The Denver Botanical Gardens

Kathleen and I mad a trip to the Denver Botanical Gardens on Presidents day to take advantage of a free day.  The outside gardens were dry and there was not many green plants and no flowers.  This photo shows a typical outdoor shot.

However, inside the Green house there was a wonderful collection of orchids in various colors.  Here are a few samples and if you look closely at the first photo you will find a spider in the cavity of the flower.  I guess this makes a nice hunting ground for him.

And here are a couple more orchids:

All in all it was a nice day.  We met our 2 youngest children at the gardens and had lunch together  and discussed the beauty in the green house.  Kathleen photographed mostly out doors and found a lot of pattern shots.  A few are posted here, but she got into her artist zone and saw patterns everywhere.

We will revisit the trip later and may share a few more photos. 
Thanks for looking

Wild Birds at Red Rocks park

I went for a drive up to Red Rocks Park on Sunday 13th Feb 2011 to take a few photos of the red rocks after a recent snow.  There were a lot of bird feeding in the backyard of the visitors center.  I came across a couple of bird watchers who pointed out a couple of birds that were rare  in the Colorado mountain area. I was able to capture a couple of shot of these rare birds: 
The first was an Eastern Towhee.  

This birds habitat is  generally in the southeastern US east of the Mississippi River.
 The second was the Curved-bill Thrasher.

This birds usual habitat is in Arizona, new Mexico, Texas and northern Mexico
There were also a lot of the ubiquitous Western Scrub Jays.

These guys were all over the place and can be seen various place in the rocky mountain states.  
And in case you were wondering there was a little snow left at the park as seen in this photo:

It was a beautiful day with the temperature in the 60s and lots of sun shine, the snow was melting fast..  This is really amazing, since the previous Tuesday the high temp for the day was 2 degrees F.   The old saying 'if you don't like the weather in Denver, just wait 5 minutes'  was never more true then this week (smile).

2010 was a Very Good Year for Photography - Final Installment

Well November and December are quiet months on the photo calender lots of family get togethers for the holidays and such.  As I mentioned in an earlier post my Aunt Anna Mae had her 99th birthday on November 16, 2010.  She is amazing and still living on her own.

She told me that she still has her five marbles - translate; she has all her mental faculties.  My response was if she had five marbles then I must be down to 3.5!
The most exciting event during November was the finding of a huge hornet's nest in the tree next door.  I must be the size of a rugby ball and estimated to house 1500 to 2000 hornets.

My neighbor cut it down to my wife's dismay, she felt it should have been left alone because it looked like a beautiful sculpture.
I spent a lot of time In November at local lakes and ponds shooting geese and ducks.  This Mallard hen was very friendly and came right to the bank where I was sitting and posed for me.

The geese were not as accommodating and stayed a short distance away from shore.  They too did offer a few interesting poses; like this guy looking as if he is saying 'are you talking to me!,

And this guy swimming away from me and showing me her tail feathers.

I found this rabbit in our yard just watching us working on the back porch.  He seem to be as curious of us as I was of him.  He stayed in the yard long enough for me to go in and get my camera.

After I took a few shots he bolted into the bushes and disappeared.
In December I got a few shots of the lunar eclipse, here is one of the partial eclipse shots.  I did not get any good shot of the total eclipse because the front element of my zoom lens kept sliding down because I had to shoot almost straight up.

I have since purchased some masking tape and a right angle finder the Sigma and I think I am better prepared for the next eclipse.
To finish our photo journey for the year we went up to Heritage Square and to Red Rocks Park and took a few shots just because they are there and we needed to shot something!  I call this shot at Heritage Square my Kodachrome shot because of the vivid colors.

The final shot for this year is of the back area of the visitors center at Red Rocks park:

I like this area because of all the different shapes and contrasts and minute detail in the trees and shrubs.  I think this will be one of the first areas I will use to test the resolution of the SD1 in 2011 (wishing thinking). 
This winds up my review of our photo activities in 2010.  For the coming year I plan to keep an on going journal in this blog of our activities and trips so that 2011 will be documented as we travel through the year.
Happy New Year everyone and good shooting!

