Photographer in Colorado

After a few weeks of fall colors in the mountains, the fall colors have finally worked their way down to Denver. This morning we had blue skies, with no clouds. Walking to work, I passed this tree that was adorned with yellow leaves.

Fall Color And Blue Sky

Here is an image made under cloudy skies yesterday.

Avenue Of Fall Trees

Passing by Samson Park takes one through a tunnel of fall colors.

Tunnel Through Fall Trees

Looking up, all you can see is a mass of yellow leaves.

Tree Full Of Fall Colors

There are some red and green leaves out there too.

Red And Green Fall Colors

Finally, I passed by this pond, where red fall colors are captured in reflections from the pond.

The Geese Are Back For The Season

The Canada Geese are back in town for the season. They have been slowly returning from their summer breeding grounds.

A couple of weeks ago, we joined Colorado Preservation Inc. for a weekend “On The Road” trip to South Park. The event started on a Friday evening, where we stayed in the Bunk House at M Lazy C Ranch. On Saturday, we headed for breakfast on the ranch. Outside the building was this cool Lasso Horse that is used for practicing lassoing.

Lasso Horse

After breakfast, a short walk led us back to the Bunk House. The sun was just rising above this lone pine tree.

Dawn At M Lazy C Ranch

Soon we boarded the tour bus that took us to Como on the road that followed close to Tarryall creek. There were many interesting historical buildings that we visited in Como. This included the schoolhouse and roundhouse. Along the roadside, we came across this shopper.

Shopped Till I Dropped

We then visited Mountain Man Gallery which also serves as the town’s Post Office. Outside the store is this carving of a wise man.

Wise Man Carving

We also visited this Pink and Blue house that the owner had opened to visitors for the day.

Pink And Blue

Some of the other interesting historical sites in Como include the Roundhouse and Eating House. During the 19th century mining era in Colorado, the Roundhouse were home to locomotives serving the narrow gauge railroad line from Denver to South Park. Como was the junction where a branch line climbed Boreas Pass to serve the town of Brekenridge. The Eating House is part of the hotel that served railroad visitors in years gone by. Currently this is being restored to its previous glory. Our tour also included lunch at the Eating House.

Later we boarded the tour bus for Alma. Here we attended a lecture by Steven Veatch, who gave an excellent presentation on mining in the Alma area. Steven has an interesting blog. Later we visited the Paris Mill (gold mining) and later had dinner in Fairplay before returning to the M Lazy C Ranch for the night.

The following morning before breakfast, I took a stroll around the ranch. I came across this Chevy truck that had accumulated some frost during the night.

Chevy Truck At The Ranch

At the horse paddocks, I met several horses that were busy with their breakfast. Here is one horse munching his meal.

Horse In The Paddock

Finally, before I headed out for breakfast, I captured these four butts!

Four Butts Feeding

After breakfast, we packed up and headed out to Buffalo Peaks Ranch that will be future site of the Rocky Mountain Land Library.

This was a fun weekend.

Recently, I joined another photowalk with the Illuminate Workshops group. August was a night shoot at Cherry Creek. Here are some of my favorite images from the shoot. Lighting from the store signage brings out the texture on the walls.

Blue Sign

The sodium lights in an alley cast these shadows in the parking lot.

Parking Lot Shadows

Black and white treatment for this empty parking lot improves the yellow sodium lighting for this image.

Parking Lot Blocks

I found this alley to be really interesting. What is behind that open door? The following two images need HDR treatment to capture the range of light in the alley.

Cherry Creek Alley

The door was the rear entrance to a restaurant. I like the contrast between the yellow of the interior of the building and the bluish cast from the garage’s fluorescent lighting.

Parking Garage In The Alley

This restaurant had closed for the night. But the chair feet were having a great time!

Chairs, Feet First

Cherry Creek has some novel street lighting. This is another image that benefited from HDR treatment.

Street Lights At Cherry Creek

Lighting from a nearby star cast these interesting shadows of the security grill and gates.

Gated Shadows

On July 4, we headed up to Mount Evans. I had not seen mountain goats before, so this was an opportunity to find the goats. We arrived at Summit Lake about 8am. After walking a few yards from the parking lot, I spotted the first mountain goat on the skyline.

Mountain Goat On Skyline

Further along trail, overlooking Chicago Lake, I noticed some more mountain goats. This included a family, with mother and two kids. So I decided to stay put and sit down to see what developed. After a few minutes, the goats became used to my presence. Mother goat climbed up towards me. Here, she is against the deep blue background of Chicago Lake.

Mother Mountain Goat

Mother goat continued to climb upwards until she stopped about 20 feet away, staring at me.

Mountain Goat Stare

Here is mother with two kids. Those two goats in the background appeared to be immature goats. Perhaps they are family from last season, since they continued to hang around mother.

Mountain Goat Family

Soon a pair of hikers arrived with a pair of dogs. The dogs starting chasing the goats, who then scattered. Several mountain goats had lined up along a ridge. Turning around, the goats were backlit by the sun. This group of goats (including four kids), were viewing the action below them.

