My birthday
Actually, I'm good. I love my intelligent, beautiful and fun wife Bridget. And our little black Toyota Rav 4 with 100,000+ miles and dents and rips in the ceiling (courtesy of me and my bikes) and road noise and four cylinders . . .
Well, that yellow Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder was pretty sweet.
More views of the Cafe
I took a one day photography seminar in Denver a few weeks ago. It was put on by Pete McBride, he shoots for National Geographic Adventure among others. He said if you see a shot you like, of course make it. But then shoot it from many different angles. Especially ones you might not be naturally attracted to. Often your first inclination will prove to be correct, but not always.Main Street Bakery and Cafe
I love this pic, if I do say so myself. It's off season so they are closed. Notice the stacked chairs in the window. The sky and stucco adobe are classic complimentary colors. Blue and Gold. The lettering, the shadow and the overhead light are a tight little composition.
Fisher Towers
I finally got my own. This is an iconic image oft seen in photo galleries in places like Moab. I first saw this view in a photo about thirty years ago. I could not believe there could be desert and snow capped mountains. I am now a three decade veteran of Canyon country. And I love it at least as well as I did when I went there for the first time shortly after seeing this image.
Idaho Springs Colorado
The spring sun, about undone for the day. Lit the bricks like match sticks, then went away.
Cell phone . . . booth?
Somewhere on the road to Fort Collins, the wrong road, it turned out. Well it's the right road in the summer when you go through Rocky Mountain National Park over Trail Ridge road. Of course we were traveling in the spring off-season. I think we went by this place twice that day. You'd think I'd remember where it was.An emerging theme
I'm noticing a potential emerging theme in some of my photograpy. It can be called 'human element in the landscape'. It's similar to the old tool/trick called 'the human element to show scale'. But with a twist. To me the human element to show scale is typified, for instance, in photos of some huge sandstone arch in Utah with someone sitting at the base of it. Without the human element you wouldn't be able to get an idea of scale, of how big the arch actually is. The photos I'm making necessarily accomplish this. I like landscape photography to a degree, but I don't actively pursue it. That said, I spent nearly ten years leading week long mountain biking trips across the vast American west. My job was to take people to the most beautiful places in the country and to be knowledgeable about the places too. I also live in a very photographic place. 'We live in a post card' is something I often say. So, I do have a significant library of landscape photograpy. But I much prefer a landscape picture that is mostly beautiful landscape but also shows some evidence of human activity. To me it's much more interesting that way. The above photos are examples. The middle pic. is I-70 cutting through the San Rafeal Swell in Eastern Utah. Had I tilted the camera up ever so slightly I would have had a photo of the beautiful Swell in the snow and clouds. In fact, I took a couple shots like that. And if you are into 'pure?' landscapes, that would be one. Maybe I'll post it too. Okay, there' I posted it. A picture is worth a thousand words. Had I just posted those two together at first you wouldn't have had to read all this. I understand that some tastes would much prefer the top shot. I like it too. Maybe I've seen too many landscape pictures, might be a bit jaded. The third picture on the other hand would just be boring as hell without the truck on the tracks. A train coming out of the tunnel would have been better than nothing. But I like this photo because of the work truck on the tracks. Sure, we've all seen trucks like this before. But it's not so common. And I don't remember the last time I saw a photo of a work truck on railroad tracks.Where to now?
'Where ever you go, there you are' and 'You can't get there from here.' Who built this precarious thing out in the desert and why? I'm going up this canyon ladder one day to find out. I have to cross the river first. So did the builder, with materials. Unless he came down from above. But still the question remains, why?
Moab Road Sign
Well-decorated road sign onUpper Colorado River Scenic Byway 128
(Hwy 128 or State Route 128)
just off I-70 near Cisco, Utah
showing mileage to Castle Valley and Moab
with the La Sal Mountains in the background
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