Photographer in Colorado

Last week, waiting for the train, I looked down at my shoes. The morning sun cast some shadows of my shoes across the concrete. So I pointed my iPhone down towards my shoes, and turned around until I found interesting shadows. Later I processed the file with Dynamic Light. The default settings opened up the shadow areas nicely.

My Two Shoes

Returning from work, I pass the exit from the underground parking garage. I was drawn to the curves drawing the eye into the top right of the image. The image was converted to black and white with Snapseed.

Garage Sweeping Curved Wall

Exiting from light rail at University of Denver, the setting sun shone through the back of the station benches. This image looked great with the bright colors of the seat backs. After opening the image with Simply HDR, I picked a black and white rendition. This brought out the texture of the concrete with low setting sun.

Light Rail Bench In Sepia

At the end of the week, I left work along a different route. Along the sidewalk were these footprints embedded in the concrete. Concrete boots?

Concrete Footprints

Are the footprints embedded into the concrete? Or are they raised above the concrete? An optical illusion. This image was processed with Snapseed. This is one of the few that I have included a frame.

Waterton Canyon has been closed for the last 15 months for pumping of sludge that had accumulated in Strontia Springs dam. This operation was completed recently and the canyon was re-opened a couple of weeks ago. This afternoon, we decided to head down to the canyon. Soon after entering the canyon, we encountered about a dozen mule deer. I noticed this herd of 9 deer lying at the side of the trail. The white tips of their ears were very distinctive, making them easy to spot.

Herd Of Mule Deer

As we got closer, several deer proceeded to get up — they must have become wary of me and the camera!

Mule Deer, Waterton Canyon

A cold front started moving through the Front Range earlier in the day. The high wind speeds kicked up plenty of dust into the air. As we continued into the canyon, the wind started pumping really hard, so we turned back. By the time we got back, the deer had moved on.

We did manage to see some bird life in the canyon. Several Mergansers were swimming in the Platte River. A few dozen Tree Swallows had also returned to the metro area for the breeding season. We also spotted an Eagle, a Kestrel and a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks.

This week we had a variety of weather conditions. The week started with a clear day. Passing by this pond at Tuscany Plaza, I was captivated by the watery reflections on the sunset shining on the buildings.

Tuscany Plaza Sunset

Crossing over to Samson Park, the setting sun shone through the dome. The glow of the setting sun was enhanced in this image.

Sunlit Dome

The following morning was overcast. The overcast sky was a perfect backdrop to apply a textured background.

Overcast Streelight

Later that day, the clouds cleared. The Mangia Streetlight was lit for the evening. This was a striking contrast against the deep blue sky after sunset.

Mangia Streetlight

On Friday, I took an alternate route to light rail. Passing the Triad building, there were some interesting reflections from buildings on the far side of the interstate.

Triad Builiding Reflections

With the iPhone, I would need to get much closer to fill the image with reflections. However, as I approached the building, but the reflections changed and lost their interest due to a change in perspective.

Friday took me on a different route commuting home. Heading the opposite direction, I headed to an outdoor arts exhibit near to work. This pond reflected the clouds at sunset.

Greenwood Village Sunset Reflection

This location is great for reflections from the office windows. The setting sun highlighted the branches of a nearby tree.

Sunset Reflection In Glass

In the nearby plaza are several sculptures.  This lady is gazing into a looking glass.

Ring Portrait Sculpture

Nearby are several grasses that have been pruned in preparation for spring.

Pruned Grasses

Finally, a reflection of planters and the cloudy sky.

Greenwood Village Sunset

This week’s post is a little late. Last week, I made several images around the Arapahoe Station plaza while waiting for the train. The fountains in the plaza are lit by lights below water. The lights cycle through several colors. I made this iPhone image when the fountains were lit by blue lights.

Fountains In Blue

This image was processed with the ShockMyPic application; this gives Van Gogh style brush strokes to the image. I really like the texture of the water ripples that can be created with this app. I have made several images with this app over the years that have been posted here.

Around the fountains are several silver benches interspersed with lights. This image was processed with the Simply HDR. This app brings out the detail and contrast of a night image quite nicely.

Silver Bench

On the way to the station from work, I stopped off at Samson Park to check out the sculptures. These “plants” were growing out of the snow. I made the image with plants against the dusk skylight. This took a different effect with ShockMyPic.

Sunset In Samson Park

Going low and close, revealed the texture of the plants that were lit by the setting sun.

Growing Out Of The Snow

This park also has several sculptures with an “Alice In Wonderland” theme. Earlier in the week, I stopped by the park on the way to work. One of my favorites is the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

Mad Hatter's Tea Party

I just love the expression on the rabbit.

With all the snow storms, we have had lots of icicles forming as the snow melts and re-freezes around the house and gutters. Most of ice that formed after the recent snow storms has melted, so I headed out to Foxton on the South Platte River. I like to go to Waterton for ice photography, but the canyon is currently closed. After arriving at Foxton, I found plenty of ice and snow in the river bed. The pink granite rocks poked out above the snow, forming little pink mountain peaks.

Pink Mountains In The Snow

The ice is pretty thick, covering much of the river with ice bridges. Occasionally the ice collapsed, breaking the monotony of the flat white snowy surface with angular slabs.

Ice In The Platte River, Foxton

The smooth snow surfaces looked like white desert landscapes. During the late afternoon, the low sun revealed the texture of ridges on the surface of the snow. Several critters had trampled through the snow, leaving their tracks behind.

Tracks In The Snow, Foxton

In places, the ice surrounding rocks and boulders had either collapsed or had melted away. This can form an ice skirt around the boulders, as can be seen in the image below.

Rock And Ice, Foxton

Most of the area around the river is white and brown. However, I did find this one bunch of red berries hidden among some red willow branches.

Red Berries By The Platte River

I made another image that was converted to black and white. The snow rendered as white and the boulders as a dark gray. This image was photographed in the shade. During the winter months, shaded snow is often an intense blue as a result of being lit by the blue sky and not direct sunlight. I applied a cyanotype tone to the image. This is a traditional darkroom toning technique that applies a cyan (or pale blue) tone to shadow areas. The shadow textures in the snow and the darker boulders were rendered with a blue tone contrasting with the white highlights of the snow.

Snow On Rocks, Foxton

Soon the sun disappeared behind the clouds, as the next round of snow came in for the day. Time to return home.

On Friday night, I missed the train by 30 seconds. Whilst waiting for the next train to arrive, I meandered around the station with iPhone at hand. As the next train was pulling into the station, I made several images. This was the best image of the sequence that balances framing of the train.

Pulling In To The Station

Since this image was made at night, there was a lot of noise in the shadows. I really like the gritty rendition of this image that was caused by the noise after processing.

Earlier while wandering around the station, a lady was busy reading a book behind this sheltered bench. The station lights cast her shadow against the colorful background.

Lady Commuter Shadow

The sheltered benches have different designs at the various light rail stations. This design has plenty of lines that is accentuated by the bench in this black and white rendition.

Light Rail Bench At Night

All these images were processed with SimplyHDR and Snapseed while riding back home.