So filed under the category of “How did I only now hear about this” is an excellent local (Denver, Colorado) event — “Bright Nights at Four Mile.” It’s a collaboration between Denver’s Four Mile Historic Park and Tianyu Arts & Culture, Inc., the largest producer of Chinese lantern festivals in North America. The result is a wide array of larger-than-life lit sculptures spread out over 12 acres. Great for photographers, fun for visitors of all ages, I just can’t praise it enough!
Category Archives: Events
Weird Barbie
Art by Hosanna McGowen and Alyssa Kirstein; seen at the 2024 Denver Chalk Art Festival.
This work won the Best Use of Color award at the Festival. Continue reading
Racoon pop
Art by Natalie Gillespie; seen at the 2024 Denver Chalk Art Festival.
This work won the Peoples’ Choice award.
The photo above has been rectified, to show what it would have looked like from above. The non-rectified version (also capturing the artist holding her award) looks like this: Continue reading
The bear
Chalk art by Jake Nissalke, Ashe Bentley, and Cindy Nissalke; seen at the 2024 Denver Chalk Art Festival.
This art won the 1st Place Best of Show award.
The photo above has been rectified, to show what it would have looked like from above. The non-rectified version looks like this: Continue reading
Miss Craigie, later Mrs. Reid
Chalk art by Olivia McLeod (@blackbirdart) based on a painting by Allan Ramsay. Seen at the 2024 Denver Chalk Art Festival.
This won the “Best Reproduction of a Master’s Work” award at the festival. And it’s even a reproduction of a “local” painting — at least, it’s on display at the Denver Art Museum, just a few blocks from the site of the chalk art festival.
The photo above has been rectified, to show what it would have looked like from above. The non-rectified version looks like this: Continue reading
Off to the (coffin) races!
Every place you may go has its own little… quirks. One of the fun quirks to be found in Colorado’s Front Range is the annual Emma Crawford Coffin Races, held in Manitou Springs. As you might expect, it’s held in the days leading up to Halloween, and it commemorates a beloved former resident of the town.
Emma moved to Manitou Springs in 1899, hoping to find a cure for her tuberculosis in the town’s mineral springs. Sadly, the water didn’t work for her, and she died only two years later. Her dying wish was to be buried on top of the nearby Red Mountain, and so 12 hearty souls carried her casket up the mountain to fulfill that wish. But once again, her luck didn’t hold — after 3 decades of hard winters and spring rains, her coffin came racing down the mountainside in 1929. Since 1995, the local Chamber of Commerce has hosted the coffin races in her memory, and honestly, as an off-kilter fun event for the community (and lots of out-of-towners who drive in for it).
Ullr in the storm
A snow sculpture of Ullr, norse god of skiing, on display at the 2023 Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championships.
As luck (good? bad?) would have it, our drive up to Breckenridge for the 1st public day of sculpture viewing coincided with the arrival of another storm front. Appropriate, I suppose, for a bunch of sculptures made from snow.
Learning the ropes
A younger rider in the 2023 National Western Stock Show parade; Denver, Colorado.
EXIF:
OM System OM-1, M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/2.8 lens
62mm, ISO 250, f/5.6, 1/125 sec
Consulting the oracle
So it’s been a few years, but the Ice Castles folks have again set up shop in Colorado (as well as at 5 other sites in North America). Here’s a particularly blue shot from this winter’s “castle” in Dillon:
Some tips for you, should you be able to visit one… Continue reading
Waiting for the light to go out
So, with about half of North America, I plan on driving to the path of totality for the upcoming Total Solar Eclipse on August 21. I was originally going to write up some tutorial information on this, but since so much of it is already available, I thought it best to primarily link to the sites I think are most helpful. Continue reading