Photographer in Colorado

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.

The last weekend was Superbowl Sunday. We had another winter storm move through the metro area, dumping some 15 inches of snow. Another opportunity to make winter images. Returning from work, I pass by the Chinook Restaurant. Outside the snow formed this donut like sculpture.

Chinook Snow Sculpture

The following morning, the snow had covered much of our yucca plant. The sharp spiked leaves were all that poked through the snow.

Yucca Under Snow

This morning I found snow fields covering many of the lawns with a carpet of white, with occasional tree trunks standing out of the snow field.

Tree Trunks In The Snow

The Chinook has these umbrellas out on the patio. During the summer, these umbrellas can be opened for shade. Recently, orange covers were installed. At night, the lights shine through, lighting up the umbrella covers against the blue twilight sky.

Orange Umbrella Covers At Night

At the light rail station, one commuter was sitting on the bench, behind this artwork backdrop. His backpack and bright parka colors made a striking abstract image.

Abstract Backpack

Last week, Angela brought home a single yellow rose. The flower gradually opened over a few days. After breakfast, I was captivated by this rose, so out came the iPhone. This first image was processed with Snapseed to give a soft-focus edge blur.

Soft Yellow Rose

Standing next to the rose were three wooden vases, turned from Aspen wood.

Three Aspen Vases

Continuing with the yellow theme, I setup a bunch of bananas in the kitchen, before they were eaten. Processing with Shock-My-Pic gives the image a painterly look, with brush strokes as though done with oil paints.

Shocked Banana

Later that evening, the rose was lit by an overhead table lamp. Here is another soft-focus edge blur.

Yellow Rose

I made several experimental images of some of the rose images with Simply HDR.

Sepia Rose

This image got the Black and White HDR treatment, with a sepia tone.

Some more pictures from our trip to Bosque Del Apache last weekend… Soon after we arrived, we made a tour of the ponds and lakes around Bosque. These Sandhill Cranes were alerted to some action or possibly raptors, near this pond.

Sandhill Cranes At Bosque Del Apache

The following morning, we made our way out to Bosque from Socorro. The wind was really pumping. After watching the Snow Geese fly out, I captured these grasses being blown about by the wind.

Windblown Grasses At Bosque Del Apache

Later in the day, we made a tour round the ponds, observing several ducks and raptors. Stopping at one of the ponds, I made this image of the trees that were submerged by water.

Submerged Trees At Bosque Del Apache

The ponds are drained during the summer months. In the fall, water is allowed to flow into the ponds to provide a winter habitat for ducks and shore birds.

We made our way to farm road where the Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes were busy feeding. Several flocks of geese were flying in from other areas. I lowered my shutter speed to capture the motion of the wings on incoming Snow Geese.

Incoming Snow Geese At Bosque Del Apache

During the course of the day, the geese made their way down to one of the drainage ditches for a drink of water. While in the ditch, the geese were vulnerable from from predators. Snow geese are very skittish and are easily alarmed. This pair of geese were alarmed by some activity — probably visiting tourists.

Snow Geese On Sentry Duty

During the weekend, other birds that we observed included Shovelers, Pintails, Harriers, Bald Eagles and American Kestrels. We even observed a pair of Javelinas, our first sighting of this animal.

This weekend we made a birding trip to Bosque de Apache National Wildlife Refuge. We managed to arrive here before sunset. After seeing the Snow Geese return to the wetlands, the sun set illuminating the clouds.