Photographer in Colorado — Musings of an image maker

Ice Sculptures In The Platte River — wk 49

by Match on December 2, 2012

This afternoon, I headed out to Foxton, along the Platte River. At this time of the year, the sun setting on Cathedral Spires creates some interesting reflections in the river.

Reflections From Cathedral Spires

Working along the river, I found some interesting rocks at the river bank. Here there were reflections from a rock face at the river bank.

Rocks In The South Platte River

At several locations along the river, the spray from the rushing water formed ice sculptures on the rocks. This was one interesting ice formation with several icicles hanging from the ice.

Ice Sculpture In The Platte River

Close up, these icicles look really interesting, especially when rendered in black and white.

Icicles

On the far bank, was another ice sculpture in a dark shaded area of the river. The low light level required a long exposure of almost 1/2 a second. This allowed the flowing water to render with smooth white trails.

Ice And Flowing Water

Heading back towards the truck, the setting sun cast some interesting colors on these clouds.

Colorful Clouds At Sunset

Tagged as: cathedral spires, foxton, ice, ice sculptures, icicles, platte, reflections, river, rocks, sunset

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Spectacular Sunset Over Denver — wk 48

by Match on November 25, 2012

Yesterday the city was covered with a huge overcast cloud cover. There was a thin sliver of blue sky to the west over the mountains. This would be ideal conditions for a spectacular sunset. Having missed the sunset the previous day, I planned to take this opportunity to capture this sunset. I headed to the park at Harvard Gulch — this is the closest location where there is open space nearby.

Harvard Gulch Sunset No 2

The sunlight streaming in from the left cast long shadows and showed the texture of the ball park in this black and white image.

Harvard Gulch Sunset No 1

As the sun sank below the mountains, the colors changed outlining the clouds with a yellow light.

Harvard Gulch Sunset No 3

As the sun sank lower, the light changed to an orange color.

Harvard Gulch Sunset No 4

And a deeper orange.

Harvard Gulch Sunset No 5

Tagged as: blue sky, clouds, Denver, harvard gulch, overcast, sunset

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Fifty Shades Of Red? — wk 47

by Match on November 17, 2012

Walking to work this week, I noticed these red umbrellas at Tokyo Joe’s.

Red Umbrellas

The next day, I noticed that I pass by the color “red” all the way to work. So I decided, let’s make red a project for this week’s post. At the DU Light Rail station, the back panel of the bench has red.

Bench At DU Station

Red or rather a darker red (maroon) is the theme color of the DU station. Here we see another bench in red.

Red Bench At DU Station

Road crews have been busy in Greenwood Village these last few weeks. So there are still road signs and cone zones along the road.

Flagger And Cone

Off course, there are plenty of markings in the sidewalk. Is this a sign of still more construction in the near future?

Sidewalk Markings

Then there is the familiar bus stop, with a cone zone forming a line into the distance along the road.

Bus Stop

Returning home, I passed by this red ribbon tied around an aspen tree at Tuscany Plaza. While making this image, I showered by falling pieces of bark. A Downy Woodpecker (which has some red in its plumage), was busy pecking for insects above me!

Red Ribbon On Aspen Tree

At Tuscany Plaza, festive decorations had been installed during the day. So some green and even more red!

Red Ribbon 312

After reaching DU, I climbed the stairs in the parking garage. Here the familiar maroon theme in the parking garage.

Staircase With Red

Earlier in the week, Angela brought home a pot of Chrysanthemums. Of course, these had plenty of red to complement the yellow in the flowers!

Chrysanthemums, Red And Yellow

Tagged as: bench, cone, construction, flowers, light rail, markings, maroon, red, ribbon, road sign, sidewalk, theme, umbrella

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Icy Leaves, Variations — wk 46

by Match on November 11, 2012

Yesterday afternoon we had a light snow storm. Last night, our bird bath froze over trapping some colorful leaves below the ice. This inspired me to create some variations from my initial iPhone image. My final variation was made by processing the image several times with Snapseed.

Iced Leaves, Variation No 3

Here is the original image that I used for these variations.

Iced Leaves

Examining this image, the color in the frozen leaves is barely noticeable. Let’s see how we can bring out the colors of the leaves. After conversion to a black and white image. the leaves became very indistinct. However, applying a red filter during the black and white conversion caused the leaves to glow.

Iced Leaves, Variation No 1

Let’s combine the original image with this black and white image. For this, I used Blender to blend the two images using a “color burn” blend mode. This has the effect of increasing the contrast in the image.

Iced Leaves, Variation No 2

After seeing this image, I was inspired to pursue processing of the original image by increasing the color saturation in the leaves. After two rounds of processing of the original image with Snapseed, variation 3 resulted in the first image.

Tagged as: black and white, blender, blending, color burn, fall colors, frost, ice, iPhone, leaves, monochrome, saturation, snapseed

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Night Shoot At Downtown Denver — wk 45

by Match on November 4, 2012

Last night the Illuminate Workshops Meetup Group met again for the monthly night shoot. Shortly before sunset, we met in north west Denver, where we had a view overlooking downtown. The clouds in the sky would also result in a great sunset. I found this lit streetlight to include in a composition that would complement the colors of the sunset.

Streetlight And Sunset

More images from the night shoot may be found here. After the sun had set, we headed down Speer Boulevard, crossing I-25. Between the bridges, I made several attempts to capture the tail lights of cars rushing along the highway.

Interstate Tail Lights

After crossing the bridge, I found a location where I could capture the headlights of passing cars.

Interstate Traffic Light Trails

We made our way towards downtown, heading down towards the South Platte River. I stopped at the top of these stairs, setting up camera on tripod. Soon a passing pedestrian headed down the stairs, leaving behind a ghostly trail.

Ghostly Figure On Stairs

Much of the lighting in this area is yellow-orange sodium lights. The Speer bridge over the Platte River is lit by daylight colored lights. This renders the bridge white instead of the more common yellow.

Speer Bridge Steelwork At Night

We made our way along the Cherry Creek trail. Crossing the bridge, I set up with the camera aligned up river. I made several images here. For this image, I changed the focus ring from in-focus to blurred during the 3 second exposure.

Blurred Lights On Cherry Creek Trail

I like this result because there is a sharp center in the street lighting, that blurs into a star burst surrounding the light.

Tagged as: blur, bridge, cars, cherry creek, Denver, downtown, focus, i-25, interstate, light trails, night, speer blvd, tail lights, traffic

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Rose, Bicycle And Snow Storm — wk 44

by Match on October 28, 2012

Whilst grilling last weekend, I noticed the patio light shining on our rose bush. What made this a striking image was the contrast of the reds and yellows of the rose against the deep blue of the twilight sky.

Rose At Twilight

While waiting for light rail at DU station, I noticed that most of the rental bikes had been returned to the rental rack. This must be near the end of biking season — the bike rack had been depleted for most of the summer at this time of the morning.

Bicycles, Human Powered

That night the snow came in — nice sticky wet snow. The ground at the station was still warm, so the snow melted. However, the snow stuck to everything above ground. I like the way the snow stuck to this bike, defining the tires and the spokes.

Snow Bicycle, DU

Walking down to work, the wet snow stuck to the trees, outlining the branches.

Snow Covered Trees

At the office the few remaining yellow leaves were lined with sticky snow.

Yellow Leaves Under Snow

During the last few days, I noticed the reflections in this fountain at Arapahoe Station. Most mornings, the sun casts harsh shadows across the fountain and the building reflected in the water. In this afternoon shot, the fountain and building were in shadow, making for a more pleasing image.