Photographer in Colorado

This weekend we had a welcome relief from a few weeks of toasty weather — three days with lot’s of rain! This weekend was also the annual Cherry Creek Arts Festival. This is one event that we always try to attend. Friday, waiting for the rain to clear, I was parked next to this bright blue car. The rain streaking down the window added some interesting blurs.

Blue Car In The Rain

The rain in the windshield ahead of me had much more water streaming down. This created more distortions.

Raining In The Parking Lot

We returned to the Arts Festival today to see the rest of the art work. Here is a really amusing sculpture that we found titled “What are we waiting for?” – obviously the question asked by the little guy at the back of the line. This is a good angle to view the line of figures – but not the best angle to view the gesture of the second figure from the right – “I don’t know”.

What Are We Waiting For

After viewing all the great art, we meandered back through Cherry Creek. Passing a hat stand, I noticed these three colorful hats.

Three Hats In Cherry Creek

I could not miss this bright yellow hat.

Yellow Hat, Made In China

I stopped to chat to a cheerful lady nearby — we discussed the festival and how the overcast weather made the experience more pleasant. This colorful umbrella echoed her sentiments!

Colorful Umbrella

Driving back home, we were greeted by another rain shower – a great end for a rainy weekend.

Last week was time to make some more infra red images. Walking to work, I pass these two lights — street light and traffic light — every day.

Street Light And Traffic Light

Further down, the sidewalk passes under an avenue of trees. Looking upwards, the leaves of the trees always look good against a deep blue sky.

Trees And Leaves In Infra Red

Later in the week, we got plenty of clouds. This was good news this summer. We have had several really toasty summer days in the 90’s and 100’s. The firefighters in Colorado Springs and Fort Collins were working in extreme heat conditions. The clouds helped to bring cooler weather into the Front Range. The Ciber building appears to be in the clouds.

Ciber Building In The Clouds

Finally, an image of the dome in Samson Park.

Dome In Samson Park

For more information on Infra Red Photography, refer to my post here.

On Saturday, I made trip to Pawnee Buttes to join the Front Range Photography meetup group. The buttes are located in the Pawnee National Grasslands. The grasslands are also home to a wind farm. I made a stop here to capture some images of the wind turbines. About two weeks ago, the High Park Fire forest fire started west of Fort Collins and continues to burn. The sky to the east of Fort Collins was full of smoke. I made this image of the wind turbines with the sun shining through the smoky sky.

Wind Farm And Smoke

I arrived a little late at the trail head for the Pawnee Buttes. I missed the rest of the group and proceeded to hike towards the buttes — maybe I might catch up with the group.

Pawnee Butte And Grasslands

Continuing on, I met two photographers who were part of the meetup group. It turned out that the remainder of the group decided to drive to a different area of the grasslands; these two had decided to hike to the buttes.

Pawnee Butte

At the base of the butte, I found some interesting plants that had established roots in the cracks of the soft rock.

Plants Below The Butte

I continued on the trail to the eastern butte. The smoke trail had moved northwards, revealing the blue sky and some high altitude clouds.

Trail To East Pawnee Butte

I like the composition of the three lines – cloud, smoke and trail – balanced by the butte on the left. At this point it was time to turn back to the trail head so that I could arrive before total darkness. As the sun set, it passed behind the smoke and the clouds. I positioned myself to capture a silhouette of the western butte and turbines against the orange sky.

Sunset Over The Wind Farm

Looking up, I noticed the sun lighting up the high level clouds against the blue sky – an image not to be missed!

Sunset And Cloud

That was a great way to end a great day.

Last Saturday, I made trip to the Eastern Plains. This year I navigated the county roads between Kiowa and Calhan, basically making a zig-zag route between the two towns. In the distance, about a mile away, I noticed what appeared to be an abandoned ranch house.

Abandoned Ranch House On 85 Road

Many of these houses are constructed from brick with lathe and plaster for the interior walls. Lathe and plaster was the construction technique that was precursor to sheet rock or dry wall that we use today. Walking around the house, I noticed that much of the ceiling had collapsed over the years. Birds were also nesting in the attic.

Inside The Abandoned House

Then there was this really cool artifact — an abandoned piano. Here is a close-up of the remains of the keyboard. I wonder how much music came from that piano.

Abandoned Piano

Compared with the Front Range, the prairie is flat. Outside, across the road, is this amazing view of the prairie. There is just a hint of Pike’s Peak on the horizon. Recently it had rained in this area — the road had few tracks since the rain and the pool across the road had accumulated some water.

Pool On The Prairie

I made my way to the pool, where a hazy sun reflected in the pool. Composing carefully, I position the sun directly behind the tree and cut our the distant horizon.

