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Two Curvy Ladies…

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.

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Le Central Alley Mural

Nearby was this dumpster with some interesting graffitti.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Le Central

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

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Patterned Fence

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Empty Parking Garage

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

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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.

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Meetup At Castle Rock Fire Station

Last Saturday, the Denver Photowalk Group held a Meetup at the Castle Rock Fire Station. This Meetup was organized by Tim Tonge, who was a leader of one of the many Kelby Worldwide Photowalks in July last year. I was greeted by Tim on arrival, who gave a brief overview of the event and any procedures to follow should a call occur. Several engines were located in the fire house. This engine was setup with doors wide open.

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Fire Engine, Doors Open

Parked outside was a second engine. The sky was full of storm clouds this Saturday afternoon. The clouds were reflected in the windshield.

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Ladder And Reflections

Here is a pair of boots… almost ready to wear!

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Boots, Ready To Wear

The recreation room is located on one side of the firehouse. No one was playing at this table!

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Fire Station Recreation Room

Some more reflections from another windshield.

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Cloud Reflections In The Windshield

Tim has arranged Devon to be our firefighter model for the afternoon. Having pulled out the fire hose, Devon slung it over one shoulder. That’s 50 feet of hose that he is carrying.

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Devon, With Fire Hose No 2

Devon was chatting with us, but found it difficult to keep a straight face with a bunch of photographers out there!

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Devon, With Fire Hose No 3

Finally, I made an image of the three flagstaffs outside the station.

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Flags, Flying In The Wind

Thank you, Tim, for organizing this event. Everyone had a great time shooting. You may find more photographs at the Meetup website.

 

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Meetup At The Museum and City Park

On Saturday night, I joined the Illuminate Workshops Meetup Group. The group met at the terrace of the Museum of Nature and Science, overlooking City Park. On arrival at about 7pm, I was met with a sight of a bunch of 20 something photographers with tripods and gear! The event was planned as a night shoot, but we started well before the sun set over the mountains. Entering the terrace, the sun cast a shadow of the tree on the west facing wall of the museum.

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Shadows From A Setting Sun, DMNS

The colors of the setting sun were reflected in the windows that form the west wall of the museum. Soon after making this image, I got to meet Efrain Cruz who headed up the meetup group.

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Reflections In The Museum Windows

After the sun went down, I headed down to a park bench below the terrace. I used a red LED flashlight to paint the bench and surrounds with light during the 30 second exposure.

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Park Bench With Light Painting

Looking back at the museum, I noticed that the stairways cast shadows on the opaque window panels.

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Lighted Stairways Inside The Museum

I attempted some light painting of one of the trees in the park. After tripping the shutter, I ran over to the tree, painting with light from a powerful flashlight. Unfortunately, the exposure was not long enough so I did not get good results — need to experiment more with flashlights next time. Meanwhile, the rest of the groups were doing some interesting effects with flashlights and LED lights in the park. Here is one guy, positively radiating blue sparks!

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Blue Sparks

Later, we experimented with gelled strobes. While Armando was flashing this tree with red gels, I managed to sneak an ungelled strobe on the left side of the tree.

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Light Painted Tree In City Park

Some of the other images may be found on the Meetup group website. I then headed down to the lake in City Park, where the lights were reflecting off the still water. I included the rocks in the foreground that were lit from yellow street lights that lined the lake.

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Reflections Of The City Lights

Heading back towards the museum, I met up with Efrain again. Several folks had already left and others were heading out. Efrain asked me to stay for a portrait shoot. He set up two speedlites on light stands. After setting up, he captured images of me and several other group members. Maybe these will be posted to the Meetup website? I headed back to the parking lot, passing the underground parking garage. Located here are life size models of dinosaurs.

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Dinosaurs Entering The Parking Garage

Finally, the front entrance of the museum was nicely lit. The stainless steel columns were lined up nicely catching a highlight from the parking lot lights. So I setup again to make the final image of the evening before heading home.

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Entrance To The Museum

What a fun evening, making new images and getting to meet some new photographers in the Denver area.

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On Thursday night (March 17), St Paddy’s Day, I gave a presentation on “High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging” to the Colorado Nature Camera Club. My presentation notes may be found on the Files page. The presentation was based on my 2008 version.

As I discovered again last night, Murphy really does exist. I picked the 2008 version instead of the updated 2010 version. This is a repeat of the last presentation. Those Leprechaun’s really had a party yesterday. Well, I should have worn green!

The files page has both versions. I have also created HDR processing notes. This document details the workflow steps that I use with Lightroom, Photomatix and Photoshop when processing HDR images. This document may also be found on the Files page. Enjoy.

