Physsaria bellii

Bell's twinpod (Physsaria bellii) is endemic to certain limestone and shale ridges in Larimer, Boulder and Jefferson counties in Colorado, USA.  It's just begun to bloom, the characteristic seed pods will be along soon enough.

Blue Hour Composition

Let's start the week off with a calm moment.

This photograph was made during the blue hour before dawn in a hard blowing wind.  In the presence of all that turbulence the surface of the water was chaotic and this pattern of rocks was lost in the texture.  But a good long patient exposure of five seconds was enough to clarify the moment.  Maybe this is a lesson that can be applied somewhere else.

For the first time on this blog, I'm making an image available as a free wallpaper.  Maybe I will do this on a regularly scheduled basis.  The above photograph can be downloaded here, sized 2530x1600 so it'll fit anything you want it to, enjoy.

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.

Madame, I'm Death

An example of the pitch tubes that have become the all-to-grim calling card of Dendroctonus ponderosae. Much of North America is affected by this infestation, and great swaths of forest are filled with dead trees.  But the forests were dying anyway, and the beetles are just as opportunistic as any greedy human industry or corporation.  At least, this is as natural an act as could have happened.  When I cautiously walk in the ravaged forest, I am grateful to have known it's company, to have shared it's life and death.  I hope to share it's rebirth and know it anew.

Wind, Stars & Sandthrax

On the last night of an eight day camp in central Utah, I got the camera out to celebrate the only cloud free and windless night of the trip.  I'm pretty tough on my gear, but 70 knot guts of sand are a bit outside my tolerance.  Photography was (at most) a tertiary purpose for the trip, so the wind wasn't a huge problem, just an inconvience.  As a precaution, I used the little hook on the bottom of my tripod to set a guy rope on a sand stake as an anchor and then stood very anxiously by with a large trash bag in case the wind storms that plagued us returned.  My nerves could only handle the hour and a half it took to collect these images.
Greater background illumination via half moon in the west, full tree illumination was arranged by a gigantic campfire.  The shapes of the cottonwoods silhouetted against the sky piqued my initial interest, but in the end the warm orange light against the blue sky was too much to resist.

Away

When I was in art school, I had a several instructors that were not affraid of breaking or cutting your work apart.  This was a valuable lesson to me.  Often those professors would hand the severed piece back to the student with the quote "this part is very good, do more like this and less like that".  What I took from this, was if the idea you are chasing doesn't manifest, you may have to abandon it in favour of something better.  In this case, I was chasing that huge moon, but clouds and serious wind weren't going to let me catch that idea.  This combined with my frenetic response to shooting with other people around gave the night a very charged ambiance. After a couple of test shots, this idea popped in my head.  {single exposure, ISO200, f/8, 30sec - if you can barely see the red-orange in the lower frame your screen is too dark, if you cannot see thin line of the spinning windmill it may be too bright, about midway seems just right on my screen}

Along the Salt Lick

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

Foot Bridge to the Moon

Scouting for the Perigee, I saw the little bugger rising at what I thought was about 45 minutes early!  Grrr...  Glad I was in a good spot to take advantage.

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.

Prairie Perigee

Doing the best I could, where I was, with what was there.  The tremendous amount of light and pollution gives this perigee moonrise the appearance of a  dark and gloomy sunrise.  Not exactly the image I was chasing, but an interesting result nonetheless.
{shot note: the little red lights at the base of this windmill are from a scourge of prairie herpes infecting unprotected tracts of land around the globe}

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.