Rolling out

Posted on 7 May, 2010 by Eric

Living as we do in the metro Denver area, we’ve been keeping an eye on the ongoing build-out (called FasTracks) of our light rail system. This past weekend, RTD shut down 6th Avenue (an arterial highway through town) in one section so a light rail bridge could be rolled over it — apparently the first time in the U.S. that this has been done with a bridge of this size (286 feet long, 600 tons).

My daughter and I were at loose ends Saturday morning, so we went out to see the goings on:

OK, I wouldn’t call it a particularly dynamic event (the construction folks allocated 30 hours for the rollout, but were done in half the time), but it was fun to swing by and see a taste of what’s to come in about 2 more years. Here’s a better view from the east:

And one from the Union St. overpass looking along 6th Avenue toward downtown (i.e., to the east):

It’s so weird seeing this normally busy highway shutdown like this… RTD also put up a time lapse video of the process, it condenses all the activity into a minute of video:

All we need now is the president…

Posted on 24 April, 2010 by Eric

A few days ago, we got back from a quick family vacation to the Washington D.C. area — in part driven by the lucky acquisition of tickets to this spring’s White House garden tour. Those words probably make the thing sound more exclusive than it is in reality — it’s more like the world’s longest conga line, just you and a few thousand of your closest new friends shuffling through the White House grounds between ropes.

Still, it’s as close as most of us will ever get to the place (particularly with a camera!)…

This shot came from right in front of the White House, looking across the rose garden (just tulips in bloom…) toward the steps outside of the Oval Office. I think leaving the building out of focus and mostly out of frame gives the shot a sort of expectant look, as though a big event is about to take place. Of course, the President was out of town at the time, so only some miscellaneous staffers appeared when we were there.

Hanging out…

Posted on 15 April, 2010 by Eric

On the way back to our car from Boulder’s Pearl St. Mall, I happened to spot this little piece of yard decoration:

The potted plant is long past being merely dead, so believe me — this looks much better in sepia.

So many don’ts

Posted on 10 April, 2010 by Eric

About a year ago, a business trip gave me the opportunity to wander around a bit in Seattle. I was particularly lucky to have a little free time on a beautifully sunny day — and spent a chunk of it in Gasworks Park, a reclaimed industrial area.

But as you can see from the sign, reclamation can only do so much. So while the scenery behind the camera was green and pretty, this particular spot for contemplation bears a reminder of the site’s less beautiful legacy. The shot looks cluttered in color, but I think black & white is a good fit for it…

Just waiting for my human to come…

Posted on 7 April, 2010 by Eric

So this weekend we had the opportunity to wander around on Boulder’s Pearl Street mall for a bit (it’s a nice pedestrian mall in downtown Boulder). I took some gear along, just on the off chance something interesting would come up — as luck would have it, I found a very cooperative portrait subject:

Funny how most dogs I’ve photographed are very relaxed about the whole thing, this little guy was just waiting for his human(s) to be done shopping.

Playing for change

Posted on 2 April, 2010 by Eric

On a recent trip to Seattle, I spotted this busker with an accordion just up the block from the Pike Place Market:

Pity I didn’t see the little sign at her feet at the time. We were, though, hustling up the street to get somewhere — I only had time to take this shot because we were waiting for the light to change so we could cross the street. If I hadn’t had a longish lens on my camera at the time, I wouldn’t even have been able to capture this scene.

FWIW, she didn’t play a note the whole time — just stood there with her accordion. Maybe a tip would have prompted some music?

Hilo patina

Posted on 23 March, 2010 by Eric

If you’ve been following my Flickr stream, you’ve likely noticed that I’ve started a habit / tradition of uploading textures on Tuesdays — since I’ve used other peoples’ “free” (Creative Commons Licensed) textures for tinkering with layers in Photoshop, it’s my way of giving back to the community.

Anyway, I normally upload quite a few more shots to Flickr than to this blog — the idea being that blog images are the ones with more interesting stories behind them.

I haven’t really uploaded a texture shot with a good story before, so this is the first time I’ve put texture images on the blog (click on an image in this post to get to the respective full-size version on Flickr if you’d like to download one).

As you’ve likely guessed from the post title, these shots come from Hilo, Hawaii. True enough. You might also recall the old advise that if you’re looking for a different perspective with a shot, or looking for something interesting that might surprise you, you need to look up and down? That’s precisely how I found these. Here:

Look up!

Street Lights

Posted on 19 March, 2010 by Eric

One time we were wandering around in Santa Fe, primarily driven by a little window shopping. What’s a photog to do, but look around?

Luckily I thought to look down, too:

It’s pretty rare to see these sort of prisms / vault lights in New Mexico. Seattle, sure. Europe, definitely. But not in the Southwest…

Sparkly

Posted on 27 February, 2010 by Eric

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I bought a new computer a few days back and my workflow has been shot while I’ve been trudging through the process of moving all my stuff from the old gear to the new. But the good news, of course, is that I now have a much faster computer with dramatically more screen real estate (no more 15″ screen!). I can actually check my shots at the pixel level without spending all day scrolling around.

Anyway, I saw this collection of rhinestones while wandering around the stalls at the National Western Stock Show:

I didn’t see a lot of these actually being sold, so I have to wonder if this is really a fashion trend in the C&W world, or merely a reflection (no pun intended) of the shop owners’ own personal tastes.

The (old) view out front

Posted on 30 January, 2010 by Eric

One of the precursors to actual photography was the camera obscura , in which a pinhole could be used to form an image on one wall of a darkened room or (later) a box. In their simplest form, these go back over 1,000 years — and if you’re lucky, you can occasionally find one to play with / in. Should you ever find yourself in the neighborhood, there’s a room-sized camera obscura at the Sherman Hines Museum of Photography in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Although, as is generally the case with walk-in camera obscura, you can’t exactly point it:

So this is what you get if you photograph the image that the camera obscura has projected for you, inverted on the wall. A nice little historical view of the folks across the street…

BTW, Sherman Hines doesn’t get much press where I live (“south of the border”), but he’s a really impressive photographer — go check out some of his portraits and landscapes !