An Hour in the Eye

Typical of late winter in Northern Colorado, we started this day off with sunny warm skies and by the time we finished our three hour loop hike the sun gave way to the wind that brought the rain that became snow.  I love being outside!
It's difficult to know exactly why I choose certain compositions.  Maybe one interesting detail, maybe the larger view.  The prominent elliptical lines here are certainly important.  It wasn't until later, after much staring, that I could see the eye.  What eye?  The Eye of Horus... Ancient Egyptian sky god, baby!  How cool is that?
Obtuse heiroglyphic halucinations and peculiar weather patterns not withstanding, when I see a view like this, my eye scans for the farthest little bush and my legs begin to twitch toward the horizon.

Goofing with the Gander

It looks like these two are pretending to be Osprey.  I do that, sometimes.  You might see me circling the tripod in a widening gyre, arms extended, happily floating on imaginary thermals.
Do Osprey do that, circles and such?
Whatever.  Someday's I'd pretend I was a city pidgeon just to not be earth bound.  Next time, maybe, I'm going to pretend to be a goose pretending to be an Osprey.  Ought to be good for a midday laugh... Wonder where I'll go?

The Sardine Fleet

Spooky clouds roll through the docks, as a lone photographer skitters among the crabs.

Box Canyon Pool

Here be the last photograph from my recent trip to Ouray, CO.  Box Canyon Falls is a local tourist attraction, but it's free during winter, which fits my budget.  One cloudy afternoon, I was chasing an abstract composition along the lower box canyon trellises.  Deliberately moving slowly because ahead of me was a group of folks playing with cameras, too.  While I waited for them to do whatever they were taking so long to do, I noticed all of the colour in this grotto at the bottom of the falls.  Normally I use a tripod to manage my pace while working, this day I was gifted with the forced patience that comes from understanding that mountains (and tourists) move in a geologic and glacial timeframe.  This canyon sees very little direct sunlight in the winter, but that frozen fill flash is just enough to bring some detail out of the shadows.  I'm also a sucker for that wonderful turquoise against grey.

The Irony of Winter Sun

Blue Mesa Reservoir is Colorado's largest body of water and the largest Kokanee Salmon fishery in the United States.  I've always been curious how places get their names.  To my mind there ought to be a "Blue Mesa" close by, maybe there is and I just haven't found it.  Maybe it's from the abundance of blue light in the area, certainly a striking feature.  I almost drove through this area without stopping because of the huge exposure range.  Then I started to think of it as a challenge.
Standing on the hillside in a full wind attarcted to the quality of blue in the water, I started shooting for the ice and wave patterns, but kept looking up to the hill in the background.  So, I shivered left and right until finding this large textured ice in the foreground thinking it might balance the larger scene.  The square format is an anomaly around here, to be sure.  But this composition had to be shot telephoto to maintain the compression, which meant two exposures to maintain the foreground.  There's something added by that compositing scheme which allows the photo to be considered in several parts as well as the whole.  My eye yo-yos up & down when I look at this, much like when I was standing there.

Gem of the Rockies

Ouray Colorado under a mostly clear night sky.  Took about a half an hour to figure out how to make this shot happen.  I have seen a lot of photos from this overlook, but none that really captures that special feeling of winter in a mountain town.  I know there are a lot of hotels here, but it still seems like someone has left a light on for me while I was away.  How many light sources can you count?

Featured!

Today's featured image on the NewWest.net website is from my recent ice colour studies!  Check it out, here.

Confluence

Several ideas are coming together, but art making can have a timeline similar to geologic events.  It's a long, slow, grinding, pressured force, until the catastrophic moment of fractured release.  I know that doesn't really tell you much, but if you look at the image, you'll know as much as I do.

Tree Lights

Trees near the Fort Collins Public Lirbary.  I don't often shoot at super high ISOs, but I was in a playful mood and curious.  In order to hand hold this, I had to push up to ISO6400, f1.4 and that gave me 1/60th of a second.  Doubt it's going to be a go to setting, but in the right composition may yeild interesting results.

Color Study Tryptic: Shift, Pebbles, Veins

Taking advantage of the frozen conditions, I broke a "non-Photographic" rule and ventured out on the ice to make photographs of the awesome colour and texture happening in the the extended civil-twilight as the sun rose behind high thin clouds.

Even though I was a little dissapointed with the lackluster sunrise.  This progression of colour across the ice was fantastic and gave my creativity a boost for the day.

Happy Friday!

Edge of the Bend

The sun rose into high thin clouds providing very diffuse light.  I took this as an opportuniy to play with shape and colour.

Ponderance Place

These little benches dot the shoreline of Arapaho Bend Natural Area.  They are so small that, only one person can sit on them at any one time.  For me, it's always a choice of using it for my camera bag, or as a subject.

