Photographer in Colorado

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.

For Mother’s Day, our daughters presented Angela with a bouquet of flowers — Lilies. Last night, after a day of rain, it was time to immortalize the lilies in the studio. Here is a macro shot of the stamens of one of the flowers.

Lily Stamens

When making photographs of flowers, I like to make images that show the edges of petals.

Lily Petals

Here is another detail image of the stamens.

Lily Stamens No 2

Finally, here is some more detail at the base of the petals. The petals have these “barbs” that make for an interesting macro landscape.

Lily Detail

For these images, the vase with lilies was surrounded by white reflectors. These flowers were lit by flash shooting through an umbrella.

Last night I attended the monthly Illuminate Workshops night photo shoot. This month, it was held at Cherry Creek. Soon after we arrived at the meeting location, it started to rain. This was great because the streets and sidewalks become slick with reflections. I made this image just before meeting the rest of the group.

Sidewalk Reflections, Cherry Creek

Soon after starting the photo walk, we met in a parking garage for group shots and then we headed out. I met these three red ladies, part of the window dressing in one of the stores.

Three Red Ladies

Heading down one of the side streets, I noticed the limp, wet, red flags hanging from the flag staffs. These flags were located in a dark area, and required several seconds of exposure.

Red Flags At Night, Cherry Creek

Heading further down to 2nd Street, this bench was covered with puddles of water. I waited for a passing car to provide some additional lighting for this scene.

Wet Bench, Cherry Creek

Nearby is a large pergola covering the street. The underside is lit by several green and mauve floodlights.

Mauve And Green

I seem to remember a hat store where I made some images at another night shoot last year. However, I made a poorly focused image then. I took extra this time. Also, I noticed several reflections in the window that could be distracting on the second attempt, so I moved off to one side when making this image.

White Hat, Cherry Creek

An adjacent store had some menswear that added some color to the window. Looks like these may be neck ties?

Window Dressing, Cherry Creek

I continued down the street, where I had seen some patios chairs at the entrance to a 2nd floor store. Climbing up the stairs, I made this black and white image.

Covered Patio Seats

These three lamps provided the lighting for the chairs.

Three Lamps, Cherry Creek

Head over to the Meetup group website for some more images.

With all the flowering plants around, it was time to use the Lensbaby again. The irises in our garden have started to open this last week. A couple of plants got blown over by the strong winds, so I snipped them and put them in a vase this morning. With the Lensbaby attached, I made one image of the stem below the flower.

Lily

The Lensbaby is really great for making images of flowers. The lens has a sweet spot that is in focus; all other parts of the image are thrown out of focus. For the iris, I decided to use a really colorful vase — we did not have much choice for a single tall thin flower! Here is an image of part of the vase.

Colorful Vase

Then I moved onto the roses bushes. Early this morning this rose started opening — by this afternoon, it had opened.

Opening Rose Bud

Here are three rose buds, just about to start opening.

Three Rose Buds

Finally, I returned to another rose, to get some detail of the edges of the petals.

Rose Bud Petals

Now that the trees and plants have developed green foliage in the Spring, we have the opportunity of doing some great infrared photography again. Green foliage radiates lots of infrared wavelengths. Of course, this is not visible to the human eye, but can be recorded by camera. These images were made during two days this week.

Aspen In Infra Red

So what color is infrared? We cannot see the color. I prefer to convert to a black and white monochrome image. Objects that radiate lots of infrared (leaves and clouds) render as light tones. The leaves of the aspen trees above and below show as white and light grays.

Aspen At Tuscany Plaza

Objects that don’t radiate infrared (blue skies and water) render as dark tones. The reflections from the blue sky show as dark gray, almost black in the image below.

Infra Red Window Reflections

Returning home on light rail, I made the following image from the parking garage. The clouds, blue sky and the setting sun creates really spectacular images when capture with infrared.

Approaching Clouds

At the end of the work week, I stopped by Tuscany Plaza to capture the trees with their fresh green leaves.  I excluded the sky above the background office block in this image.

Office Block And Trees

Earlier in the morning, I had eyed the bushes along the sidewalk and decided that an afternoon shot, with the possibility of clouds in the sky, would make a great image. These bushes have drab green leaves for much of the spring and summer. However, with infrared, they have a totally different appearance.

Bushes Along Sidewalk

During the walk back to the light rail station, I had been following some light clouds in the sky. When I reached the station plaza, I waited until the clouds reached an optimum position above the fountains to capture the following image.

Infra Red Fountain

I have made several images of these fountains over the last couple of years, but none have captured the reflections in this water like this one.