Verdiqueduct

I'm a sucker for mysterious toxic looking green glowing light in tunnels.  It's pretty easy to know what's causing this particular patch, but my imagination reels with all the other possible stories!  Kinda wanna get my shoes wet and explore a few scenarios.

Botanical Layers

Let's start the week off nice and light.  This verdant tangle was photographed in a friend's backyard.  I have a difficult time sitting and talking with people if I have a camera handy.  So, I was very glad when he needed to go inside to check on something as I could start clicking away!

The Pig & The Millstone

The blog will be quiet for the next few days, so I wanted to give you all something meaty to chew on while I'm away.  Typically I shy away from verbalizing these kind of arguments, but you're a quiet and contemplative audience, so I think you can handle it.  If you, too, are traveling someplace this long holiday weekend, I hope it's someplace nice and you have a safe and pleasant time.

The Pig & The Millstone... Abundance and Work... what can we take from this?  A large fattened pig sculpture placed near a worn granite millstone.

The path leads to the millstone (work), a cul-de-sac of toil.  Progress (hapiness) is obviously not the purpose of the path, the option is the circle or the way back (regression).  All the while observed by a lucid fattened sow (abundance).

I am torn, in my own interpretation of the nature of abundance.  Does she look on in mockery or promise?   Is it possible that her presence is more permanent than her meaning?

For our own answers, we must first ask, "Why the hell am I on this path, anyway?"

West from Trinidad

West from Trinidad, originally uploaded by McF Studios.

If you've spent time in the high desert you've no doubt seen rain fall from clouds without touching the ground.  It was happening all day in evey direction!  By the time evening rolled through, however, the clouds, with their strange behaviour, all but disappeared.  Oh well, if I could make or predict the weather, I wouldn't have to earn a living anymore.

Crayolapaho

I shot this with a dead battery.  Lithium batteries are temperamental.  Next time you have a battery die in the cold, put it in your jacket or under your hat, and leave it there as long as you can.  If it's charge is not completely exhausted, you may be able to salvage enough juice to shoot a few more.
After all the toneless gray I've endured the last few days, I wasn't ready to drive home  so I ambled around in the fading light.  Fifteen minutes later, I pulled the battery from it's sauna and was able to make three more images.  YAY!
Then I went home and had some soup for supper.  Happy Friday to all!

Armageddon at Arapaho Bend

After four days of solid grey skies, a small tear in the cloud blanket ran along the Northern Front Range, just enough to shift my inertia.  Hastily, I grabbed the camera, already mounted to the tripod, and sprinted down to Arapaho Bend Natural Area.  When I parked the whole area was awash in sunshine.  Being a hedonist, I just stood there enjoying the warmth.  The tear was soon sewn shut, again, of course, but a little sun poked through itching to play and neither of us could resist those clouds!  I took a few seconds to level everything out and strated shooting for another large pano.   By the third set my bettery was dead, first time that's ever happened, to me.  Guess I should have grabbed the camera bag too!

The Bridge at Riverbend Ponds Natural Area

This image is viewable at close to it's native resolution for those of you with a veritable surplus of time for art viewing.  Click here for the redirect, the viewer has it's own controls for navigation.  Enjoy!

I like the idea of large panoramic photographs, though they seem a bit impractical.  This photo is roughly 80 megapixels and 500MB, on paper it would measure to 78 inches long at 18 inches high.  I captured 240 exposures, of which I used 168, then compiled and tonemapped those down to 24 (7-stop brackets) to create this 180 degree view.  That may seem like overkill but I used art school math and Kentucky windage to hedge my bets.  Processing all those photos and stitching them all together was quite the experience as well.  If you experienced the lights dimming or sudden black-outs in your neighborhood, it's probably my fault.  Anyway, I think it turned out very pretty and strange.  This wooziness I'm feeling is most likely the result of number cruntching with an artist's brain.  Time to get some fresh air, perhaps I'll go for a walk.  Maybe you'd like to do the same?

Standing On The

Sometimes you have to ignore the facts.  Maybe you are standing on a poorly made floating deck on a manmade lake that smells of dead carp next to a colourless suburban cul-de-sac under skies that won't rain across from trees that won't bloom enduring a winter that just won't end.  Or maybe you are beginning a voyage on a rickety little raft you made from the debris of mankind pushed out into the green water of nowhere as the clouds compile their disdain.

Along the Salt Lick

The persistent, prevalent overcast skies are punctuating my productivity!  Hiking in Red Mountain Open Space, Larimer County, Colorado.

