At full size, this is a (free) iPad wallpaper — but thought I’d put it up here too, just for show:
If you’d like this on your iPad, just click on the image to get to its Flickr page — you can downlink the 1024×1024 wallpaper image from there. FWIW, this is a slightly-stylized version of last night’s sundown, shot with my iPhone.
Another fireworks shot from our July 4th trip down to Cortez:
I don’t know why, but this shot reminds me of a Plains Indian war bonnet — seemed a fitting name, at any rate.
By the way, I’m tinkering around on Google+, and it looks like a promising platform for photographers. If you’d like an invite, drop me a line!
I took this shot at a July 4th fireworks display while we were down in the metropolis of Cortez, Colorado visiting a family friend. Of all my “accidental” images, I think it’s the one I like the best.
It’s not a multiple exposure shot, and I’ve done essentially no post processing work. Think you know how it happened? Let me tell you the tale.
Cortez isn’t a particularly large town — population was just under 10,000 at the most recent census. But when we were down there to visit our friend over the Independence Day weekend, we were expecting a good show for July 4th. A new guy in the city government had taken over job of coordinating Cortez’ yearly fireworks display, and we were hoping he’d try to make a “splash” his first time out.
Apparently a lot of the locals had the same expectation — I think the whole town turned out for the show. As a result, the four of us were sandwiched on a blanket on a little strip of grass — right next to the sidewalk that’s right next to the road that’s the line marking the safe viewing area for the display.
So we had great seats, aside from pesky pedestrians occasionally walking by right in front of us.
Now bear in mind that shooting fireworks is somewhat of a hopeful process. The round goes up, you open the shutter, and your camera captures whatever it sees in the next few seconds. Maybe you get something good, maybe you don’t.
In this particular case, I opened the shutter just before one burst went off — I thought it would be a good capture. Then a couple of young guys walked right in front of us with “glow sticks” in their hands. I was a bit annoyed at the time, obviously they’d ruined the image.
Or so I thought until I got home and could see it on my computer’s screen. As “ruined” images go, I think it turned out pretty well…
Coming to you from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, it’s Fajada Butte:
Fajada Butte is the site of an ancient “Sun Dagger” solar clock that marks the occurrence of the solstices and equinoxes. It’s too delicate for visitors to see in person any more (it was damaged by tourism-induced erosion, and closed to the public in 1989), but still inspiring to look at from a distance.
My first decent shot using an old Polaroid SX-70 camera I bought off eBay, and some Impossible Project film:
Long-story-short, now that the Impossible Project folks are producing both color and black and white film for SX-70 cameras, I thought I’d take the plunge and start experimenting with low-fi analog photography.
Here’s a shot of echinacea in our front yard, taken with my used / new (to me) SX-70 Alpha 1 SE and Impossible Project PX 70 Color Shade film.
I think it’s going to take a while to get a hang of this — the camera works just fine, but the film is a bit… tricky. In particular, it’s REALLY light sensitive for a minute or so after it comes out of the camera — and it’s prone to over-exposure too.
Oh, and did I mention film costs about $3 per exposure? Definitely gives one cause for reflection before pushing the shutter release. Once I get this down to a more-nearly-repeatable thing, I’ll do a writeup on this film and the whole process of using it.
Seen in the Colorado Springs Utilities’ Xeriscape Demonstration Garden:
Two women start their descent of Structure I (as seen from Structure II) at the ancient Maya (no, not Mayan) ruins of Calakmul, México:
Structure I (a.k.a. Pyramid I) is the highest at Calakmul (by virtue of its being built on a small hill), but not the tallest. Its neighbor Structure II (a.k.a. Pyramid II) is the tallest at the site, and the largest (in bulk) too — standing about 50 meters / 160 feet tall (these numbers vary depending on the source you’re looking at). Structure I is just a few meters shorter than Structure II, meanwhile Structure II’s base is some 120 meters (390 feet) square.
Translation: they’re both really big…
An iguana strikes a dramatic pose in the ruins of Tulúm, México:
The funny thing about this shot is that the iguana wasn’t nearly this well posed until somebody with a point-and-shoot camera intervened. I was working from a distance to get a good shot of the little critter, when the cruise-boat tourist started fiddling and fussing with his P&S, trying to get a head-on shot from about 3 feet away. He made such a sight that this little guy pivoted around to watch the show — lining up perfectly for a profile shot!
About the only time on our recent trip that I was grateful to see one of the cruisers…
Shot with a long lens from the Temple of the Cross, about 1/4 mile away:
You might think I framed this shot the way I did to heighten the contrast between the structure and its background — but actually, I was avoiding a line of tourists just off the bottom of the shot!
Spider monkeys in the trees of Tikal, Guatemala.