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Denver Botanic Gardens

Last weekend, Carey and I visited the Denver Botanic Gardens for a photo shoot. We spent the afternoon in the hothouses. We entered the hothouses, and after chatting for a while, we got to work. I set up close to this hibiscus plant with a huge red flower — certainly the largest hibiscus flower that I have seen. On looking through the view finder, I was greeted by… Fog! My lens was cold and became a magnet for the humid air. This was my first time photographing inside the hothouse so I was not prepared for the environment.

I was amused to discover my misfortune, so I decided to turned this to my advantage. This was the perfect soft focus filter! After wiping the front element, I was left with enough moisture to give a nice soft focus image.

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Hibiscus With Soft Focus

Meanwhile, Carey had made many more images while I was wiping the lens and waiting for the moisture to clear. The hothouse had several cycad plants. I found this one in an area where there was very little air movement. This image was created from several images on different focus planes; these were then merged into a single image with Helicon. This black and white rendition gives the appearance of a metallic plant.

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Botanic Garden Cycad

In the orchid house, several water features are present. One plant with purple and blue leaves was located on the edge of the water features. A Lensbaby allowed me to create an image where a select group of leaves was in focus, with the rest of the image blurred.

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Purple And Blue Leaves

This violet phaelanopsis orchid got similar treatment. My dad used to grow orchids as a hobby. This hothouse reminded me of the collection that he had amassed in the years before he passed away. I could recognize many of the species that he had collected.

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Violet Phaelanopsis Orchid

One of the ponds was stocked with Khoi fish. While making images of the bubbles on the surface of the pond, one of the Knoi swam towards the waterfall. A long exposure showed the flowing water. The Khoi was swimming around, rendered as a patch of orange.

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Khoi Under The Waterfall

Finally, we headed to another hothouse, where several tulips and amaryllis were flowering, well ahead of their normal springtime season. This tulip caught my attention with the stripe running up towards the top left of the flower.

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Pink Tulip

Soon after, Carey and I escaped the heat of the hothouses to take in the crisp Colorado air. Some of Carey’s images from this photoshoot may be found here:

We enjoyed the shoot, and discussed some locations for a future shoot before heading out.

 

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Black and White Photography Presentation

Last night (Feburary 23), I gave a presentation on “Black and White Photography and Processing” to the Mile High Wildlife Photography Club. My presentation notes may be found on the Files page. Processing notes that detail processing steps and image manipulation may also be found on the Files page.

During the presentation, I made reference to a podcast where Vincent Versace was interviewed on Nik Software Radio. Take a look here for this podcast (dated 01/27/2011). Vincent has some really good information on black & white photography.

 

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Apple Face… and Other iPhone Pics

Last week I took the first bite into an apple. Looking at the apple, there were two chunks removed, like eyes in a face. So… another bite and there was the mouth. This is an iPhone image, processed with ShockMyPic.

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Apple Face

Angela and I paid a visit to the Garden and Home Show at the Convention Center. There were several flower displays spread out through the hall. Another iPhone pic processed with GlowMe.

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Glowing Hyacinth

The same hyacinth with shock treatment.

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Shocked Hyacinth

Finally, a lily processed with glow treatment followed by shocking.

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Shocked Glow Lily

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“Extraordinary” Exhibition – WWA

Working With Artists currently have a non-juried exhibition titled “Extraordinary”. This exhibition runs from January 21 until March 6. More details may be found here. Four of my images are on exhibition.

Back in July 2010, Scott Kelby’s Third Annual Worldwide Photowalk took place. I covered this event in an earlier post for Week 31 of Project 52. Our group met at Auraria, where we spent most of the summer evening making photographs on the campus. Passing by the athletic fields, a notepad was caught in the fence. I was intrigued by the patterns formed by the pages of the notepad.

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Abandoned Notepad, Auraria

During one of my Project 52 sessions, I visited Samson Park to make some infra-red images. The park is home to several sculptures spread around the grounds. Along one fence were these unusual sculptures constructed from intertwined vines and branches. Branches from the nearby trees had grown into the structure. When shooting infra-red, the leaves took on their characteristic appearance. After a conversion to monochrome black & white image, the leaves were stunning against the dark sky.

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Samson Park Bursting Out

During the summer, Angela and I made a trip to the Platte River — Angela to watch birds and me for Project 52 images. As the sun moved lower in the afternoon sky, it lit a drain feeding the river. The pink concrete work was contrasted against the blue reflections of the sky in the flowing water.

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Platte River Drain Reflections

While working weekends in November, I could not help but notice reflections from Craig Hospital on the wall of this building across the street. Sun light reflecting off the hospital windows form these intriguing reflections. Each window reflects a circular pattern with “eyebrows”. The time of year is critical to getting this image, so I returned to this location en route to work the next day. The contrast range of these images are too extreme for a single exposure. I made several images of the reflections and merged these into a single HDR image with Photomatix.

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Hospital Reflections

These four images were printed as 11×16 images on Moab Entrada cotton rag (my favorite), mounted and framed behind glass in an 18×24 frame for the WWA exhibition.

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