Found at the junction of a secondary cave passage and a surface vent in total darkness with good air flow. Female (left) is sitting in her web. Male (right) photographed while moving. The abdomen of each specimen is approximately 8mm.
Maybe spiders aren't the christmas present you hope for, but Santa knows me pretty well.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Hypochilus bonneti - Pair
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Dancing Orbs of Light
These lights were part of a commercial christmas display but are in their own right part of a large art installation on the grounds. They are constructed with filaments of fiber optics threaded through rods and into ploy-carbonate globes. The lighting was actively changing colour and intensity, so the act of photographing them was similar to playing a game with a spastic child! Great Fun!
Monday, December 17, 2012
How do you Hoodoo?
...and then I found out that I live near a large collection of hoodoos! Holy crap... hoodoos!
The following day the road closed due to adverse conditions and may not open until spring-ish. Grrr....
Saturday, December 15, 2012
FCIR Study-5
I did a kind of "lollipop" hike around this formation photographing as I went. When I think of infrared photos, I see inky black skies, white glowy foliage. Out here in the desert, we have lots of sky, but not so much foliage. Capturing the striations in this hill was a complete surprise, to me anyway. Normally the skies aren't so cluttered with contrails, and normally I don't shoot when they are, but here again, just going out for an experiment was a lucky and fortuitous endeavor.
Happy Friday!
Christmas Star Trails
A different kind of star trail today. This season is full of low hanging fruit that's ripe for the picking. Not bad for a handheld spur of the moment JPG with the little point & shoot.
Cheers!
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Cache Cabin
The interior of this shelter is incredibly small. Can't imagine what the original purpose might have been. A great find nonetheless!
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
FCIR Study-3
Still in the backyard doing false colour infrared studies. Living on the edge of the desert watching the approach of winter probably wasn't the best time to catch the IR bug, but I'll be ready come spring!
Doing this slow, technical, deliberate, work has me thinking and looking more than shooting... What a joyful side-effect!
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
FCIR Study-2
One of my favorite discoveries in this area was this "nostril rock". Figured that I was making strangely coloured photos, so why not up the oddness a bit. This is another false coloured infrared photograph. The sepia toning is a characteristic of the filter I'm using as it allows a portion of the visible spectrum to pass as well as infrared light. The foliage is actually white or shades of grey, but an optical illusion is giving it the appearance of being slightly cyan. Kind of geeky and kind of cool, so I'm sticking with it for now. Composing a shot like this involves working through a nearly opaque filter, there's a lot of redundancy and note-taking involved. Not usually part of my MO - but strangely, I'm enjoying it very much.
Monday, November 26, 2012
FCIR Study-1
I dusted off an old camera to begin experimenting with infrared photos… again. It isn't very straightforward, and there is a huge learning curve. If you are the research type, you may shorten your experimentation, but my art school background demands I just continue to fail until I succeed. Anyway, I went off into the backyard and started shooting. While trying to figure out how to develop a decent IR image, I discovered a method of conversion that produced this effect. Similar to a duotone, but with full RGB information. Kind of like the false colour thing and they seem interesting enough to share. Plenty more to come.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Flowers For Monday
The ethereal genus: Nymphaea.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Spring 2012 Cover of Rocky Mountain Caving!
Friday, November 2, 2012
Deadwood Gulch Scene 1
It happens a lot that I just stop along whatever road I'm traveling along and head into the forrest. Chasing a hunch or Sasquatch or flash of colour. That's the story for these three little cascades. Driving with the windows down I saw a small stream that sounds much bigger than it looked. (Riding with me as a passenger is pretty interesting, I'm told.) Of course we stopped and these were the reward for our curiosity.
Deadwood Gulch Scene 2
It happens a lot that I just stop along whatever road I'm traveling along and head into the forrest. Chasing a hunch or Sasquatch or flash of colour. That's the story for these three little cascades. Driving with the windows down I saw a small stream that sounds much bigger than it looked. (Riding with me as a passenger is pretty interesting, I'm told.) Of course we stopped and these were the reward for our curiosity.
Deadwood Gulch Scene 3
It happens a lot that I just stop along whatever road I'm traveling along and head into the forrest. Chasing a hunch or Sasquatch or flash of colour. That's the story for these three little cascades. Driving with the windows down I saw a small stream that sounds much bigger than it looked. (Riding with me as a passenger is pretty interesting, I'm told.) Of course we stopped and these were the reward for our curiosity.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
In other news...
When we moved to Rifle, CO this year, we decided not to move the TV. So this table was no longer functional and being unfinished it was also kind of an eyesore. But no longer! Can't wait until is gets its first coffee cup ring.
Fifteen years is a long time... Guess I should have thrown that damn TV out sooner.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Rifle Arch
We hiked out to this formation on a whim. I'm just back from a long trip to sea level, so I need to get my lungs back in shape and the trail to this formation is 20 minutes from our house and a 40 minute uphill walk. We were completely surprised and spent an hour climbing all over the thing. You can bet I'll be making a lot of work from this location soon enough. What a great way to celebrate my home-coming!
Friday, September 7, 2012
Geoloeometry 2012
It took me five years to make this photograph.
In 2007, I meandered with the crowds carrying a camera store on my back and plopped the tripod down to begin scatter-gunning through exposures. Three shots looking up, one with a hint of the sun, which became a very good print. Staring at the print one day, I realized, I was not feeling the same thing as when standing under the formation. Good as the photograph was, something was very wrong.
A few years later, I returned with less gear, to make another version of the photo. My motivation was to get a better quality image of the same photo I shot before. However, the weather does what it wants, and that year a windstorm blew for three days leaving clouds of dust in a ruffled sky. I don't brave the crowds of our National Parks very often, so when I muster the courage make a plan I just push on ahead. The photograph from that year became about the texture of the rock and sky. A fun juxtaposition of rock and cloud seeming made of the same crunchy material, just a quirky fleeting thought.
Something nagged me back to this location again this year. A niggling urge to do a little better. I was very methodic, knew the season, time of day and even where to put my tripod feet. All I had to do was wait. This year I armed myself with the best piece of gear a photographer can have: a good friend with a deck of cards. We stayed for over two hours, enjoying the shade, watching the ebb and flow of crowds, listening to the wind. When the moment came, I made a few exposures. In the studio, I worked on making a good print. First in colour, as was the case with all the others. Then this one in monochrome. I don't do much black and white, so I've been "living with it" for several months to be sure.
So much of the area demands you look up. The scale of the canyons and arches can be overpowering, but the swirling wind and infinite hollow above are on a different scale. The sky in the desert is a vast and open wonder. It affects your hearing, knocking you off balance, and offers comfort in it's immensity. Under this formation I was greeted by playfulness, wonderment, and patience; they have been asking that I make their portrait.
In 2007, I meandered with the crowds carrying a camera store on my back and plopped the tripod down to begin scatter-gunning through exposures. Three shots looking up, one with a hint of the sun, which became a very good print. Staring at the print one day, I realized, I was not feeling the same thing as when standing under the formation. Good as the photograph was, something was very wrong.
A few years later, I returned with less gear, to make another version of the photo. My motivation was to get a better quality image of the same photo I shot before. However, the weather does what it wants, and that year a windstorm blew for three days leaving clouds of dust in a ruffled sky. I don't brave the crowds of our National Parks very often, so when I muster the courage make a plan I just push on ahead. The photograph from that year became about the texture of the rock and sky. A fun juxtaposition of rock and cloud seeming made of the same crunchy material, just a quirky fleeting thought.
Something nagged me back to this location again this year. A niggling urge to do a little better. I was very methodic, knew the season, time of day and even where to put my tripod feet. All I had to do was wait. This year I armed myself with the best piece of gear a photographer can have: a good friend with a deck of cards. We stayed for over two hours, enjoying the shade, watching the ebb and flow of crowds, listening to the wind. When the moment came, I made a few exposures. In the studio, I worked on making a good print. First in colour, as was the case with all the others. Then this one in monochrome. I don't do much black and white, so I've been "living with it" for several months to be sure.
So much of the area demands you look up. The scale of the canyons and arches can be overpowering, but the swirling wind and infinite hollow above are on a different scale. The sky in the desert is a vast and open wonder. It affects your hearing, knocking you off balance, and offers comfort in it's immensity. Under this formation I was greeted by playfulness, wonderment, and patience; they have been asking that I make their portrait.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Hematite Lake
Nope, not worth a step of the hike. Nothing to do up here. No cellular signal, no antiques shops, no salty fatty-food stands. Just a mineral leaden lake and the ever present alpine wind. It was about 80 degrees where I parked and still warm in the sun up here. Then the storm moved overhead and the temp dropped to about 50 in 12 seconds just before everything got very wet. You can see the effects of the wind on the lake surface, these mountain bowls are notorious for swirling winds. After playing around for a short while, I began the long and tedious walk back down to the land where shirt and shoes are always required.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
More Steep Than Most
I love being in the mountains. Unless you're new around here, this doesn't surprise you. I also prefer taking photos of places that aren't over photographed and this leads me to finding trails that most people avoid, for whatever reason. The reason this trail is underused is that it gains 2300 feet of elevation in 2 miles, roughly 8 inches up for every step forward. YIKES! This is another reason not to carry much gear. The entire day was filled with short bursts of rain, in this photo you can see the shadow of the next approaching shower falling over the distant valley.
Was it worth the effort...? I'll post that tomorrow.
Happy Walking!
Was it worth the effort...? I'll post that tomorrow.
Happy Walking!
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Karst Field
This is the kind of place I spend so much time in the mountains trying to find. Usually, when I do find them, a thunderstorm is building directly overhead. This day was no exception.
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