Look at the size of that softbox!

Got a new AlienBees B400 and a giant softbox. Just testing it out quickly in the living room after taking it out of the box.

Autumn In Rocky Mountain N.P.

Autumn In Rocky Mountain National Park

It's really too bad that the day I went to RMNP to shoot fall colors turned out to be really cold and overcast. We took a ride up Trail Ridge Road (12,500 feet high!) and it was snowing on us.

Still, the colors were amazing!

Sunset

Just another mundane sunset.

Yeah right. I love sunsets in Colorado.

Happy Fall!

Halloween is gone, but the colorful photographs remain! Happy fall!

Defending The Ladies

A male elk defends his ladies from a rival male. Taken in Rocky Mountain National Park.

More Autumn Colors

I shot this tree in the early morning hours on my way to work a while back. What you see in the foreground is a hay field, crops surrounding me on all sides. If you're from to the area, Ted's Place is just to the right of the frame.

Autumn Colors And Fog

I made this photo in the early morning hours in Poudre Canyon a couple weeks ago. I really love this time of year.

Autumn Colors in Rocky Mountain National Park

Taken at Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The trip to RMNP was mostly shot thanks to the weather. I really wanted gold trees with blue skies, but the heavy clouds and rain wasn't all bad.

Poudre Fog

A couple of days ago I walked outside to go to work and found this really cool patch of fog nestled in an offshoot from Poudre Canyon.

The house you see is our next door neighbor, a few hundred yards away. They supposedly only visit this cabin once a year for a week while on vacation. In the ten months I've been living here, I've yet to see them.

Fork In The Road

Literally. It was in the road.

Chromed Engine

Taken at a car show in Fort Collins in June. That's quite an engine.

Steam

This is the road in front of my home. It was raining and the sun came out, causing steam to rise above the road. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't do justice to how it really looked.

Sushi!

Back in June we started making sushi at home. Pictured here is a plate of salmon and tuna nigiri.

YUM

Blue Fuzzy

Just a fuzzy stem thingy I saw at the Spring Creek Gardens in Fort Collins.

Little Bull

A young bull, high up in State Forest State Park, CO. Notice the fluffy fur on him. That's thanks to our 10,000 foot elevation.

Gold Rush Time

I'm excited to be making plans to head into Rocky Mountain National Park tomorrow. I've been meaning to head into the park to view and photograph the "Gold Rush". At this time of year, all the aspen trees are bright gold before losing their leaves.

Life keeps getting in the way though, and this is my last chance to see and photograph the trees before the leaves fall and the snow starts dumping in a few weeks.

The shot above was taken in the park one year ago this week. We were here on an exploration trip, deciding whether we wanted to move here from Texas or not. A year later, we're glad we did.

Needles

I snagged this shot of some pine needles on the recent photowalk through Fort Collins.

No uranium mining in Colorado

There is a proposal to open a uranium mine in northern Colorado. Lots of residents are up in arms, and I see these bumper stickers all over.

The Snow Is Coming

With winter looming near, I've been finding my mind drifting off, thinking about the upcoming snow and all the wonderful photographic opportunities that await. Not to mention the snowshoeing.

I took this shot of the Poudre River last winter, shortly after moving to Colorado. This was shortly after the river unfroze and started flowing again.

Hay In June

I happened upon this field back in June and thought the hay bales looked cool spotted in the field.

Angles

Lots of angles in this shot. Taken in the alleyway behind Enzios Restaurant on the Fort Collins group photowalk.

Oh Lensbaby

I got to play with a Lensbaby 2G on our Fort Collins photowalk. I had fun with it.

Easy Street

A sign for Odell Brewery's Easy Street Wheat, one of Fort Collins' finest.

From the Fort Collins group photowalk Sept. 13th, 2008.

Coopersmith's Conical Fermenter

This is an abstract shot of one of Coopersmith's Pub & Brewery's big metal conical fermenters. It's placed outside for all to view.

Fort Collins Group Photowalk Slide Show

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

I've created a slide show from all the keepers I took during the Sept. 13th group photowalk.

Magic Hour

On Saturday, I led the Fort Collins Flickr group on a group photowalk. We had a blast! About two dozen people showed up, and the photos are starting to trickle in from the day.

This is a shot I got in a back alley. I warmed up the tones slightly to make it look a little more "magic houry".

An Awesome Place To Graze

Captured in State Forest State Park, CO, near Cameron Pass. All the cows up here are really fluffy, as we're at about 10,000 feet elevation.

Sunset At The Cabin

A few nights ago, I decided to take a couple photos of my wife and son in front of our home, a really great log cabin.

But I didn't want to just do any old photo, I wanted it to be a sunset photo, taken during "magic hour". The trouble was, by the time dinner was done, it was dark outside.

So what to do? Why not just make it sunset using flashes. I took my Canon 430EX speedlight, strapped on a full CTO gel, and put it out in the yard about 30 feet. This washed the whole front of the house in hard, orange light. That's pretty much it. Instant sunset.

