Photographer in Colorado

Fall is here! Last weekend, I made a trip into the mountains to see the fall colors. On Saturday, I arrived at Cottonwood Pass shortly before sunset. The aspen trees were still green at at base of the pass. About half way up the pass, they took on their yellow fall colors.

Aspen On Cottonwood Pass

On Sunday morning, I was up before sunrise, packed up the tent and headed to Twin Lakes and Mount Elbert. Looking down towards the lakes, were these aspen peeping out from the pine trees.

Colorado Gold On Mount Elbert

Looking up, I was rewarded with the gold against the clear blue sky.

Aspen And Blue Sky, Mount Elbert

This summer was extremely dry. This weekend was no exception with no clouds in the sky until Sunday sunset — there were about six wanabe clouds down south towards Gunnison! It was so dry that that driving on dirt roads kicked up tons of dust. This evening it rained down here in the city; I hope the mountains got some too.

With all the aspen, we must not forget about the little guys. The forest floor is covered with low growing plants. These plants typically turn orange and red to complement the aspen gold.

Don't Forget The Little Guys

The road up Mount Elbert meanders though the forest, forming an avenue of aspen.

Avenue Of Aspen On Mount Elbert

Finally, here are glowing aspen leaves, up close and personal.

Colorado Gold, Up Close

We are fast approaching Fall, so the opportunities for infrared will become reduced. This week I made some more infrared images over the course of two days. On the way to work, I pass this parking garage. The trees taken on their typical characteristic appearance with infrared. A worker from garden services was also busy mowing the grass.

Entrance To Parking Garage

This was a typical Colorado sky with no clouds. You may even notice a white streak in the sky to the right of the second light. This is an aircraft that had recently taken off from one of the airports around Denver.

The walk down the sidewalk takes me under an avenue of trees. Looking up through the trees, I noticed this branch with leaves lit by the sunlight against the dark sky.

Looking Through The Tree

Further down the sidewalk, these Ponderosa pine trees were reflected in the pond.

Reflections In The Pond

On the next day, I made this image of the hedgerow with Ponderosa pine in the background.

Tree And Hedge In Infrared

Looking toward the south, we had clouds in the skies. This is an ideal condition because in brings some relief to the deep blue skies that appear almost black with infrared. Under normal conditions, this building appears a pale blue as it reflects the blue skies. However, it appears dark because little infrared is reflected.

Building And Clouds

Across from the our office is the Cascades building. This stands out nicely against the skies with the bright trees in the foreground.

Cascades In Infrared

So here are the images from our road trip to the Badlands. We arrived at the Cedar Pass cabins after dark. I climbed one of the mounds and made this image of the cabins.

Cedar Pass Cabins At Night

The next morning I woke up just before sunrise and headed towards Cedar Pass. The rising sun picked out the texture of the Badlands peaks.

Badlands Peaks

Here is another image of the distant peak.

Badlands Sunrise

A couple of days later, I was up before sunrise and made my way to the trails in the “Door” area. The low sun grazed the nooks and crannies on this mound.

Badlands Sunrise At The Door

Near the base of the peaks are elevated mounds covered with grass. As one walks through the prairie grasses, the grasshoppers fly out when disturbed.

Badlands Grasslands

These mounds are eroded by the action of water at the rate of about an inch per year. This mound is about 5 feet in height.

Badlands Sculptures

That rounds out the road trip images.

This Labor Day weekend, we made a family road trip to The Badlands in South Dakota. Both daughters, Susan and Nicola, joined us for the trip. Susan is on vacation from Belgium. We made a day trip to the Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse memorials in the Black Hills.

Mount Rushmore Memorial

Walking towards the memorial, we passed by a sculpture of Gatzon Borglum. He directed the efforts of a few hundred workers in creating the sculpture of Mount Rushmore.

Gatzon Borglum The Sculptor

Nicola posed for photographs in front of the memorial.

Nicola At Mt Rushmore

We spent some time at the Visitor’s Center before attending a guided tour by one of the Park Rangers. Here is a reflection of the four Presidents in the Visitor Center windows — Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

Reflections Of The Four Presidents

During the tour our guide described the history of the Memorial and the reason why each President was chosen for this memorial. “The purpose of the memorial is to communicate the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States with colossal statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.” – Gutzon Borglum. Our tour guide explained the role each President played with reference to the United States and the Declaration of Independence — a very inspiring presentation.

After the conclusion of the tour, we attended another presentation in the Artist’s Studio, where another Park Ranger described how the memorial was sculpted and showed us the original tools that were used. The studio contained a model of the sculpture that was scaled to the final dimensions. The Presidents may be seen through the window in the studio. At the right, the model’s figure of George Washington is barely visible in the shadows.

More information on Mount Rushmore can be found on the National Parks website and on Wikipedia.

Presidents From The Artist's Studio

Walking back to the terrace, I captured this image of Abraham Lincoln through the trees.

Lincoln, Gazing Through The Trees

Mount Rushmore is composed of granite. The Grand View Terrace, Amphitheater and other buildings in the complex are also composed of granite. Here is the detail of the pillars behind the terrace.

Memorial View Pillars

An avenue of flags leads up to the terrace. It took me a while to find the Colorado flag — it was on the last pillar as we were leaving. The flags of Arkansas, California and Connecticut were also mounted to the same pillar.

Colorado Flag At Mt Rushmore

Angela had rushed ahead by now. Here she is after searching for a possible source of food!

