Photographer in Colorado

Continuing from Beachy Head, we headed towards Weymouth that was supposed to be our destination for the day, with a brief stop at Cirencester for coffee. As we headed west towards Dorset, the overcast weather gradually gave way to sunshine. We had decided to take an extended break at Corfe, where the remains of a famous castle that dates back to medieval times. The castle is situated on the top of a knoll or hill that is a couple of hundred feet above the surrounding countryside.

Corfe Castle Ruins

We explored the castle with the aid of a tour map. The castle had an interesting history that may be found in more detail on Wikipedia. The castle was a Royalist stronghold back in Cromwell’s era. The Parliamentarians ordered the destruction of the castle in 1646 to prevent the castle being used again.

Corfe Castle Ruins No2

Despite the destruction, there are several windows and arches still remaining.

Corfe Castle Window And Gate

I asked Susan to walk through one of the arches.

Susan At Corfe Castle

Nearby the castle is the village of Corfe. After destruction, the castle provided many of the construction materials for the village. The railway line to Swanage is a later addition that served to the village. This line is no longer connected to the rest of the rail network due to dismantling of a section. This remaining section of line is now run by volunteers and steam locomotive enthusiasts that now serves tourists. Earlier during the day, a steam locomotive was busy working the line hauling several coaches full of excited people.

Corfe Village And Station

We made our way down to the station where we learned that the last train was scheduled to stop in a few minutes.

Corfe Castle Station

I made my way to the railway bridge that is located in the distance. This bridge is a recent addition to the line, having been relocated from the London area.

Corfe Station Railway Bridge

The platform on the far side was decorated from several metal trunks dating back to an earlier 20th century era.

Trunks At Corfe Station

Finally the train pulled in — One coach only! This is a diesel powered unit, similar to many units that I saw during my school days in Taunton. I am reasonably familiar with this part of England since I was incarcerated in boarding school. However, Corfe is one location that I have not visited previously.

Train To Swanage

I managed to catch the driver in his private abode as the train pulled out of the station on its way to Swanage.

Private, Driver

Looking back towards the castle, it must have been very foreboding during the middle ages.

Corfe Castle From Station

We made our way back through the village. We stopped at one store when a variety of wines were displayed in the window.

Wines In The Window, Corfe

Once inside, sunlight streaming though the window made a colorful display. On closer inspection, I noticed that the wines were grown (raised?) in the west country of England. This must be the product of a new vineyard — I don’t recall vineyards in my youth. There is even one bottle of mead at the extreme left of this image.

West Country Wines

We made our way back to the car to continue on to Weymouth.

Last week we were in England for a family reunion. After arriving in London, Angela and I took the train to Eastbourne, where we met our daughter Susan. Susan had made her way from Brussels by ferry from Dunkerque to Dover. During the visit, our accommodations were mainly youth hostels. After checking in at the hostel, we took a walk along the foot path that began at the hostel. This path climbed up through a lightly wooded area to the South Downs.

The Downs are characteristic of the rolling hills of Sussex and are sparsely populated with trees. Emerging from the wooded area, we came across these windblown trees. Being close to the ocean, the wind has left its mark on these trees.

Windblown Trees At South Downs

Looking inland, these tracks follow the fence and lead over the hill and across the rolling hills under overcast skies.

The South Downs

Soon we had to return to get supplies. We return along this path that leads down through the wooded area back to the hostel.

Follow That Path

We stopped at one of the local pubs for dinner. After parking the car in narrow streets, we passed this house to get to the pub. Many of the older houses in the southeast and southern parts of England are constructed from flint. Here is an example of one using brick and flint.

Flint House At Eastbourne

We ended the day by having dinner and picking up supplies from the local supermarket in preparation for our the trip across the south coast.

The next morning we were greeted by rain under overcast skies. After breakfast and packing the car, we stopped at Beachy Head, where one can look out over the white cliffs and the English Channel. There is drop of several hundred feet in places to the rocks below. The Beachy Head Lighthouse is a well known feature of this coast.

