clips that show these cute little birds. Here is a short 50 sec video that I created.

Enjoy!