Scottsbluff road trip

I rode the motorcycle to Scottsbluff Nebraska to visit the National Monument there. I left Denver at 11am which was two hours later than I intended. I took I-76 east to Fort Morgan where I stopped for lunch. From Fort Morgan I took HW-52 north to HW-14, then HW-71 to Scottsbluff. I waited out a storm in Kimble Nebraska. The storm produced heavy rain, large hail and a tornado. Fortunately I got into Kimble before the storm arrived. The storm passed north of town and didn't cause any damage.

Wind turbine, HW-71, 24 miles south of Kimble, NE.

Scotts Bluff is an 800 foot tall sandstone out-crop on the west edge of the great planes in western Nebraska. It served as a prominent landmark for native americans, fur trappers, wagon trains and the poney express. The North Platte river flows along the north side directly beneath the bluff, and the Oregon Trail passed through Mitchell Pass directly beneath and south of the bluff. President Woodrow Wilson established the Scotts Bluff National Monument by proclamation on December 12, 1919. The Civilian Conservation Corps completed work on the tunnels and summit road in 1937.

Scotts Bluff

One of the tunnels on summit road

Scotts Bluff from summit

Dome Rock from summit of Scotts Bluff

Sentinel Rock with Oregon Trail below

From Scottsbluff I continued east to Torrington Wyoming where I joined US-85. I scarfed down a cheeseburger and fries in Cheyenne before joining the heavy traffic on I-25 back to Denver. In Denver I got rear-ended while waiting at a traffic light. Fortunately I didn't get hurt and there wasn't any damage so I accepted his apology and we went our separate ways. I think he was fully stopped and let up on the brake just enough to tap the rear of the bike.

It was 9:20pm when I got back to the apartment. The trip took 10 hours and covered 432 miles.

I'm a little disappointed in these photos. Maybe it's just me but I think the color sucks in most of them.

Thomas "Jay" LaOrange

Thomas "Jay" LaOrange
May 28, 1958 - September 22, 1990

I miss you little buddy.

Cherry Creek State Park

I rode the motorcycle to Cherry Creek State Park Sunday and hiked the wetlands trail loop at the south end. I took my big telephoto with me. I still have trouble handling it.

House Wren


Red Wing Black Bird (male)


Red Wing Black Bird (female)


White Pelican


A dramatic photo from Cherry Creek State Park

Grand Opening

I rode the motorcycle west on US285 early this morning to visit Colorado's newest state park on its grand opening day.

Staunton State Park has been 30 years in the making. Frances H. Staunton left the initial 1,720 acres to the state in her will; adjoining acreage was acquired over the years through land grants and funds from Great Outdoors Colorado. It is a beautiful park and one I will return to.

I went on one of the guided tours. The tour only covered a small portion of the park; that was a good thing because I was worn out by the time I got back.

Follow me.


Over the Hills and Far Away


The snow covered mountain in the distance is Pikes Peak
however, I may have heard her wrong.


Lions Head


I bought a commemorative pin
The color is off in this photo.

Backyard lamp

I picked up my little Olympus pocket camera and went walking around looking for interesting things to snap pictures of. I came back with a few interesting photos. I think this one is the most interesting of todays photos.

Blue Hi Contrast filter


Antique Light


Original

I Made This

I am not having a second childhood - I'm have a third childhood.

I made this using free Sketchbook Expres for iPad by AutoDesk Inc.  I worked really hard on this so I expect lots of kudos.

Urban Photography

I don't know if I should call this urban art or networking done right.


I guess it doesn't matter, I think it's a cool picture. I took this with my iPhone.

Rocky Mountain Wildlife Refuge

My first Photo/Art show

I just finished installing my first Photo/Art show at Mr. Lucky's Sandwiches, 711 East 6th Ave., Twelve of my photographs will be on display through the month of February. These are the same photos I used to make my calendar only larger and framed.

It wasn't a bad exercise

I spent an afternoon tramping around Washington Park yesterday. Besides enjoying the warm weather I wanted to exercise my photographer’s eye. I took my Canon XTi and 75-300 lens with me for some practice. It turned out my photographer’s eye wasn't the only thing that needed exercising.