Mountain Goat Skyline

We headed back home about 10:30, just as the crowds starting arriving.

Last month, I made a trip to the eastern plains of Colorado. I headed out through Kiowa and Calhan. Then I turned into a dirt road to see where this would lead. After several miles, the road came to an end, close to an abandoned house on the prairie. This looked interesting. Earlier in the day, the sky was overcast. After clearing, the blue skies were out again with some interesting clouds in the distance.

Prairie At End Of 48 Road

I decided to explore the area around this abandoned ranch house.

Abandoned House On The Prairie

The house had interesting windows on the second floor level. This house did not actually have a second floor. The windows were probably used to vent the upper areas of the house to cool the house during the hot summers.

Empty Window And Chimney

Over the years, the roof  tiles had fallen off. All that remained were the nails protruding from the sub-roof.

Roof, Nails And Chimney

The interior of the house had deteriorated over the years. This exposed the construction materials that were used in earlier times. Walls and ceilings were clad using lath and plaster methods. This was the common method used prior to dry wall or sheet rock.

Inside The Abandoned Prairie House

After a couple of hours, it was time to head back home. Driving back, I stopped at this windmill.

Windmill And Water

This scene reminded me of similar scenes that exist in the Orange Free State in South Africa.

During May, I tried some new and old iPhone apps. While at a meeting, we were discussing making photographs. During this time, I made one image of my jeans, that showed the texture and folds at the knee. I was intrigued by form and texture. This was given the ShockMyPic treatment.

Shocked Jeans

A new app that I have been trying out is Camera Art FX. The cartoon book preset helped me to create this colorful image.

Cartoon Book Door

Another Camera Art FX is the sketch preset. Here is my rendition of our garage siding with bench.

Sketch Garage Siding

Angela and I attended an organic gardening presentation. Here is another image that I made through an opening in the back of chair. The presenter is at the left.

Looking Through The Chair

Picture Effect Magic is another app. The diffuse effect created an an interesting rendition of the roof and gutter against a clear blue sky.

Diffused Roof And Gutter

There is an interesting app called Slit Scan, that scans an image from the iPhone camera. While moving the phone, the scan line continues to travel down. Our dining chair was the subject of this image. The waves were result of moving the phone laterally. When done, I liked the Shocked rendition.

Slit Scanned Chair

While waiting to collect plants from the organic gardening presentation, I made an image of one of the tomato plants. With shock treatment, this produced this great image.

Shocked Tomato Plant

Reading Outdoor Photographer magazine, Tony Sweet wrote an article about iPhone photography. Pic Grunger was one app that he recommended. This was one image that I made of the lampshades in our local Panda Express takeout. Here is the Bleech Spill effect.

Three Aged Lamp Shades

Enjoy.

Last night I hooked up again with the Illuminate Workshops Meetup Group downtown. We met in Capitol Hill, close to the Governor’s Mansion, just before the sunset. I was parked a half-mile from the meeting venue. Meandering down, I walked down the alley behind Le Central (a restaurant serving French cuisine). The alley was adorned with this fabulous mural.

Le Central Alley Mural

Nearby was this dumpster with some interesting graffitti.

Dumpster Duck

Rounding the corner, I had arrived at the meeting venue, where several photographers were awaiting the arrival of the group leader (Efrain). After a briefing, we headed towards Lincoln St. At the bus shelter was this one individual bopping away to his music, oblivious to the photogs behind him.

Waiting For The Bus

As the sun set behind the city buildings, sodium street lamps became alive. These two parking meters, looking like a pair of Curvy Ladies, basked in the orange street lights.

Two Curvy Ladies

Heading north, I passed in front of Le Central restaurant. The neon light provided some illumination to the scene. It was just too much to handle, so I decided on a series of images for HDR processing. After processing, I felt this image was more effective with a monochrome conversion as well. The light from the neon, and the distant street lights, brought out the texture of the sacks.

Le Central

The patio out front has a patterned fence, adorned in red, white and blue – also the colors of the French flag.

Patterned Fence

The north wall of the restaurant has two glass faced cases containing wine bottles.

Who Drank My Wine

Continuing north along Lincoln, I passed by a couple of night clubs. Across the street is the Beauvallon apartment complex. The lights from the night club across the street cast a purple light on the unlit walls of the building.

Purple And White

Rounding the corner on Tenth Ave, I passed this wall containing glass tiles. Lighting from the inside of this building made interesting patterns in the glass.

Wall Of Glass Tiles

It was about time to head back to the meeting location at the end of the Meetup. In contrast to the bright lights along Lincoln, this street was dark, with a occasional brightly lit doorways.  This door cast shadow rings on the ground.

Shadow Rings

Parking in the this area of Denver can difficult to find. However, I did find one brightly lit parking garage that was totally empty. The dynamic range of light was just to much, so I made several images to create an HDR rendition.

Empty Parking Garage

Nearby was another parking lot that was empty. Now which way was I going? To the left or to the right?

Arrow Left Or Arrow Right

Finally, I arrived at Governor’s Tavern, meeting some stragglers from the Meetup group. We enjoyed a beer before heading home after a fun evening.