Spirits of the Ancestors

Posted on 8 March, 2016 by Eric

A muted, somewhat ghostly shot for you — from Upper Antelope Canyon in Arizona:

A few things to note if you want to visit either Upper or Lower Antelope Canyon for photography:

Only the upper canyon has nice, wide alcoves like this; also, it’s easier for people with mobility issues to move in, thanks to its relatively-wide sandy floor.
You need to move fast (and get a little assistance from your guide) to get a shot of an alcove that doesn’t have other people in it — this is particularly true for the upper canyon.
It helps to visit the upper canyon in the winter — you can see light rays in various places in Summer, and since this is well-publicized, the place is even more crowded then.
The upper canyon has a two-way pedestrian flow (as opposed to the lower canyon, which has an entrance on one end and an exit on the other), so there can be jostling as people try to go their separate ways.

Convoluted

Posted on 13 January, 2015 by Eric

An HDR view from Upper Antelope Canyon, near Page (Arizona), converted to black and white:

I’ll be posting a longer comparison of Upper to Lower Antelope Canyon at a later date. For now, let’s just say that a walk through the Upper Canyon is a crowded experience — even in the “off-season,” even on a “Photo Tour.” So taking shots facing the sky is a good plan. In any case, the canyon is a unique experience, and always a reliable source of geological abstracts.

Down from on high

Posted on 25 April, 2014 by Eric

An abstract shot from the Ice Castle in Breckenridge, Colorado:

One of the fun things about living in Colorado is the plethora of great photographic subjects at hand. Among these, a new one (to me) is the “Ice Castle” built in Breckenridge during the winter. Made out of thousands of icicles, with imbedded LED lighting, it’s fun to walk through and a great photo subject. The lighting changes colors every few seconds, so you’ll need to be on your toes if you want to capture a formation lit with a particular color — and a tripod (or one of these) along with some sort of remote (corded or cordless) are pretty much essential.

Oh, and one more piece of advice — look up! If you limit yourself to photos taken on the level, you’ll miss some really interesting abstracts like this.

Enter the Bean

Posted on 15 March, 2014 by Eric

I almost titled this one “Self-portrait of Tripod,” given that I made this shot on self-timer so I wouldn’t be in it. As a result, though, you can see over a dozen reflections of my camera on its tripod.

The reflector in this case is, of course, the “Cloud Gate” sculpture (a.k.a. “The Bean”) in Chicago’s Millennium Park. This is taken from under the middle of it (officially called the omphalos, Greek for “navel”). You can also get distorted shots of the weather and local architecture by using Cloud Gate’s exterior reflections.

Loads of fun, but you need to get there early unless you want to make photographs with lots of people in them. Remind me to do a full writeup on photography of / with The Bean some day…

Blue, white, blue

Posted on 15 December, 2013 by Eric

Seen at 35,000 feet, somewhere between Denver and Atlanta:

The clouds really were this smooth â€” I love the simple, semi-abstract look that the matching sky & jet engine colors gave this view.

Last (?) shot of winter

Posted on 10 April, 2013 by Eric

We got hit by an odd late-winter storm the other day, and here’s what we woke up to:

This was the result of a storm that was supposed to dump a foot or more of snow on us, but wound up leaving us maybe an inch. And since the storm hit town quickly (temperature dropped by 40 degrees F in a matter of a few hours), it landed on warm pavement.

So for at least a few hours the next morning, I could play with my camera (in super cold temps) with this unusual snow pattern — only surviving over the joints between our patio pavers.

Gridded reflections

Posted on 25 May, 2012 by Eric

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.

Radiating

Posted on 21 May, 2012 by Eric

I’ve really taken a liking lately to architectural abstracts — little interesting bits of texture and pattern that you’ll find while wandering through the built environment. Along those lines, I spotted this on a radiator at the Grant-Humphreys Mansion in Denver:

I made this image during this year’s Doors Open Denver event — a fantastic excuse for a little architectural exploration if you’re in Denver in April!

Crystaline

Posted on 9 April, 2012 by Eric

As the saying goes, if you’re looking for a photographic subject, and don’t see anything in your surroundings — look up / look down!

This is a shot of a chandelier in a ballroom at Filoli Gardens south of San Francisco. I didn’t *quite* get things centered (I was in a crowd, so couldn’t do my usual stunt of laying on the floor for this shot), but I still like the symmetry…

Night snow

Posted on 9 March, 2012 by Eric

So a few months back, we got a late afternoon dusting of very sticky wet snow — the immediate result was an odd vertical ridge of snow on top of all our trees’ branches. So lit only by our porch light, I had to grab a shot of this unusual scene: