Another fun night shot from the Denver Botanic Gardens:
You have to work a bit to see it, but there’s a narrow stream running through the middle of this shot — it’s really only visible from the reflected lights on the bushes. I was more than a little surprised after taking this picture to see just how saturated it looks. The technicolor look wasn’t evident in person, but definitely came out with a long exposure!
This past Thanksgiving, we made a quick family trip out east to spend a bit of time with some of Mrs. Argos’ relatives. While we were “in the neighborhood,” we swung through the Oglebay Resort’s “Winter Festival of Lights.”
Well worth a stop, should you ever find yourself near Wheeling, West Virginia some December…
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…
If you’ve been following this blog for long, you may remember that I do most of my image post-processing in Aperture on a Mac. Well, Apple just released an update to Aperture (containing a slew of needed bug fixes), so I’m taking the opportunity to dig back in my archives to revisit some old shots that were ready for a second chance.
This one was taken looking up the steps east of the Basilica. I think the B/W treatment gives it a noir film feel…
Seen at the 1st annual “Chalk it up to Education” chalk art festival; Littleton, Colorado.
I’m a bit rushed due to some off-line commitments, but I’ll follow this image with some others that actually have a story attached. Soon now…
We ran across this guy at Taos Pueblo in New Mexico — apparently nobody actually keeps dogs as family pets, so a half dozen or so dogs just wander around as strays / community pets. Judging by his left eye, this one got in a scuffle recently.
It took me some tinkering in Aperture before I got happy with this shot — it just looks better to me as a pseudo-antique than as a full color image.
Seen at the Denver Chalk Art Festival:
This weekend I had a bit of time to myself — my wife and daughter were still in Arizona (I had to get home early for work), the weather was nice, and I’ve got no shortage of camera gear.
So when I could take a break from my honey-do list, I decided to make some quick trips into downtown Denver to check out the Denver Chalk Art Festival. It’s an annual, free, two-day street painting festival — with more than 200 artists turning 3 blocks of downtown streets into an open air chalk art museum.
And boy, are these folks ever good! Here you can see one hard at work on the details of her creation (BTW, there’s a contest associated with the festival — if you like the image and have a Facebook account, please leave a comment on its contest page):
I’m not sure if this one had an Avatar tie-in or not, but the skin tone’s about right (its contest page is here):
This next one was one of my favorites (it’s by Dawn Morrison Wagner, check out her web site!), even before it was finished:
This is a portrait of Music, somewhat in the style of Alphonse Mucha (its contest page is here).
And then of course, there’s this bit of excellent advice on living your life:
More to come…
A recent trip to Arizona left me and the little one with some time on our hands — so we spent it at the Phoenix Zoo. While I was there, this little scene lined up for me, so I just had to capture it:
I saw this weathered old boat at Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats, and since the water was still at the time (early morning), I just had to get this reflection shot:
I’m still a bit puzzled at how the weathering on the paint (looks like vertical streaks on the boat’s hull) is so much more prominent in the reflection than in the direct view itself.