2010 was a Very Good Year for Photography - Part 3

The saga continues with my friend Jeff (a panorama photographer, shooting a round shot camera using 120 film) and me making a trip to the Indian Peak Wilderness area and photographing several of the lakes in the area.  Our favorite is the Red Rocks Lake shown in the early morning with rocks and lily pads in the foreground and the Indian Peaks in the background, and a pristine reflection in the lake:

We also spent some time on this trip hiking around Long lake looking for wild flowers and nice views of the Indian Peaks over looking the lake.  The wind was blowing fairly hard, so we did not get the reflections we were looking for.  A very nice view in any case:

After spending the morning hiking and shooting photos, we retreated to Boulder, CO and had our lunch at a Brewing company that serves it own micro brew and a mean chicken fried steak with garlic potatoes.  I sometime think the photo excursion is just an excuse to enjoy this great lunch and beer ;O).
Kathleen and I started out in early October to get some aspen photos above Central City (an old mining town).  Kathleen's shot illustrates why the locals call the aspen in yellow leaves 'Colorado Gold':

We found lots of aspen in the hill above Central City, but found our best shots in the city itself.  Kathleen grabbed this shot of a mining cart turned flower pot at the gateway to Central City I think as a memento to the mining heritage of the area:

I spent time photographing the old town buildings and exploring some of the remaining history.  I have shots from the 70s and 80s, before the gambling interest took over, and they show a very different atmosphere in the town.  I may some day print some of those old shots as a history of the area.  This shot of the main street of Central City stood out for me because of the odd cloud structure:

In late October I took Kathleen to Colorado Springs and a visit to the Garden of the Gods park.  We stopped at the visitors center at the east gateway to the park and took this photo showing the entrance to the  park and Pikes Peak in the background:

We drove into the park and took hundreds of shots.  The day was perfect and light great and in every direction we turned there were great and colorful photos.

We worked our way to the south end of the park and went to the visitors center there and then went to balanced rock, one of the icon of the park:

As you can see the light was great with wispy clouds in the sky.  All in all it was a great day.  We walked our legs off and still had enough energy to smile.  To finish the day I took Kathleen (myself as well) to a restaurant in Manatu Springs called Mona Lisa Fondue.  The ambiance and great food provided a perfect way to end what turn out to be a perfect photo outing ;O).

2010 was a Very Good Year for Photography - Part 2

 More details on the saga of 2010 as Kathleen and I move through the year and show the results of some of our photo efforts.  Spring is a good time to find good photo ops.  This year we got a lot of bird shots during the spring and early summer.  Denver city park has a great nesting area for snowy egrets, night herons and cormorants.  There must be between 50 and 100 nest at the site.  Kathleen said it did not right to be sitting on a park bench shooting photos of these birds, that we should be up to our waist in water and mud at a minimum. I said OK you are right, but I will take these condition when I can get them.

This snowy egret really posed nicely for us.  Also this spring we had a lot of American white pelicans in our local lakes and were able go get some nice shots.

We had a very good year for birds, shooting several different species of ducks, a lot of Canadian geese, Great blue heron, cormorants, and night heron.  We found a blue heron rookery with about 12 nests and made a few visits to see the young herons develop.  That is quite a sight.  Here is a photo of 3 heron chicks calling mom for food.

The amazing thing is how many different birds could be found in our local lakes and ponds.  Here is a juvenile cormorant sitting in a tree at a local lake.

As you can see we had a great spring and as summer rolled around our photo luck continued.  We found a huge field of sunflowers on the way to Fort Collins and stopped to grab a few shots.  The field of sunflowers was set against a backdrop of the mountains and was an awesome sea of yellow.

The summer months were great.  We visited our son, Bob, in Meeker, CO.  He took us for a ride to a spot near Rangely, CO and showed us some wild horses.  It is real exciting to see these majestic animals in the wild.

During the summer and early fall we took trips to Rocky Mountain National Park where we saw a lot of elk and marmots.  The large bull elk were in velvet and truly a majestic sight.

We took a ride into South Park in early fall to look at aspen and see if the color was good.  The color was fair, but more interesting was this horse in a field just outside of Jefferson, CO.  He just stood in one place and posed for me for several minutes until he got tired of me and trotted off.

This is the end of this session.  The thread will be continued in part 3, Coming Soon.

2010 was a Very Good Year for Photography - Part 1

Kathleen and I have a great year in 2010 and produced a lot of photographs.  In January we heard about a Snowy Owl spotted in El Paso County (the first in 67 years).  So we naturally headed down there to see if we could find the critter.  We did and were rewarded with the following photo.

 

Needless to say we were ecstatic to see this majestic animal up close and as you see in an urban environment. In early February we traveled to Breckenridge, CO to the Snow Sculpture competition and were treated to some amazing pieces of art work.  Here is one sample: 

The weather was unseasonable warn and the some of the works were melting as we watched.  I think we will try to get up there again this year.  The highlight of the year was a road trip in early March to California to pick up our daughter Joanna, who had just arrived back from 2 years in India working with the urban poor.  On the way out to California we stopped at the Basque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and captured a few photos of Sand-hill Cranes and Snow Geese. 

There were not many cranes left at the refuge in early March (maybe 200), but this guy was right next to the road and really posed for us.  A few minutes later we were standing near a small pond where we had earlier seen a group of snow geese.  They were gone and I was upset that I had not stopped and grabbed a few photo when we had seen them earlier.  Then I heard this loud noise in the sky and looked us and saw a couple hundred snow geese circling just above us.  I got so excited I just started to point the camera in their direction and shooting.  Words can not describe the feeling at that moment and it is amazing that I got any photos in focus.

We definitely plan to return to the Basque, hopefully early this year, when there are thousands of birds wintering there.
We had a nice visit with my family in California and was treated to a surprise birthday party for my twin brother.  After all the festivities we started our trip back to Colorado.  Our first stop was at the mission at San Juan Capistrano.  What a beautiful old structure (some of which is being restored).  I was truly amazed at the craftsmanship of the native Americans who did most of the work on the early missions.

We spent several hours at the mission touring the grounds taking photos and learning about early American history before the arrival of the Pilgrams.  From there we headed to Arizona and a visit to the "Pearl of the Desert" or the mission just south of Tucson: San Xavier del Bac.  This is an absolutely beautiful mission (photographed by Ansel Adams in the 1930s) and was in the process of being restored.  It is a magnificent structure:

Kathleen is caught here photographing the front on the mission.  The left tower is completely restore and work is on going on the right tower.  The sanctuary in the chapel was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen and I will have to go back with my tripod and capture the interior.
Our next stop was at the Saguaro National Park.  This stop was not planned, we were driving down the highway and saw a sign the said SNP exit ahead.  We turn off and headed to the park and am I glad we did.  Here is a photo of Kathleen and Joanna looking at one of these giant cactus.

These are the largest and oldest cactus in the US, they can be 3-400 years old, grow to 40 feet tall and weight several hundred tons (mainly water).  This park was full of these cacti and other desert plants.  This photo shows just a small part of the Park.

If you are ever in this area, this is definitely a must see place.  There is a road through the park and numerous hiking trails (just beware of rattle snakes in the summer).  From here we headed home to Colorado.
[TO BE CONTINUED]

Adding Some of Kathleen's Photos to Web Site

I just finished scanning a few of Kathleen's beautiful slides and added them to the web site at photo1unlimited.com.  We will be adding more of Kathleen's work as I have time to do more scanning and selecting frame from her digital efforts.  Here are a couple of teaser shot to give you a flavor of her artistic skills.  The first is a photo of a group of cottonwood trees at the Colorado Great Sanddunes.

 The second photo is a beautiful shot of the Great Teton mountains framed with an old pine tree.

Come on over to our web site to see additional examples of Kathleen's work.  I have also added a few more of my photos to the site.  If the weather cooperates, we have a few trips planned for after the first of the year that will provide more photographic opportunities.  We will blog the results of these trips.

Check back often and see what's cooking in the Douglas Darkroom.