Head of the Slate

Two late season snow fields and several incipient drainages purge the steep hillsides of excess water and feed into the Slate River Valley, Colorado.

Happy Friday!

Bracteantha in UV

Wandered out late last night armed with a couple of handheld UV flashlights just to see what reacted.  Since we were dressed in mostly black clothes ( a hold over from art school) wearing hoodies & carrying camera gear and flashlights, I was certain we would be incarcerated as terrorists!  But our luck held out and we found this fantastic reaction in the CSU Annual Flower Trial Garden.  If this has piqued your interest, you can view a small gallery here.  There's also a link to the same gallery, now, in the "Portfolios" section.  Also, there will be yet another "bonus post" today.  So, if this funky flower joined you for breakfast, check back around 12n (MDT) and there'll be something new for lunch.  Cheers!

Bonus Thursday Post = FLY AGARIC!

Might have been the most prolific mushroom of the season.  Every where I went these were in full screaming beaming sprout!

The Clearing To Come

Little drops on the needles of the pines catch hits of sunshine.  After seventeen hours the rain finally relented.  Slightly comforted by the sighting of colour, we shiver into the night.  Everything in the forest yearns for dawn.

Gothic Mountain Scene, Plate 1

The view down Washington Gulch as a late summer storm brews.  I tried to balance the view between the two dominant subjects, the commanding mountain and the explosion of yellow flowers.

Turkey Creek Rainbow Streak

I've been chasing this phenomenon with a camera for decades.  Never really happens in very photogenic places, or so goes my luck.  Pretty, though.  Had the camera pressed to the windshield for several clicks until I found a good spot to pull over.  Just several minutes up the canyon, the foreground got a lot better, but my angle to the sun changed, so, no more prismatic effect.

Marmot in an Old Truck

Above the town of Crested Butte sits the remnants of Painter Boy MIne. Surrounding the old sluice is a weird collection of old junk seemingly posed on the hillside as a grave marker.  It provides the local human population a with targets of various squishiness.  For this I used an SB-900 racked to 200mm, the next day someone else was using something a lot more explosive!

Ten Seconds at Camp

...and so it began, another week in the mountains, another seventeen hours of rain.  Gotta get that campfire  hot!  It's gonna be a few day before the wood dries out.
Gone Camping.
Happy Friday!

Hydranomoly

This spunky fireplug sits about seven feet from a paved foot train in a local Natural Area.  An example of the planning committie's forethought and preparedness, or a leftover from the previous zoning?

Any Moon Tonight

A Paddletail Darner (as in "darning needle", yes that's why) fancies a lamp globe.  These guys, like many of the insects you see at night, navigate using the moon.  Instinct says, "Go toward the light!", but it doesn't tell you what to do if you get there.
Dangle for all you're worth, little man!

Contest Entries

                Cold Burn, 2009                                               Dream Lake in a Fog, 2009

Evening Events

Ever find one of those places that you don't want to leave?  I set up my tent and sat here for nearly a week.  Most of the recent photos are from very close to this exact spot.  In the afternoons, I'd head into the mountain (literally), but mostly... I stayed close to this spot.

Wilting Goldeneye

Torrential rains followed by an excruciatingly cold alpine summer night and these Showy Goldeneye have had enough for one season.

Daisy's Dew

Subalpine Daisy

Shiver in the mourning dew.

Eager for the sun.

Flying Through The Firestorm

Close to the same view as the previous startrails.  Differences here are 24mmf2.8 (prime, which is awesome for point light sources, btw) which is pointed a little more south.  My standard 4 minute exposure stack of 9 images, at ASA 200.  Captured an airplane, I like it though.   {wait...ASA?...hmm}  Stray clouds and the heavy dew really started to show in the individual exposures, hence the staccato effect and blotchy areas in the sky.  Enjoy!

The Mauve That Makes The Clouds

Continuing with colour and layers.  Shot this nervously under a very black band of the storm.  Felt like it was lifting and beginning to break up, so I kept telling myself that there wasn't any danger.  But 10,000' makes it's own weather, so you never know.

Trees Against the Night

Light pollution painted the clouds and I painted the trees.  An arm of the Milky Way cuts the frame.  A pleasant night in the mountains.

When Colours Collide

It was tremendously difficult not titling this one after an old song but, then I couldn't get it out of my head and immediately started hating the song again.  But let's face it, the image isn't about the song, I'm celebrating the phenonemon of colour opposites.  Over here on the Front Range, blue and orange is easy, in the center of the state it's green and purple.  Either combo is magic!

Fireside Star Fall

Mistakenly left the camera tuned to ISO 1600 for this, so I ended up with the blue sky.  The storm cleared out and the long exposure ignored the clouds, except the few illuminated by the light pollution in the last few frames.  For something to be captured by the camera, it has to be visible for 25% of the exposure, my method for compiling these ignores all but the brightest values of the images.  Add equal parts mistake, luck and technique - Shiver uncontrollably to combine.  Trees in the foreground left are lit by campfire light.  Seven photos at 240 seconds, or about 28 minutes.  As mentioned before the humidity was tremendous, so not long after sundown a very heavy dew settled on every thing, including that great bulbous 14-24mm lens, thereby ending the shot.

A Clearing Storm in Purple and Yellow

After two hours of duck drowning rain, the temperature lost twenty points, the humidity stayed at 100%, late season Arnica began their wither, and the sun gave a futile last attempt.