Some tiny little flowers I spotted during Doors Open Denver 2012, at the Governor’s Residence:
These were tiny little things (maybe 1/4″ across) and were located just off the side of a pathway — glad I spotted them!
Blue and green
Tag Archives: Denver
Gridded reflections
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is a fun place to skulk around in, should you ever be in town. Aside from all the great natural history material on display, the building itself has been added on to more times than I can count — leading to some interesting interior architecture.
I made this image in one of the building’s atriums (atria?), that once was a courtyard but since has been closed in and covered with a glass roof. Polished metallic wall tiles lead to interesting reflections and intersecting geometries.
Painter
If you’re about ready for a little break from all things Maya, here’s a shot from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science — it’s of a miniature carving (roughly 10″ tall) by Vasily Konovalenko titled “Painter:”
If you’re wondering why miniature sculpture is in a natural history museum, it’s because Konovalenko’s carvings are entirely made from gemstones. Here’s this little guy’s bill of materials from the placard:
Shoes: black jasper
Pants: jasper
Shirt: lapis
Apron: white jasper
Hat: jasper
Face & Hands: jasper
Eyes: sapphire
Floor: agate
Bucket: petrified wood, cacholong
Brush: agate, amethyst quartz
All hat, no cattle
Seen at the 2012 National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado:
The night’s reflected brilliance
Captured on a photowalk through the Denver Botanic Gardens:
Every year in December, the Denver Botanic Gardens puts on a “Blossoms of Light” show — it’s always a great display, although generally also a bit cold. But if you bundle up and carry a spare battery in your coat’s inside pocket, you’re good to go!
Oh yes, and don’t forget a tripod too — this is a 2.5 second exposure (at ISO 800 for minimal noise). Fortunately there are plenty of turf areas along the paths, so you can set up a tripod without blocking traffic or damaging the plants. But no commercial photography (i.e., stock shots for Getty) unless you want to fork over a $350 fee to the Gardens…
Ready for my close-up…
Another fun shot from the 10th annual Colorado Dragon Boat Races here in the Denver metro area:
We were fortunate this year in that the weather was clear and bright (if a bit hot / muggy too…). Some years it’s been overcast and sporadically rainy, not so good for photography of all the wonderful color.
A Vermeer of respectability
Seen at the 2010 Denver Chalk Art Festival.
Bowl full of blues
Seen at the Denver Chalk Art Festival:
Poised
A border collie gets lined up to catch a frisbee in the “Superdogs” presentation at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado:
I like this shot, but it absorbed far more time for post-processing than I anticipated. Let me count the ways:
1) The event center where “Superdogs” took place was lit far more dimly than I expected, so I had to shoot at 1600 ISO (noise galore in the original image).
2) Given the pace at which the events took place, I spent much of my time shooting in “continuous” mode so I could pick a starting image that both had a survivable amount of motion blur, as well as had workable composition (i.e., you could see both the dog and the frisbee). Note that due to the lighting, I was able to take few images at faster than 1/80 second.
3) There was still “too much dirt” for my taste in the best starting image, so I used a little Photoshop (Elements) trickery to reduce the vertical space between dog and disk.
So a couple of hours of work later, here you have it. I’m still wondering if I shouldn’t have removed even more space in the middle, but I like this result (for now…).
Cruciform