Beachy Head Lighthouse And Chalk Cliffs

The chalk cliffs were originally formed by the accumulation of calcite from micro-organisms. The flint that is common to the region, is trapped in the chalk. Here is a closer view of the cliffs, where the black stones are most probably flint entrapped by the chalk.

Beachy Head Chalk Cliffs Up Close

The Beachy Head Lighthouse is not the original lighthouse that was built in this location. The original lighthouse was built at the top of the cliff illustrated above. Due to the stability of the cliffs, remains of the original light house were recently moved back from the cliffs. The original lighthouse has been incorporated into a private residence.

The day we were here (May 29) marked the 70th anniversary of the Evacuation of Dunkirk. Several thousand British soldiers were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) starting on this date during World War 2.

After our stop here, we made our way to Dorset under overcast skies.

Spring is finally here! On the way to work last week, I passed by a flower bed that contained many spiraea bushes that were planted last fall. These bushes were yellow-green with  bright orange leaves for new growth.

Spiraea Bush

Returning from work, the late afternoon sun cast shadows from one of the benches in the station plaza.

Shadow Bench

The low sun highlighted the spray from the fountains, also picking out the bushes planted in the background.

Fountains In Sunlight

On the following day,the allium plants have recently opened in flower. Their balls of flowers lined the flower beds that were recently home to the tulip flowers. It took half an hour of searching the internet to determine the name of this plant.

Allium Balls

Nearby were some more allium flowers that had started to turn to seed. As I write this post, curiosity took hold. Some more research on the internet revealed that this species of allium is also known as Ornamental Onion. There are over 800 species of allium. It turns out that allium is the latin name for “garlic”. Other plants in this species include onions, shallots, leeks and scallions.

Allium Flowers

Making my way to light rail, the sun passed through the station benches, casting colored shadows to the floor.

Filtered Shadow

This week has something totally different. On Sunday, I took a trip into to the Rocky Mountains via highway 285. At the base of Kenosha Pass, I turned into the dirt road that follows Hall Creek. A few miles up the creek, a beaver dam holds back a large pond of water in the creek. The still water offers the opportunity to make many images with reflections.

Hall Creek Reflections

The beaver pond is surrounded with pine trees. Also, damming of the creek by the beavers has killed trees left stranded by the rising waters. Reflections of these trees may be seen in the image below.

Hall Creek Reflections With Clouds

The snow melt has added to the level of the water, temporarily submerging grasses at the pond edges.

Reflecting In Hall Creek

Occasional rays of sunlight penetrate the tree cover, to light up the pond floor.

Hall Creek Reflections No 2

After exploring Hall Creek, I headed back towards Grant, where another road follows Geneva Creek up to Guanella Pass. Stopping along the creek, one can appreciate the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies. This year, winter has been slow in losing its grip on the Rockies and Colorado.

Snow Covered Peak Above Geneva Creek

During the winter, parts of Geneva Creek are often covered with layers of snow. As the snow melt proceeded, this huge block of snow was stranded by the flow of water. The angle of the sun brought out the texture on the surface of the snow block.

Snow Block In Geneva Creek

Downstream, the creek flows down a canyon, forming waterfalls along the way. A long exposure in the shadowed creek, allows the water flow to appear as a mist flowing over the rocks.

Waterfall In Geneva Creek

A log had become trapped in the creek. The water was flowing vigorously around the log and surrounding rocks. Perhaps the flow of water prevents the log from dislodging to flow downstream?

Water Flowing In Geneva Creek

I always enjoy a trip into the mountains. The mountain air is fabulous. The rivers and creeks roar down, creating a cacophony of sound that allows one to be immersed in the experience. Enjoy these images as I have enjoyed making them.

On Wednesday, we had an unusually late Spring snow storm. This year, winter hung around for a long time, so spring was very late. There was not much more than an inch or two of snow. On my way to work, my attention was drawn to the contrast of the white of the snow against the green of the grass.

May Snow Storm

The lateness of spring was especially noticeable with the absence of leaves in the trees. These trees usually have a mass or rich green leaves at this time of the year.

