Steinland

A scene from this year’s “Christkindl Market” in downtown Denver, Colorado — shelves of beer steins on sale at a vendor’s stall:

Steinland

Oddly enough, it was only on a recent trip that we discovered that while the word stein is German, this style of beer mugs is only called a stein in English-speaking countries.  Stein is an abbreviation of the German steingut (stoneware), the material they’re made of.  But in Germany, bierstein (“beer stone”) is the term used for a scaly deposit built up in poorly-cleaned brewing vessels.  A mug like one of these would be called a krug, or more properly a bierkrug.

So there’s your language lesson for the day, more about the “Christkindl Market” in subsequent posts.

Monet Pool Fiori

Another piece of art glass by Dale Chihuly (two pieces, actually), currently located in the Denver Botanic Gardens‘ Monet Pool:

Monet Pool Fiori

This arrangement is one that absolutely looks better at night.  In the daytime, you’re distracted by people and plants and benches behind the piece (from this vantage point).  At night, the lighting on the glasswork helps isolate it from what would otherwise be clutter.

EXIF info:
Oly 12-40mm f/2.8 lens at 21mm and f/4.5 on E-M1 camera
1/25 sec at ISO 1600

Blue Icicle Towers

For the next few months (through November), the Denver Botanic Gardens is hosting an exhibition (part of the Garden Cycle series) of glass art by Dale Chihuly.  When you first walk into the gardens, you’re greeted by this sight:

Blue Icicle Towers

It’s called Blue Icicle Towers, and is one of Chihuly’s new works.  Like most of his art, it’s neither small nor subtle — but it’s an eye-catcher and will leave you wondering just how he and his crew make everything.  More to come…

Just between us two

We’re still in that fortunate window of time in which our daughter isn’t quite old enough to think of the Stock Show as “uncool,” so we made it downtown for the Mexican Rodeo (now officially the “20th Mexican Rodeo Extravaganza”).  Unfortunately this means the show was longer-than-usual on extravaganza and shorter-than-usual on rodeo, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

Just between us two

With some fast glass, the Olympus OM-D E-M1 is proving itself to be quite the sports shooter.  Here, with a Panasonic 35-100 f/2.8 zoom, I captured an interesting mix of expressions on the horse’s and caballero’s faces.  It almost looks as though they’re in the middle of an argument — and given that this was part of the bucking bronc competition, I suppose you could say they were.

Frosty mirror

A few nights ago, we took advantage of a warmer night to check out the “Blossoms of Light” display at the Denver Botanic Gardens.  They put on a nice show, as always, and it hasn’t been as warm since — so, fortunate timing.

Frosty mirror

I took this shot toward the north end of the gardens; with the lens closed down to f/22, a nice long exposure erased the slow parade of other viewers along the path…

A different sort of last supper

The Denver Chalk Art Festival is always a colorful (if crowded) experience for photographers.  This year, it happened to coincide with the Denver Comic Con — so it was fitting that the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (RMCAD) contributed this work based on cartoon / sci-fi characters:

A different sort of last supper

One of the hallmarks of RMCAD art works is their use of reflectors to turn a curved artwork into something that is visually straight when seen from just the right angle.  If you look carefully, you can see the bottom edge of their reflector in the top third of the above image.

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Make a lovely face, Roxanne

In spite of fitful weather, we headed downtown yesterday for the 2012 Denver Chalk Art Festival. This was one of our favorites (reminds me of our kiddo’s response to a camera):

Make a lovely face, Roxanne

Normally the weather’s pretty cooperative by this time of year — it’s generally hot, but dry. This year, for some reason, we’ve had alternating hot & dry / cool & wet weather for the past few weeks. Saturday night, we got nailed by some fast-moving thunderstorms.

So most of the chalk artists lost Saturday’s work (in full or in part), and had to do major repairs on Sunday. Pretty impressive for a day’s work, I’d say…