Horsetooth Rock

A lenticular cloud floats above the iconic Horsetooth Rock in Fort Collins, CO.  In my mind it's a graphic shape more than a geologic feature.  I've been up and down and all over the dang thing several times, but something has always prevented a connection being made.  Not sure what it will take, but I need to change my way of thinking.  The cloud was interesting, though, so I made a few snapshots.

As the Pine Cones

What a strange title, eh?  It reveals how I think.  A little idea swims in a tangle of others until it's ready to burst onto its own stage.  Photographed while hiking near Seaman Reservoir in Northern CO, I kept falling over the double entandras.

Northland

Spotted somewhere up north on the drive home.  I'm lucky to have the kind of friends who no longer seem to mind, if I'm driving, the ride home might take a little longer than normal.  Have to break them in right, I guess, and take the keys when you get out.

A Song About A Tree

This one involved a lot of playing.  Of course, I really liked the warm tree against the blue background and when I pointed the little camera at it the sunstar was brilliant.  Not too shabby, and a good way to bid you all a happy weekend!

Whose Seuss?

The quirkiest, quirliest, quackiest, quandry of a flower I've ever seen.  Shot as a record so I could identify it and plant oodles of them.

Two Trees, Redeux

After a long Autumn hike at Bobcat Ridge NA, I couldn't resist shooting my favourite trees.  You all know I'm a sucker for big blue sky and awesome yellow grasses.

Diagonal Blue Sketch

I headed out to this place somewhat hastily.  Pretty sure I owuldn't find much in the late afternoon worthy of dragging a lot of camera gear.  Wrong again.  The mid-winter late afternoon sun was playing like a five year old.  I tussled with the tree on the left of the frame for twenty minutes.  Walking all over the hillside trying to make this composition with my PoS P&S, finally I gave up and figured I'd crop it out later.  In the end, I liked the anchor it gives to this side of the photo allowing my eye to concentrate on the juxtaposition of yellow and blue.
This is the kind of winter day I love, kind of cold, but warm enough in the sun.

Gateway

A good walk can solve several problems. I find it takes a little more than a mile before compositions start to make sense.  Big open spaces usually dominate my photography, but moments like these are starting to draw my attention.  Making images like these is more like painting than photography, a comparison I hope is not lost in the translation.

Zipper!

I was giggling manically when I saw this image present itself.  It's peculiar, and not the sort of thing I publish, but if it makes me giggle, you might get something out of it, too.
Happy Saturday!

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.

Come Hither, Come Hide

A beautiful female Argiope trifasciata posing with her quarry.  The Banded Garden Spider is quite common late summer and early fall, they make symetrical orb webs.  This one has hung a meal, she maybe gravid, and has another queued for immediate snacking.
{Shot handheld with tethered flash in the other hand.  I got so close on one attempt I knocked her off.  Luckily she reclaimed her perch while I was at the grocery.  ISO200, f/22 1/15}

Paladin's Grope on New West.Net

My photograph entitled "Paladin's Grope" is featured on the NewWest.Net website.  I recommend making a cup of tea before heading over to check it out, the articles they publish are engrossing.

Out in the Cold

What I wouldn't have given for a slight break in the clouds, or a cup of cocoa!

Fail to Fall Apart

The abstracted image has long been a favourite of mine.  In fact, the surprise of creating an abstract photo is what led me to photography from painting.  I don't post many of my experiments (art making shares something with sausage making) and this one is pretty close to the "what the hell is that?" line.
The encroaching ice was great a dramatic element, so I started shooting.  Looking through the lens, I saw the converging textural elements and that became the challenge, along with staying dry and warm.  I feel one out of three is a good start.
{ISO200, f/22, 1/8sec}

Happy New Year!

It's the last day of the year, I hope you are enjoying it.
Cheers!

Aeris per Annum

Fell in love with this tree last year when it was foggy.  Took a look outside this mourning and heard her call.

Gaggle Storm

A snowy morning at City Park Lake. I get the strangest looks from the joggers on mornings like this... go figure.

Lunar Eclipse 12-20-2010

How many people do you think were witness to this event?  How many, again, were moved in some way, to think of things greater than themselves?  The possibility of an answer greater than zero moves us a little closer to understanding one another.  Next time, however, I'm going to try to position myself in a place that will allow me to do shadow puppets.

Natural World Show at C4FAP

In keeping with my self promotion style, I'd like to announce that I had an image selected for the Natural World show at C4FAP.  Yep, it's that goddamn tree at Fossil Creek Res., choke on that haters!  The show is nearing completion, so you'll have to hurry if you want to deface it!  (All sarcasm aside, I am very proud to have been selected to be part of the show.)