Reflection In The Pool

It was time to move on. Nearby was a pond close to the road. As I approached, a pair of ducks took flight and headed away at speed. By this time, the clouds had partially cleared to reveal more blue sky. I like this image that shows a typical western scene — the pond in the prairie under a big sky. At this location, apart from ducks, there were Red-Winged Blackbirds and Meadow Larks. Both birds have a distinctive call that is heard on the prairie during the summer.

Pond And Big Sky On The Prairie

Finally, I reached Calhan, and headed east a couple of miles. Here a ridge overlooks the town and the low-lying prairie. I waited at the spot until the sun set. Here I captured a panorama of 5 images made with an iPhone that was stitched together with the Autostitch application on the phone.

Sunset Near Calhan

This was a great sunset to end a fabulous day.

Saturday night was time for the Illuminate Workshops night shoot. The location for the Meetup group night shoot was at Garden Of The Gods. I made the point of arriving well before sunset to make some images during daylight — it has been some 10 years since last visiting this location! Back then, I never made any photographs at this location.

Garden Of The Gods, No 1

This was one of the first images that I made as an HDR from 5 frames. I made several stops along the paths that surround these sandstone monoliths making several HDR images so as to retain detail in the shadows.

Garden Of The Gods, No 2

During the summer months, these monoliths are home to hundreds of Swifts. These birds spend much of the time flying and only rest when they nest in holes and hollows in the cliff faces. While strolling the paths, one can hear their calls high above.

Garden Of The Gods, No 3

As the sun set, I made my way to the parking lot to meet the other photographers in the Meetup group. I stopped along the roadside to capture this image as the sun caught Pikes Peak, in the distance, and the tips of the nearby monoliths.

Garden Of The Gods Sunset

After meeting the rest of the group, we set off to a location for a group shot. After the group shot, I made several images at night.

Night Sky At Garden Of The Gods

This was probably the best image that I made after sunset. I was happy to capture some the stars, with short star trails. When shooting at night, it helps to bring a powerful flashlight to assist with focusing. I only had a small headlamp that was not really powerful enough for lighting a more distant focus point. As a result, I missed many images (and mis-focused many images). This is not really an issue with street scenes that have many point sources of lights. Just as well that I arrived well before sunset to make some decent images!

This weekend saw the Chalk Art Festival in Larimer Street. I joined the Front Range Photography Meetup group. for this event. Arriving early, I took the opportunity of wandering around to appreciate the art work. There was a light overcast in the morning, so there was a pleasant spring morning. One artist had his work under a tent — here is “Betty” by Rolf Armstrong.

"Betty" by Wolf Armstrong

The detail in this image is just amazing. There were many works of art being worked on. The size of each work usually requires a team of artists to complete the artwork. This drawing looked like a fun piece of art.

Too Much Fun!

There was a wide variety of different drawings being worked. Some were bright and colorful, other pieces were more subdued. I chose to include the artist in most of the photographs that I made at the festival.

Artist At Work

Here we see a lady working on a drawing of a baby in an interesting pose. Many of the works were made with pastels and chalks as the media for the drawings.

Drawing The Baby

Here we have two art works that are mainly white and pale shades of gray. The drawing in the foreground looks almost complete. The two artists have much more work to complete the adjacent drawing.

Big Smile

During the course of the morning, the light overcast disappeared and the temperature rose into the 80’s. Here is one artist taking a break from the sun!

Taking A Break From The Sun

I was particularly struck with the level of detail and tonal values in the following image. The light and shade in the following image is just incredible.

What Incredible Detail

One of the first images that I saw in the morning was the following image of a fox, rendered in blues and whites.

Blue And White Fox

By this time, the weather became more toasty. So this was one of the final images that I made before heading back home on light rail.

While waiting for the train at the light rail station, I noticed a plant growing out of a grate. Approaching closer, I noticed that a dandelion had made its way through one of the holes in the grate.

Dandelion And Grate

On Wednesday we had a welcome storm that brought plenty of rain. After leaving work under cover of an umbrella, I captured this image of the slick pavement and sidewalk with my iPhone. After processing in Simply HDR, I got a gritty image with detail in the stormy clouds.

Walking In The Rain

At the Arapaphoe light rail station, there were bright colorful flowers and slick sidewalks swimming in rain! This provided an image that I could  process with one of the Iris filters.

Flowers In The Rain

By the time Friday came around, the skies had cleared and the water had dried up. While waiting for the train, I looked up at the concrete work on the overpass bridge. The diagonals make for an interesting image.

Concrete Bridge Detail

Returning home, I noticed a fungus had grown over the site of our tree that once provided shade to the house. Over the last week or so, the fungus had grown to some 18 inches in diameter.

Backyard Fungus

The surface of the fungus has a really interesting pattern. I just had to capture an image of this humongous plant! Don’t know how long that fungus will be around in all its glory.