Self Portrait

Funny thing, I'm about as unserious a guy as they come. But boy do I look serious in this self portrait. Red too :-)

Lit with a Canon 430EX camera left, gelled full CTO. A Vivitar 285HV, snooted, ungelled camera right, pointing just at my face.

Mom and Baby Moose

This was mommy and baby moose, hanging out about 20 feet behind daddy moose (see below).

Click the photo to go to Flickr and see notes where baby is hiding.

Bull Moose

A bull moose in State Forest State Park at Cameron Pass.

Seen from the road with his lady moose and their baby. They were about 100 yards out, and I caught this with a 300mm focal length. Tried to get mom and baby, but they were hiding pretty well in the brush.

Spring Canyon Fountain

Spring Canyon Park in Fort Collins has to be the coolest park ever! I wish I had something like this when I was a kid. This is my son's favorite place to go.

Included at the playground is a really cool splash park. One hot summer afternoon a few weeks ago, we took our son to the splash park. I saw this colorful fountain and had to get a shot of it against the blue sky.

Farm

I'm really into rundown, abandoned structures. This farm in Bellvue has caught my eye many times, and I finally got a chance to stop off and snag a photo.

Tires

Seriously, what's with the tires in the water?

Kids

We did a family portrait session on Friday afternoon. The two kids were just too cute.

We had never done a session at Gateway Park in Poudre Canyon. It was an awesome place to do family portraits.

Bio Dome

This old abandoned dome reminds me of one of those "bio dome" projects where they try to create a self sufficient ecology.

Fire In The Skies

Two nights ago, I looked outside to see the most amazing sunset I've seen in several years.

This was from my front porch on August 27th. I've rarely seen skies like this. HDR from 3 RAW files with Photomatix.

It should be noted that while this photo is quite saturated thanks to the HDR, this is how it really looked to the naked eye that night.

More Thoughts On Giving Away Photos

Irene chimed in yesterday to my post about giving away all my photos for free:

"Hi! I just recently found your blog. I am an aspiring photographer and I find your photos amazing and inspiring!

I also found this post very interesting. I have read so about so many others who cover their photos with huge watermarks, include stern warnings about NOT using their photos and refuse to enable the "all sizes" on Flickr for fear of a photo being used.

I have opted for the less fearful option (and I am not sure who would want my photos anyway). I never use watermarks, I never include warnings and I allow "all sizes".

In my limited experience, it also seems that often the less talented photographer is the one most fearful. Can you give me some more information on why you choose to encourage your photos to be used, even without your permission?

Thanks so much!"

Thanks for the comment Irene. Allow me to elaborate a bit.

We live in a world where anything and everything is available on the web...usually for free. It is expected that you can get whatever you want for free, including photos. So if someone sees a use for one of my photos, they're probably going to just use it, copyrights be damned.

It used to bother me a little bit. Not anymore. Let's take the truck photo above for example. I will more than likely never make any money off it. Joe Blogger might have some use for it on a blog post, but he's not willing to pay for it. He'll either steal it or move on. Why not just let him use it? At least this way he'll credit me for the photo (most likely).

I take photos for my own enjoyment. But I also want to share them with the world. Why take photos no one will see? After all, this is why I created Photowalking Colorado, so I could show my images to the world.

Besides, though I won't make any money on the photos now, what happens if this blog becomes really popular, thanks to all the links back to it through use of the photos? What happens when thanks to all that extra traffic, some marketing guy sees a photo that they really want to use in an ad? More than likely that company won't just rip off the photo (since there's a no commercial license on them). They'll contact me, and pay me for the use. Whoa, now I'm making money by giving stuff away for free. Or even better, what if said company decides to commission me to do some photography work for them based on what they see? Oh yeah.

I'm not saying that will happen, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities. There are a handful of photobloggers out there making a little extra change on their photos for two reasons. First, they take great photos that people like. Second, they give them away, thus making them more popular and increasing the "foot traffic" on their images, leading to sales.

Now of course there are some photos that don't get the ol' Creative Commons license. For example, I would never give away the licenses for my portrait sessions. Otherwise my clients would just run off and take the photos to Sam's Club. Nah, that's part of my living.

It's interesting that you mention that the amateurs are usually those who most fear stolen photos. But it's odd that those are the same people least likely to sell any photos to begin with. You have to be a better business person than a photographer to go anywhere with your photography.

So there you have it. This is why I give photos away for free.

Spring Canyon Drops

Taken at the splash park at Spring Canyon Park in Fort Collins, CO.

I took this shot of the water coming out of a fountain from about 40 feet away using a 300mm lens.

ABC Reporter Arrested For Doing His Job

This story is going to create quite the firestorm, and I hope it does.

An ABC News producer was arrested today while filming in Denver near the Democratic National Convention. Video goodness is included, and you can clearly see the cops on a power trip.

I hope the cops involved lose their jobs (though they probably won't). As a photowalker, I take police power trips personally. Photographers aren't criminals, but are routinely treated that way on a daily basis by police the world over, and increasingly in the U.S.