Angela At Mt Rushmore

After a picnic lunch, we made our way to the Crazy Horse Memorial, where we spent a few hours learning about Crazy Horse and the history of the Native American people. This memorial is dedicated to the the Crazy Horse, one of the Native American heroes. Like Mount Rushmore, this memorial is being blasted from granite. The model illustrates the finished result. It will be several years before this memorial is complete. Crazy Horse’s face is complete, and work is proceeding with the figure of the horse.

Crazy Horse Memorial And Model

We all enjoyed the visit to both memorials and learned from the experience of the visit.

This week’s subject is color! I headed down towards the Platte River near Mile High Stadium. There was a power generation station in the vicinity that might offer some interesting images. There was construction work along the river. The bike paths had been redirected so access would have been difficult to get a decent setup for images. While driving in the area, I noticed a street that I had not visited before. I drove around the area that showed this to be a promising location. So I parked and walked along the re-routed bike path. This led past a derelict building on Colfax Avenue. At the back was a red desk that had a green bush growing underneath.

Bush Under The Red Desk

The derelict building had red painted brickwork with green bushes growing in front. A stormy sky was present, offering some interesting possibilities. The broken windows also revealed some interesting details. All this made for some great HDR treatments. Here is one of the image that I made from several exposures.

Red And Green Behind Colfax

I continued to explore the neighborhood. Along Colfax I spotted several brightly painted buildings. Looking up, the yellow and orange walls contrasted nicely against the remains of the passing storm. This ladder was located some 20 feet above the ground, reaching up into the sky.

Ladder To The Sky

Looking south, the clearing storm was revealing blue skies hiding behind the clouds as the setting sun highlighted the colorful wall.

Colorful Wall And Stormy Sky

I made my way around to the rear of the building, where this elevated deck complemented the colorful walls and door.

Door And Deck

The adjacent building was painted a lime green hue. The stairs leading up the the back door was painted a contrasting purple-magenta.

Lime And Purple Steps

Making my way round to Colfax, the setting sun was lighting up the turret at the corner of this historic building. This is now the site of Brooklyn’s restaurant.

J Solf 1896

Heading back, I passed tall stacks of plastic — maybe they are concrete forms or barricade sections — that were stacked neatly under the Colfax flyover. The blue and white of the regular pattern made for an interesting picture.

Blue And White Abstract Plastic

Nearby was an orange drain pipe that carries away water from the elevated flyover.

Orange Drain Pipe

The light was fading rapidly as I headed back towards the parked truck. Earlier another photog was busy with a portrait session in front of the interesting wall. A red shoe was abandoned on the sidewalk together with this abandoned building.

Abandoned With The Red Shoe

It was only later that I noticed the red shoe!

A different subject for this week! Our garage had this really ugly window in the north facing wall. It is doubtful whether it ever met local code standards. After examining the house plans, I noticed that the window was not part of the original house construction. It was obviously a poor DIY project by previous owners.

Window, Outside, Before

To make matters worse, the window was installed so that the bug net could never be removed. Some years ago, I noticed the movable pane jammed occasionally. It has been installed upside down. We have made gradual improvements to our house over the years. This year was the garage’s turn — new steps were installed a few months ago.

Window, Inside, Before

Now it was the windows’ turn. Over the weekend, I started a construction project to replace this window, and to install a new window in the south wall. So I made some before and after images to record my endeavors.

The project started by removing the old window and re-framing to accommodate a larger-sized window. Whilst re-framing, I noticed the shoddy workmanship of the previous framing. It did not take long to rip out the old framing. But I spent time to ensure that the new work was done to a higher standard. Here is the interior of the window after completion.

Window, Inside, After

And here is the outside of the window. I ran out of materials for the trim strip around the window. I purposely get fewer construction materials of rarely used parts and materials. This way I can verify that items are correct and I don’t have the hassle of returning excess items to the store. Anyway, this window will be completed later this week.

Window, Outside, After

Here is the new window that I installed on the south wall. I decided to complete this window so that I did not have to be attacked by the thorns on the rose bush twice in one week!

New Window, Complete

After completing the window trim on the north wall, both windows will be sealed properly and the trim strips will be painted.

This south facing window has made a tremendous difference to the garage. Angela commented that we now get sunlight in the garage; this will get better later this year as the sun moves lower in the sky. There was an added benefit of completing this project. We cleaned out the garage, and have a big pile of stuff to go out with the trash.

This week I started the Third Eye class (with Greg Cradick) at Working With Artists. After discussing critique, we proceeded to discuss the influence of time in photography. This gave me inspiration to try making a few different images.

My morning commute starts at the University of Denver light rail station. While riding the light rail on Thursday, I made several multiple exposure images of the busy traffic on I-25. This image is the one that best shows frenetic busy traffic, with cars rushing towards their destination.

Traffic On The Interstate

This is not the first time that I have experimented with in-camera multiple exposures. You can see some more images using this technique in World Wide Photowalk – wk31 and Garden Flowers and Bees – wk32.

On Friday, I made another attempt by making more images. This time I wanted to make an image of the train arriving at the station. A skateboard came riding down the platform while waiting for his train.

Multiple Skateboarders

His train arrived and then he was gone, so I turned my attention to the station bench for another subject.

Multiple Benches

Soon I heard my train arriving behind me. I hurried to make a series of exposures that included at least one image where the train had passed by. Just what I was hoping for!

The Train Is Arriving

At class, Greg described how to make a video from several images with iMovie. I made several sequences of images while riding on the train. After several unsuccessful attempts with iMovie, I did manage to create a video with Lightroom. Here is the result of my attempt.

This is a nine second time lapse using three separate image clips. I had to wait until the camera had written its buffer to card before doing the next clip. Hence the two breaks in the sequence. More time was spent in trying to get this video into this blog post than making images and assembling the video. But it was all fun.