I made this shot by attaching my camera to my tripod, and extending it as high as it would go. Then I got a focus, set the timer, and held the tripod as high as I could. The camera was about 15 feet off the ground for this shot. You can see that these huge trucks are still higher than that.
A couple of HUGE dump trucks I found sitting in a field. To give an idea of just how big these things are, one wheel is around eight feet tall. Notice the ladders to get to the drivers cab.
I processed this photo in LightRoom 2. This is not a HDR image.
On a high after riding the carousel, my son give me a big cheesy smile while hanging on a seal statue. If I remember correctly, this was right after he said "Birthday!" He was obsessed with his second birthday for a week.
The photo I took this past weekend at the Denver Zoo won first place in the Canon Blogger photo contest today.
Thanks to Jason for the contest! Congrats to the other winners. If you haven't yet checked out Jason's blog, give it a look.
This Airstream travel trailer is parked right next to my trailer at the storage yard in Fort Collins. I love Airstreams, I want one. Too bad they're so stinkin' expensive.
So I took this photo and uploaded it to Flickr on July 8th. It was well received by the Flickr community, and has continued to climb in terms of number of views. Then yesterday the number of views suddenly jumped, by over 200 views! The thing is, I can't figure out what happened. Did it end up on Explore? I just don't know.
Anyone have any ideas?
We took my son to the Denver Zoo this last Sunday to celebrate his second birthday. He got to ride the carousel with mom, grandma, and grandpa. I stayed behind to take photos. I got the idea to blur the whole thing, and here's what I ended up with.
My son is in the photo, somewhere.
A water shot I took back in June of the creek in Young Gulch, Poudre Canyon. My wife hiked this trail last week and told me this creek is now dry. Too bad, it's such a nice hike.
This is a pretty cool park down in south Fort Collins. Lots of dinosaur and prehistoric themes. There's also a Fossil Creek natural area, which I believe actually has fossils. I'll have to go over there and check it out.
I went to Edora Park in Fort Collins last week. I played a round of disc golf with a colleague at work. I ran across this unassuming war memorial right in the middle of the park. WWI, WWII, and the Korean War are represented here.
Another from my visit to Cheyenne. This was a trolley looking bus stopped at the Union Pacific railroad depot.
Having a photo or photos end up in Flickr's Explore seems to be a big deal among a lot of Flickrers. I recently saw a tool to find your photos in Explore, and tried it out. Amazingly to me, this photo was in Explore earlier this month. Cool!
So this isn't actually in Colorado, but hey.
Took the family up to Cheyenne, capitol of Wyoming yesterday. I went into this big western wear store called The Wrangler. Saw the cowboy hats on the wall and decided to snap off a shot.
Cheyenne is definitely a cowboy town.
A few ago, ranchers opened up Poudre Canyon to their cattle. There are electronic signs telling drivers to watch for cows on the road. I first came upon them before the signs went up, and nearly hit a few after coming around a corner.
Now it's kind of cool. I get to this area, slow down, and weave between the cows standing on the pavement. I moo at them out the window, they moo back, and I'm one with nature. Ha.
Mostly I just try not to get cow dung all over my truck's paint.
Just a fire hydrant in old town Fort Collins. In the background, you can see old town square, and that white blob is a statue, seen a few days ago here.
A few days ago I showed you some kids having fun on a fountain in the middle of Fort Collins.
Here's another view of that fountain.
Last week I saw this dumpster that had yellow paint on the sides. At the time I just took a photo, assuming it to be spilled paint on a dumpster. But then I started noticing the same thing on other objects around Fort Collins. Just yesterday I saw the same pattern on a door, and I could tell that the paint was deliberately poured along the top so it would drip down.
Someone is making "hidden" art all over Fort Collins. Cool.
There's this great play area in the middle of old town Fort Collins. Jets of water shoot out of holes in the ground about 15 feet away and land in this structure with a six inch diameter hole in it.