Spring Leaves In Snow Storm

Passing by Samson Park (see last week’s post) there was a Winter Wonderland, with mist still close to the ground with a dark sky as a backdrop. The white of the snow on the ground contrasted with the shiny wet, orange-brown path. The snow also allowed the blue fence behind the statue to stand out from the background. The street lighting was still powered on, giving the globes a hint of orange.

Samson Park In The Mist

Getting close gives a slightly different perspective of this snow covered steel bench.

Snow Bench In Samson Park

Leaving the park, and crossing the street, I spotted these folks on smoke break.

Smoke Breakers In The Snow

Down by the office, were this pink blossoms, sprinkled with a covering of snow.

Pink Snow-Covered Blossoms

Up close, these blossoms were dripping with melting snow.

Pink Blossom With Melting Snow

Time to leave the outdoors behind… to the day job.

Returning from work, I passed this Canada Goose. Reminded me of last week when the geese were agitated. Perhaps this is the same one?

Goose And Pond

Returning from work, I pass Samson Park every day. This park has statues and scenes from “Alice In Wonderland” (I made images of some of these in an earlier post — see Queen of Hearts). This structure had been erected last week.

New Building Style

Like Alice, I wondered what it’s purpose was. I was sucked in through this novel doorway. Looking out, this is what we see. Maybe it is incomplete, like the exterior?

Novel Doorway

There are some unusual structures in the park, including this nest-like sculpture. Of course, several birds had decided to build their nest in the upper reaches.

Nest In Wonderland

By the time I reached the light rail station, the light was low enough to cast these shadows onto the overpass wall. This reminds me of a similar image that I made some years ago, where a tree cast a shadow on a brick wall, with both the tree and shadow in the image.

Light Rail Station Shadows

Here is a view of the light that cast the shadow on the wall. I rather like the graphic nature of the patterns of the underside of the overpass with the foreground lights.

Light Rail Lighting

By the fountains were these folks sharing a story. Or perhaps a picture on a cell phone?

Meeting At The Fountain

By this time, I could see the train approaching the station, so I hurried to board. After making my way back to the parking garage, I was captivated by the setting sun falling on the DU buildings. The gold roofing of the spire reflected the warm sunlight.

Denver University At Sunset

Wednesday, last week, Joe McNally came to Convention Center to present his “Location Lighting Techniques” seminar. Having read and enjoyed both of Joe’s books, I took the day off work to attend this presentation.

His books are written in a conversational style, just like this seminar. We got to see Joe and his assistants setup lights and shoot photographs. He was shooting tethered, so images we projected onto two giant screens for all to see. The seminar covered the use of off-camera strobe lighting with speedlights – “The Strobist Way” – see here. Joe covered everything from single flash to two flash setups, right up to multiple flash units.

Joe had two models, Lindsay and Solomon, who were subjects for the duration of the seminar. During the course of the seminar, one of Joe’s assistants made one image, that you will find on his Twitter site. Joe had tweeted the event and put a link to some of the images that he made on his blog. You can see images of his two models on this site.

I took the opportunity to make some images during the course of the day. Outside the Convention Center is this Blue Bear.

Blue Bear

I made these images shortly after arriving at the Convention Center. It looks like the bear was admiring the “saucers” behind the glass.

Blue Bear And Saucers

Here we can see him looking in.

Blue Bear Up Close

I had forgotten to bring a writing implement for note taking. During the lunch break, when I took the opportunity to walk over to 16th Street where I bought a pencil. Returning to the Convention Center, I passed the strata bar.

In The Stratosphere

Arriving back at the Convention Center, I noticed the reflections of a building under construction in the rectangular glass panels.

Convention Center Reflections

After the seminar ended, I meandered back to 16th Street. I noticed the spring flowers growing from these colorful pots.

Springtime Pots

On the way to the light rail station, I heard calls from the alleyway. Here I met three colorful characters, Hodge, Rico and Mad — I hope I got their names right. They insisted I make some images of them partying in the alley.

Colorful Characters

Finally, I arrived at the station to take the train back home.