Captured from the trail to / around Maroon Lake — near Aspen, Colorado:
On our “fall colors” road trip through the mountains, we only made it to Aspen in the late afternoon — so the lighting was much better for shots on this side of the lake (vs. the more traditional / popular shot of the Maroon Bells themselves). I just love all the color in this frame!
Seen on the slopes of Mt. Rainier in Washington state:
I spotted this along the side of a trail in the “Grove of the Patriarchs”…
Another shot from our Puget Sound air-/road-trip. This one’s looking back toward Victoria, BC from the ferry headed south to Port Angeles, Washington.
This shot would have looked about as nice if the sky had been clear and blue. Still, I like the smooth background light that the light overcast gave the scene. For those of you taking notes, I made this image with an Olympus E-M5 camera with the 12-50mm “kit” lens.
Likely the best surviving example of Puuc-style architecture, at the ancient Maya ruins of Uxmal, Mexico:
Many Maya structures still bear the nicknames given whimsically to them by their re-discoverers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Whether by luck or prescience, the name of this structure fits it surprisingly well — archaeological work here indicates that it was once used by the rulers of Uxmal in its heyday.
The largest (by volume) structure at Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico:
From this spot, the pyramid actually looks much smaller than it really is. The part you see from the base here is actually a later addition (more accurately, collection of three additions) to the original pyramid, which then rises even further behind this bit in the front. In all, Structure II has a base covering 120 x 120 meters (394 x 394 feet), and stands 45 meters (148 feet) tall.
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):
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…
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!
I saw this on my most-recent trip to New Orleans, and just had to capture the scene:
This is one of the horses employed in pulling tourists around the French Quarter in carriages. I took this shot early (for NOLA) in the morning, which seems to be the best time of day for non-crowded street photography there. The sidewalks and streets have been washed, most visitors are sleeping off the previous night’s revelries, traffic hasn’t really started — a great time for a stroll.
At any rate, I still can’t decide if this is the horse’s “world weary” look, if he’s pondering the upcoming day’s work, or if he’s just lost in horsey daydreams of grassy fields and running free. In any event, a fitting subject for an environmental portrait…
I stumbled across this in a shop at San Francisco’s Ferry Building:
OK, the string is actually on a price tag — I just thought that from this angle, it looked as through the wooden hand had tied it on as a reminder of something.
When my dad passed away some years back, among other things I inherited an old Polaroid camera. It was buried in the middle of a bunch of boxes, and at the time I couldn’t see much use for it — but didn’t have the heart to give it away. During a recent clean-up, I ran across the thing again and decided I should either use it or chuck it.
Luckily for me, you can still get film for the thing — and clumsy as the camera is to use (manual focus w/o rangefinder, fixed aperture, etc.), it can still take a good picture:
I made this diptych using (expired) Polaroid 100 Sepia Giambarba film from The Impossible Project. Sadly, the IP folks couldn’t save the old plant that made this kind of film — so when they run out of the old (but obviously well-preserved) stock of this stuff, it’s gone for good. But while it lasts, this is fantastic film for anything you’d like to give an antique touch — and as you can see, the (normally disposed of) negative can be art too!
The subject of the image is a Marzocco Lion (at the Museum of Outdoor Art in Englewood, Colorado), a carved replica of an original by Donatello. BTW, the camera is a Super Shooter Plus — you can get one just like it for $5 – $10 on eBay.