Ever since the weather warmed up, I haven't walked or driven by this spot without seeing some kids on the fountain, waiting to be pelted by a one inch thick jet of water.
I passed this beat up old abandoned home on a exploration drive around Fort Collins, CO. The shot below was taken inside this structure.
This old abandoned structure looks like it hasn't been lived in for 50 years or so. At least not by the owners. It appears this house in the middle of nowhere has been home to some squatters.
These lights hang above my stove and counter. Why the previous owners put these in I have no idea. I think they give the house a bordello feel.
Here's another shot I took a few weeks ago while hiking up Young Gulch in Poudre Canyon. That was a really gorgeous evening. The temperature was perfect, the light was getting low, and I ran into a biologist who was catching bats for radio tagging. It was an all around awesome evening.
This is a giant bent screw that's used to open and close a gate on a diversion dam in the Poudre River. This dam happens to be right in the middle of Fort Collins.
I watched this bee collect pollen from a stand of flowers for about five minutes. It really is fascinating when you just stop and look closely at what these amazing creatures do. Let's hope they stick around for a long time, we really need them.
I'm really enjoying macro photography. Maybe one day I'll get a real macro lens.
I wonder how long it will be before "Chicken Shit Bingo" gets that big record contract.
The Swing Station in Laporte, CO.
There's a really great dog park in Fort Collins. It's huge and has this nice big lake for the dogs to swim in. On one side is a raised concrete ledge about four feet off the water.
This dog was just too cute. His owner would throw a tennis ball, and he would leap off the ledge and into the water. I have a five shot sequence from this jump, but liked the shot of him just hitting the water best.
This chain link fence enclosed some electrical equipment at a local middle school. I lit only part of the fence using my Vivitar 285HV flash.
Saw this couple walking along these (very, very) active railroad tracks. Hard to tell from this photo, but these two are on a pretty long bridge over the Poudre River in Fort Collins, CO.
Me standing still, swinging a MagLite flashlight in a circle for 30 seconds.
I think this looks like the logo for the "O" Cirque du Soleil show.
While I was at Rolland Moore park (see next post below), I made an eight shot panoramic of the grassy area with the spruce tree. Stitched them together using Photoshop CS3.
There is a pretty non-descript park here in Fort Collins called Rolland Moore. A few basketball courts, a small lake, and some open grassy areas. I liked the way this Spruce tree looked out in the open grassy area, so I did a HDR of it.
There's construction work going on at home, and this tractor has been a resident for a few days.
Taken around 9 PM, there was still enough light to walk around. This was a 30 second exposure, and I lit the tractor with a very large and bright MagLite flashlight. I simply walked around it and shined the light all over it. That squiggle you see behind it is me, painting the back side as I walked.
I took a little time to do a HDR shot of Grey Rock. I think it works pretty well for the light I had that night.
I can't wait to go do this hike again.
This place looks like it has a lot of character. I wouldn't know, I haven't been inside yet. I'll get to it eventually.
I came across this odd looking flower pod bud thingy while going for some shots of the big birds (below).
This is the most awesome park I've ever seen! We take our two year old son here all the time. I love that Fort Collins takes it's parks and recreation areas seriously.
I love the look the guy on the left is giving me. Just kinda "What's with the dude with the camera?" Didn't think they even noticed me until I looked more closely at this shot today.
This bridge crosses the Poudre River to start the trail to Grey Rock. Little did I know when I crossed it that the next several miles would totally kick my ass as I boogied up the trail to beat the sunset. I lost, the nice light was gone when I got to the top.
The trail to Grey Rock is (understandably) the most heavily hiked trail in Poudre Canyon. I hiked it for the first time last night, starting the 3.6 mile trek around 8 PM. By the time I got to the top of the trail, it was around 9:30 PM, and the sun was just about gone. There was just enough light to grab a couple photos like this one.
The 45 minute hike down was done in complete darkness, just me and my companion, the flashlight.