This is what I saw.


This is what I got.


What went wrong here? Two things went wrong.

The camera has three different ways of measuring exposer. Evaluative metering is the camera's default metering method. Evaluative metering examines the entire frame and calculates an averages exposer; it is suitable for most photos. Partial metering is almost like spot metering; it calculates the exposer using only the center of the frame and is suitable for strong back lighting conditions. Center-weighted metering is a compromise between Partial metering and Evaluative metering; it uses the entire frame but places more emphasis on the center of the frame. Center-weighted metering is good for when the photographer wants to modify the exposer just a little using the exposer compensation dial.



I've had problems blowing out the sky in some of my pictures. I changed the metering mode to Partial metering (spot metering) thinking it would give me better control over the bright clouds. Changing the metering mode was a reasonable thing to do assuming I knew how to use it.

When you point the camera at a subject and press the shutter button halfway the automatic focus will engage and focus the lens. If you continue to hold the shutter button halfway down the camera will hold that focus setting while you re-compose your picture. My mistake was forgetting that the camera only holds the focus point and not the exposer setting. I would zoom in on my primary subject, press and hold, zoom out and re-compose. That works fine for auto focus but not for auto exposer.

To use the zoom press and hold technique for exposer metering I needed to also press the * button. It's not necessary to hold the * button in - just press it once with my thumb and it will hold the exposer setting for 4 seconds long enough to re-compose my shot.



I wasn't wrong to change the metering mode, though Center-weighted might have been a better choice, the problem was I didn't know how to use the advanced metering mode.

Having an interesting subject and a good composition is important, but knowing how to use my equipment is equally important. That's what practice is all about.

 

That's some good grass

Denver has had a stretch warm days so I've taken the motorcycle out a couple of times this week. Saturday I grabbed my camera and rode out to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. There were a lot of people visiting the refuge Saturday.

I didn't see a lot of wildlife. That's how it is - somedays you see a lot of wildlife and somedays you don't. The time of day makes a big difference too. I saw a lot of Bald Eagles but they were too far away to photograph. This Bison was right next to the road; she was more interested in the grass than she was us tourists.


It would have been a better picture if I waited for her to lift her head. oh well, live and learn.

The 31 days of December

A couple of people have encouraged me to publicly display some of my photos; maybe even sell some of them. I don't want to hassle with collecting sales tax, or mess with all the forms and legal stuff, so I don't plan to sell any of them (unless the price is right and we can do it without government supervision.)

A neighborhood restaurant displays local art work in their dinning room; it's usually a different local artist each month. They will let me display some of my photos in February.

I've selected the photos I plan to display and have had test prints made of a few of them. To keep the cost down I'm going to do the mounting myself. I plan to display them on matt board without frames.

On a whim I had calendars made from the photos. I'm sending one to each of my brothers, sister, Aunt, and have given one to several of my friends. I almost forgot to keep one for myself. The company I used is a little expensive, and there aren't any price breaks for larger quantities. I've found a different company for next time; they have good price breaks, the more you order the cheaper they get, and they offer more print & binding options.

The Great Watermark Project

I've been doing a lot of work in my photo library to make things more manageable. I'm making sure every photo has appropriate keyword tags, a descriptive title, and an informative caption field. I'm also renaming the picture files using a naming convention that will help to identify them if the library software is unavailable. Part of this project includes watermarking many of the photos I've uploaded. This has been really tedious and time consuming.

My watermarks aren't quite this obtrusive.

PS. I discovered that my Picasa photo albums are really disorganized. Since most of them are linked to Blog posts it will be a real chore to straighten them out.

Jupiter over moon

I was awestruck tonight to see the full moon with the planet jupiter just above it. Seeing the two, one above the other, like that is rare enough, but they were also encircled by a moonbow. I felt privileged to see such a sight. It took awhile but I finally got a half-way decent picture of them.

Changing seasons

Urban photography and pretty colors

My camera doesn't have a time-lapse function built into it, so I bought a gadget called an Interval Timer that lets me do time-lapse. I had to read the directions several times before I was able to capture this sequence on Halloween night. I programed the timer to take a picture every 10 seconds for 3 minutes. I used the Blend function in Photoshop to combine the pictures into a single photo. It's a real mess but I still think it's pretty cool. Now I know how to use the timer and am ready to make a time-lapse movie of the sunrise and sunset.

I ordered take-out from Brothers BBQ a few nights ago. The sun had just set and the lights were starting to come on when I went to pick-up my order. I looked over and noticed the neon sign hanging in the window. I used my cell phone to capture this photo.

A cold front swept across Colorado and coated Denver with a little snow; this was the same cold front that collided with hurricane Sandy a few days later. I was still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes when I noticed this shot.

I couldn't resist. I think the juxtaposition of the Private Parking sign and the outline made by the snow makes for a great photo.

Just about every artsy fartsy photography book has photos of streaking tail lights, and I wanted to make one for myself. I setup my tripod above the tunnel at 6th & Speer and took several shots between sunset and twilight. They all turned out but struck me as static and uninteresting. I took one of the better shots and cropped it way down to produce a more interesting photo.

They've been running a jackhammer while making repairs to the apartments underground parking garage. The sound reverberates through the entire building. I took a walk around City Park to get out and away from the noise. I took several shots of the Pavilion but really wanted a photo that wasn't a simple straight on shot. I think the bench in the foreground and the frame made by the trees makes this a more interesting photo.

Point and shoot

Sunday I went on a free tour of Riverside cemetery. I only took a couple of pictures, but I sure got sunburned. Tuesday I took my point and shoot camera with me on my morning walk. I let the camera do all the work while I concentrated on colors and shapes.

Riverside Cemetery

Fungus on a wall

Points on a fence

Gulf to Gulf on a Harley

I just returned from a motorcycle trip to the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California. The trip took me through seven states, two countries, and covered 4,408 miles.

Eight of us left Denver Sunday morning and arrived on Mustang Island TX. late Tuesday evening. Mustang Island is one of the barrier islands that guards Corpus Christi Bay. We stayed on the island at a rental cottage in Port Aransas TX. It was insufferably hot and humid.

We went to the beach Wednesday where I swam in the Gulf of Mexico! Late Thursday evening a friend and I rode our motorcycles on the beach; it was a little difficult but different and fun. The highlight of the Port Aransas trip was visiting the USS Lexington aircraft carrier anchored at Corpus Christi Texas. The Lexington was commissioned in 1943 and decommissioned in 1991; it is now a floating museum. I was able to tour the flight deck and the bridge, but didn't have time to tour the rest of the ship.

Saturday a friend and I set out for the Gulf of California. Along the way we visited Big Bend National Park TX., and spent a few days in Phoenix Arizona. Big Bend National Park has a lot to offer visitors, but it didn't make a big impression on me. We rode through South Mountain Park when we were in Phoenix.

Friday we took our passports and headed south to Mexico. We bought Mexican auto insurance before crossing the boarder; US auto insurance isn't any good in Mexico. We spent several days at Las Palomas in Puerto Peňasco, Sonora, Mexico. This was the first time I've been outside the United States, so crossing the boarder was the highlight of the Mexico trip! Swimming with a school of fish in the Sea of Cortez was another landmark event.

After returning to the USA Wednesday, we made a picture and shopping stop in Sedona Arizona. Thursday we rode east to Gallup NM. then north on US481 to Shiprock NM. This is very flat and barren land interrupted only by the occasional large rock formation jutting out of the ground. The largest of these stark rock formations is Ship Rock, the remnant of a 30 million year old volcanic eruption, rising 1,900 feet above the surrounding plane. We stopped for the night in Chama New Mexico.

The last day of the trip may have been the most challenging. I was almost run over by a steam locomotive in Antonito CO., we encountered a lengthy construction delay south of Fountain, a nasty washboard dirt road, heavy rain and hail at Monument, and stop-n-go traffic in Denver. It took three hours to travel from Fountain to my apartment.

The trip included two countries (USA, Mexico); seven states (Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora); lasted 20 days, and covered 4,407.8 miles (7,093.6 kilometers). It was a good trip in spite of the heat and humidity.