Middle Ground Past

Before emabarking on an epic journey for objects of foreground interest, our intrepid, though spastic, correspondant noted something curious along the Eastern border of Norther Larimer County.  Further investigation may one day yeild the Anasazigiptian connection.  Until then, we are all condemed to wonder what the hell I'm talking about.

Prismatic Approach

Sorry for the delayed post, it's been a hectic mourning.  I managed to get out just in time for the colour to begin crawling across the land.

Photographing the dawn at Fossil Creek Reservoir Regional open Space, it can be a struggle to walk away from the infamous tree, but watching the colour develope, I decided to move toward the ice.

After Dawn

In the beginning of the year, I made a photograph of this relic gate and horizon line.  In that image I was moved by an internal voice recanting the passage of time that all things face.  Now, several months later, while hiking along the ridge above this object I noticed it's lintel was broken.
          Just an old gate, studpidly
          stuck in the mud,
          you wasted your time
          on the sunrise you loved.
          Neglected and sold
          to wither and fall,
          but stand there you do
          making fools of us all.

Pinion's Perch

One little pinion perched on a hill / Comes a storm to break your will / Not my problem, I don't care / I can move from here to there / You're all alone up on your perch / Tell me now what is it worth / We'll face this rain but seperately / Hope you last this calamity.
(it's that mockingbird song, and it sounds much better if you sing it)

Fuzzes

Ok, enough with the pseudo painting.  It's fun and there's probably an application out there for the technique, but sooner or later you gotta get back to work... right?  Work?  That doesn't sound like fun at all.  Maybe just another few minutes in the grass... it's sunny and warm right now, the winter is coming, too, so let's enjoy the little bit of fall we have left. 
I have a few projects that are commanding a lot more of my time than I want them to, but they must be finished, and soon.  So in the coming weeks the blog may get a little lighter, I'm thinking, three times a week.  We'll see how it goes.

The Melting Pumpkin

Walking past my neighbor's door, I couldn't resist this shot.  Plus, it's seemed to beg for my new painting technique.  Fun for me, hope it's fun for you as we head into the spooky season.  Cheers to all and happy Friday!

City Park Fauxtumn

Then I got really bored and whipped this up with my favourite oil paints.  Mmm... linseed...
Not really, it's a 100% digital creation.  In the beginning of the year, I photographed several of these magnificent trees in City Park.  Before the horrendous wind started, I took a trip to see how they were getting along in Autumn.  Gorgeous as ever, I wasn't satisfied with the greater atmospheric occurrences and just took some snapshots to record the locations.  Enter the new painting technique...
Enjoy!

Fauxtumn Leaves

 Always time to play.  I'm sitting in the studio for the sixth day in a row.  It's starting to get to me and affect my mood.  But there's just too much dang wind to go out and play.  It's gusting over 60 knots, and after ten minutes it's unpleasant and boring.  So, I'm playing inside instead.  The new release of Photoshop contains some interesting painting tools.  I processed these photos through my normal parameters, then started pressing buttons and pushing sliders until I got this result.  It's a bit garish, I realize that, but my toolbox just got a little bigger and now when I head out to photograph, I may be shooting certain subjects to utilize this technique.  The photo below is the result of a new masking technique I discovered that allowed precise selection of background and foreground.  This seems to get closer to my desired effect.

As a finishing step I added a canvas texture to these images.  Knowing they were destined for the blog I thought the texture would aid the viewer's perception of the digital image.  However, if I decide to send an image for printing, it would certainly be printed on canvas and therefore I'd have to remove the texture.  I've done a few of these now and you can expect to see a few more, soonish.

Leaf & Rock, Plate 7 of 9

This little broken rock is in the middle of a hiking trail, which made it really easy to find a wide, level place for my tripod.  Turns out it's also the preferred trail for an even less socially adept group of entheusiasts, Joggers!  Before I knew it, my artistic pursuit was an impediment to all of Western Fort Collins!   No one ran into me, but I was reminded of the local etiquette regarding stationary objects and pathways.  Whatever.  These results were absolutely worth it... just look at that texture!  This kind of stuff isn't found every day, so you silly joggers can run in the road, I'm doing important stuff here!
(image notes:  Nikon P7000, tripod mounted, 5 shot bracket, tonemapped in Photomatix Pro4, black and white conversion in LR3)

Rabbitbrush and Horsetooth

An early morning view along the Cathy Fromme Prairie Natural Area in Fort Collins, Colorado.

False Promises

Sorry about the late post... um... my dog forgot to set the alarm clock?

Trying to find a composition before dawn, I shivered in the weeds with the rodents.  This scene was lit entirely by light pollution.  Thirty seconds of sodium vapour, the best light of the morning, if not for the breeze.