Photographer in Colorado

This week we have had heavy rains along the Front Range. Wednesday, started with rain on the way to work. The slick sidewalk outside the entrance the Village Station building was reflected off the glass walls. Inside the building, yellow strip lights lit the entrance. The yellow stripes made an interesting contrast to the reflections outside.

Yellow Strip Lights And Reflections

I pass by the Tuscany Plaza building every day to work where this doorway is lit by a green lamp. However, on most days it is too bright outside to see the color. With the overcast weather, the lamp shone brightly, complementing the greens from the grass.

Green Doorway Light

Workmen we busy in one of the nearby parking lots. They had neatly arranged this row of bright orange cones to keep the cars out.

Row Of Cones

After work, I made my way to the Denver Java User’s Group meeting in Lodo. It had been raining most of the evening. After the meeting, Larimer Street was covered with a slick layer of water. At night, the street is lit by overhead lighting along this city street block.

Lights On Larimer Street

Passing by this red car, the street lights were reflected from the roof. All the rain drops on the car’s roof also reflected the street lights.

Larimer Street Car Roof Reflections

Near the Convention Center, people had abandoned the rain outside. The red restaurant chairs were abandoned with their black tables outside.

Red Restaurant Chairs

The roof of the Convention Center has angular corners that complements the glass walls below. The interior lighting cast shadows of the windows on the ceiling. I angled my camera to capture the roof line against the night sky in this black and white image.

Convention Center Roof At Night

All images were made with a Fujifilm X-E1 that has become my walkabout camera of choice.

This week my camera conversion to infra-red was completed and delivered. Sunny days are always great for doing infra-red photography. Leaves on the trees render as white and the sky and water renders as deep dark tones. I made several images during my daily walk to work.

Ciber Building And Trees

Walking down the avenue of trees that line the sidewalk, I stopped to capture the dark sky that was formed by an opening in the trees. If you look carefully, you might see the tiny crescent of the moon near the left of the image.

Trees With Tiny Moon

This pond outside Tuscany Plaza is ideal for capture reflections of the trees and the sky. Water absorbs most of the infra-red sunlight and usually renders as a dark tone. Only the light reflected from the trees preserve their light tones.

Tree Reflections In Pond

Here is another image of the pond outside the plaza building.

Pond And Tree Tuscany Plaza

Finally, I arrived at our office building. I made an image at this southern end of the building in the past, where the walls come to a sharp point. The wide-angle lens exaggerates the perspective at this point.

Our Office Building

I am very pleased with the results of this conversion that was done by LifePixel (http://www.lifepixel.com/).

Saturday night was the monthly night shoot with Illuminate Workshops meetup group. Soon after leaving the house, we got a massive rain storm that deposited 2 inches of water. Having parked at Highlands, I waited for some 40 minutes before the rain slowed enough to head across the highway to the meeting location. After meeting other photographers over a coffee and chat, we headed out to start making images. The rain had stopped by this time.

The final location for the shoot was the skateboard park, just before the lights went out at 11pm. One skateboarder made repeated jumps to mount the rail. Eventually he completed the jumps. During his repeated attempts, I made several images that were later composited into one image. This was my first such attempt in Photoshop.

Skateboarder Composite

The night shoot began at Highlands Bridge. I started the evening by shooting with the Fuji X-E1, capturing this image of “National Velvet”. This was the first time that I used the X-E1 for a night shoot and was extremely pleased with the results.

National Velvet

The night sky was a deep blue, that created a great backdrop for the white bridge steelwork.

Highlands Bridge Steelwork Against Night Sky

We made our way to the Little Man Ice Cream, where lines of people were waiting in line.

Little Man Ice Cream

Here is one couple placing their order.

Ordering Ice Cream

Outside on the sidewalk, several bicycles had been parked during the rain storm. After the rain stopped, water drops were left behind, hanging from the handlebars.

Water Drops On Handlebars

Making our way to the skateboard park, we passed a condemned building. Here we spent an hour making images of the beautiful brickwork in the alley. Huge puddles of water made for some great reflections.

Building And Reflection, No 2

Finally, we got to the skateboard park. There were a lot of shapes and curves in the park. Walking around, I found one very interesting set of curves. When converted from color to monochrome, this created stunning graphic images of drab concrete.

Skateboard Park Curves

After this I made several images that resulted in the composite image at the start of this post.

This week Brad Paisley came to town for a concert at Fiddler’s Green. As usual his tour always has a half-dozen semis or more. As I walked down to work (in the white building at the back), a few semis were parked outside. This year his tour has some really cool, colorful murals.

Beat This Summer Tour

During the course of the day, these semis grew in number. One of my co-workers exclaimed that she had not seen so many semis for a concert! After work, I made a point of making images of these semis as I walked back to the light rail station. All images were made with a Fuji X-E1.

Brad Paisley Summer Tour

Another image of the rear of the seven trailers…

Seven Colorful Trailers

The semi tractors were equally stunning. Black with shiny chrome.

Seven Semi Tractors

All seven had the same rear-view mirrors so I positioned myself to make an image that draws attention to the mirrors. In the following image, I like the fleeting image of the lady walking behind.

Rear View Mirrors

Passing by Tuscany Plaza, that is across the road from Fiddler’s Green, this lady was deep in conversation.

Deep In Conversation

I decided to make another image looking down the patio of the building, just showing a hint of the action behind the pillars.

Behind The Pillars

Nearer the station, the sprinklers had been running earlier leaving puddles of water on the sidewalk. The station office block was reflected from these puddles.

Sidewalk Reflections

This was a very popular concert, as evidenced by the lines of people outside the venue and the streams of people making their way to Fiddler’s Green from the light rail station.

Monday morning started as an overcast day with low clouds and mist. Leaving the Light Rail station, I noticed the Ciber building with its head in the low clouds. Monday proved to be a fabulous day with many changes of weather throughout the day. On this day I had brought two cameras — a D-100 for infra-red images and a Fuji X-E1 for the remaining images.

Ciber Immersed In Low Cloud

Walking further along, I positioned myself to capture this image with the building poking out into the sky, just above the trees.

Low Cloud Above The Trees

The light that morning was really great so I stopped off at Samson Park. The light really created a great color contrast of the yellow flowers against the blue fence in the background.

Samson Park, Yellow And Blue

Over the years, I have made several images of the “Queen of Hearts”. This time I chose a different point of view from the side of the sculpture to show the brass hairpiece.

Queen Of Hearts, A Different View

The park is full of characters from “Alice”. Let’s join the Mad Hatter for his tea party.

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, In The Mist

After work, I walked back to the station in the rain. By the time I reached the avenue of trees, the sun peeked out below the clouds to light up the trees. I made an infra-red image to capture the trees. In the background was a rainbow. This the first image that I have captured with a rainbow and infra-red.

Sun Breaking Out, With Rainbow

Continuing on, I liked the low angle of the sun that cast a light shadow behind the parking garage.

Behind The Parking Garage

At the Light Rail station, the low sun had cast long shadows from the fence on the wet pavement.

Light Rail Shadows And Fountain

Every year, about July 4th, the Arts Festival takes place at Cherry Creek. Today, I visited the festival to appreciate the art on display. While meandering through the streets, I passed this building that looks abandoned. The main entrance was boarded up. This image was processed with the Dramatic BW app to give it a more gritty look of abandoned.

Abandoned Building In Cherry Creek

Returning home, I had to cross 1st Avenue. While waiting for the busy traffic to pass, I noticed this bike, strewn with flowing in the flower bed.

Ornamental Bicycle Among Flowers

Nearby were several bikes, decorated in bright contrasty colors.

Bicycles, Racked Up

On the return trip, crossing Cherry Creek, the clouds had moved in. This was great because the overcast skies removed the harsh shadows along the creek. This image was processed with Tangled FX, to complement the swirling water flowing away downstream.

Cherry Creek, Swirling By

Monday night, I attended an HTML5 Meetup group in Lodo. As usual, I take the Light Rail to get there. Being late afternoon, I made several images on the way there. While waiting for a change of train… I made this image that shows reflections from an adjacent building.

Building Reflections, Downtown Denver

And another one…

Building Reflections, Downtown Denver, No 2

After reaching the final destination, I made my way on foot to Casselmans. Along the way there is one house that has grasses planted along the sidewalk.

Grasses On The Sidewalk, Lodo

Passing an alley, I found this dumpster… and chairs. Those look like really nice chairs that were abandoned in the alley.

Dumpster And Chairs In The Alley

All these images were made with the Fuji XE-1 and 18-55mm lens. I really enjoy shooting with this camera. These images have minimal processing in Lightroom before publishing here.

And here is my iMac…

This Is My iMac

Lodo has some really amazing murals in several alleys. The artists have chosen some really vibrant and saturated colors for many of these murals. The XE-1 has really done a great rendition of these colors.

Lodo Alley Mural

After the Meetup, when the sun had already set, I passed this mural in another alley. I included the lighted window in the image to provide some interest in the image below.

Lighted Window And Mural, Lodo

Eventually I arrived at the Light Rail station. A few minutes before the train arrived, I made this image the included the yellow pavement tiles and yellow sodium street lights. This was contrasted against the deep blue of the night sky.

29th Street Station At Night

That ended the fun for the evening!