Thanks to Thomas Hawk for bringing this one to my attention. I recommend you head over to Thomas' post and Digg it to get some attention on this story.

Want To Use A Photo? Take It!

Need a photo for a blog post? Or an article? Or whatever? If one of my photos fits your purposes, take it! I have all photos in my Flickr photostream marked with a Creative Commons license. What that means is that if you want to use one of my photos, you're free to do so. You owe me nothing other than to put my name next to the photo. Of course I would love to get a quick email letting me know that you used a photo, just so I can check it out. But it's not required.

To get different sizes of a photo on Flickr, go to the photo page. Then click the button labeled "All Sizes" above the photo. You'll find the HTML code for each size on that page.

So, need a photo? Take it!

Cows

A couple of months ago, ranchers at the entrance to Poudre Canyon started letting their cows roam into the canyon. They hang out, eat grass, wade in the river, and poop on the road and on people property. One cow even suffered a horrible fate after "meeting" a nice unsuspecting driver a while back in the middle of the night.

This shot is one of my neighbor's houses, a full eight miles from where the cows call home. My house is about 500 feet up, and I look down on their roof. One day I look down, hear mooing, and decided to go take a look. There were about ten cows down there, all pooping nonstop.

Watch your step.

Old Town Fort Collins Photowalk - September 13th

I'll be hosting a photowalk in Fort Collins on September 13th in Old Town. Come join me for some fun, meet other photographers, and take cool photos!

We'll be meeting at the "Running Man" statue on Mountain Ave. at 4:00 PM. To see a discussion thread on the topic on the Fort Collins Flickr group, go here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/ftcollins/discuss/72157606456347548/

To see a map of the route:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2132561

Hope to see you there!

Ew....Bear Poop

A local black bear has been roaming the neighborhood looking for tasty snacks in the middle of the night. This here is what was left behind after he went through and thoroughly destroyed a neighbor's dumpster at the bottom of my driveway.

The trash company recently replaced the dumpster with one that has no top, thus attracting the bear over and over. Hopefully this doesn't lead to yet another destroyed bear due to human activity.

As you can see, I ran over said poop after making this photo.

Anadarko Lighting Diagram

I realize that when you see a shot without seeing the setup, it can be hard to visualize how it was done. So here's a diagram to show how the lighting was set up for the Anadarko Industries employee photos (example below).

The camera was about 15 feet from the subject, set to 70mm with a shutter speed of 1/250th to kill the ambient. Aperture was set to 6.3 to throw that background a little out of focus. This also let me choose a low power on the flashes to use less juice and recycle quickly.

The key light was a Canon 430EX set to 1/4 power, and shooting through a translucent umbrella. I feathered the light forward to soften it and direct a good portion of the light across the subject and onto the reflector.

The gold reflector bounced the light back into the shadow areas and warmed it up, giving the subjects a nice glow.

The background light was a Vivitar 285HV, set to 1/16th power and zoomed out all the way to give a tight light pattern. I was up about 8 feet off the ground, and placed about 6 inches from the wall. The light was pointing down at about 45 degrees. This made the light sort of "skip" or "scrape" down that wall, adding lots of shadow to the rugged stone. Had I pointed the light straight at the wall from a distance, it would have come out looking flat and lack interest and shadow.picked

This was a very quick throw together shot. I got to the hotel about ten minutes before the employees, picked the spot in about a minute, and threw everything up in a hurry. Two test shots to get the lighting nailed and I was off and running. Bang bang bang, 30 people in about ten minutes.

It was fun!

Anadarko

Not so much a photowalking photo, but a photo in Colorado nonetheless.

I took the photos of all 30 of Anadarko Industries' employees in Fort Collins, CO. Taken at the Hilton on Prospect.

Those around Fort Collins have probably seen this guy. He wears a kilt every day. With a purple shirt on some days it seems.

Canon 430EX in a translucent umbrella to camera right. Gold reflector to camera left to warm things up. Vivitar 285HV camera left, up high, and scraping down that back wall to add a little something interesting.

Lugs

Man I really dug those big dump trucks. This is a close up shot of one of the wheels' lugs. Each wheel had to have about 90 of them.

Poudre Ram

I took this shot of my truck back in June. This is somewhere along the Poudre River.

Cheyenne Boots

These big old boots sit in front of the Union Pacific rail depot in Cheyenne. This boot has all the governors of Wyoming.

Cheyenne is one very western town. Cowboy hats galore.

The New US Forest Service Mascot

I work at the U.S. Forest Service in Fort Collins. This stuffed animal has taken on a life of it's own. It moves, seemingly on it's own. Every couple of days it shows up in another part of the building, in some silly position. No one knows who does it. Most assume it's me (though it's not).

On this particular day, the sheer creativity of the person who moved the animal warranted a photo.

Good on ya, stuffed animal mover guy.

Another Shot Hits Flickr Explore

I just found out another of my photos has hit Flickr's Explore page.