Luckily, I was using my Nikon P(oS)7000 which refused to focus on any object in the room.  Maybe it's some kind of built in copywrite protection.

Terraspectrum

This is a full terrestrial rainbow!  Every colour is present and it's still an hour before sunset.  This is the time of year you can smack a sagebrush and the incredible dust carries forever on the wind.  I wonder if there's a way to print this as a scratch-n-sniff?

Wandering Watershed

Sand Creek trickles through the Boxelder Watershed in Bent Rock Canyon, Red Mountain Open Space, Larimer County, CO.  An old quad identifies this as Sand Creek, but a sign on the property identifies this as Boxelder Creek.  I'm going with Sand Creek because the old quad matches the actual geography and there's is another creek to the south.

Paladin's Grope

Strikes me as something sinister spreading out.  I can feel fingers twitch toward the grasses.  Far, far from home.

Devil's Canyon

A mix of great spirits are whispering truths, their messages lay as the alpine snow.  Slaps from the wind call your attention to what's riding on waves and repeatedly carved into stone.

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.

Two Buttes

The Pawnee Buttes glow before the coming night.

The obscenity of turbines in the background is sprawl from the Cedar Creek Wind Farm, LLC.  A joint venture between Babcock & Brown (Austrailia) and BP Alternative Energy (GB).  Contrary to local myth,

McF Studios Gallery

If any of you are traveling outside this blog's bounding box you may have found the McF Studios front page, and from there perhaps you dove into the Image Galleries link.  About a month ago that would have landed you on the doorstep of my reseller.  Then, as if planned, a week ago, you may have seen a 404 style error page.  Hmm...  I won't get into the particulars, but that situation didn't make me very happy.  Whose fault it was isn't important, but since this is my business and my name it's ultimately my fault that the link suddenly didn't work.

The New Gallery Page at mcfstudios.com

It works now, but you will no longer be taken to a reseller.  Instead you are presented with a gallery of my photographs.  These are all taken very near my home of Fort Collins, CO.  I think they are some of my best work.  Please take a minute to enjoy.  Web based print sales will return, until then if you'd like to purchase a print, please drop us a line at contact@mcfstudios.com.

Thank you, have a pleasant weekend.

-r.
P.S.  It's a flash based gallery, so it won't work on your iPad.  I'm working to rectify this, but it may take a few weeks.

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.

Thought Weeds

I'm very intrested in the sun, have a look though my portfolio and you'll notice a prominent solar motif.  It kind of makes sense, to me, since we have over 300 days of sun in this part of the world.  There's not much to block the sun, either.  Well, not out on the Front Range, you have to head into the mountains or move back to the wasteland East of the Mississippi.  So, when the sun is out and you're out in it, you become very aware of it.  Rambling logic is my speciality (exactly how it sounds in my head).
The point is, when I choose to include the sun in an image, I try to present it in the way I perceived it.  Here, I was ankle deep in mud and looking for interesting high contrast patterns, but constantly fighting the sun to see any detail.  It would be perfect to hear that people are squinting while looking at this image. And, maybe I should start taking bets on what gets a blind spot first... me or my D3?

One Hundred!

Today is my one hundredth post!  Glad it's a happy colourful image.  Finally put the studio back together and got most everything plugged in again.  The new layout didn't come together the way I wanted, but it's certainly better.  Feels good to be back to work!
Saw this tree the other day after I had pack up to hike back tot he Jeep.  The sunlight in the leaves and all those colours, I had to stop and shoot more!  Who could give this up?  Yellow, green, red, blue... what'd I miss?  Pretty sure if it's a colour it's in the photograph... gonna be a pain to get this one printed correctly.

In Eddies Gone By

Yikes!!! It's Tuesday morning, again, already!  Yesterday I decided to tear my studio apart in order to add some much needed insulation.  (Wonder how the apartment complex would feel about that?)  This turned into a bigger project that originally envisioned.  As is my style, after disconnecting my computers, then moving my desks, I started to see new ways of arranging the work area to create a more efficient space in a comfortable environment.  Well begun is half done, but I have a feeling I'm creating a backlog of work for myself.  So, let's call it an experiment.  If I commit enough time to make the space more efficient, I should be able to gain some of that time back, right?  Hmm... seems specious at best.

Today's photograph is a shining example of how a little extra energy can make a lasting impression.  This creek bed is long since dry, but the eddy pools left deep scars that provided a little needed contrast to the environment.  If you dig deep enough here, you may just find water, probably not enough for a human, but the lizards and insects and anything with roots can find a full bounty of moisture.
The blog may be sketchy for the rest of the week.  I'll do my best to post at my regular schedule, but that will depend on how deep the hole I'm digging gets!

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)