18Jul

Flowing by Long Lake

Hey everyone!  I hope everyone is doing great!  My wife and I just got done with a blitz of family visiting us for the past few weeks.  As we settle down I was finally able to get the photos from our hikes onto my computer.  We took my in-laws up to the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area just West of Boulder about 45 minutes.  They choose to do a simple hike around Long Lake that provided gorgeous views of the continental divide.  Flowing into Long Lake was this nice creek.  I was able to find a small pathway that took me to an opening so I could set up my tripod for a series of brackets.

Processing:

This shot consists of two sets of brackets with three shots in each set.  I combined the two shots in Photoshop using the default panorama plugin and some further masking.  I applied a detail and contrast filter using photo tools.  Then some final touch ups were applied in Lightroom.

Question for You:

When doing HDR Panorama’s … do you process each set of brackets first then combine them to make a panorama?  Or do you combine each exposure to make several panorama’s then process them in a program such as Photomatix?  I like to hear your opinion.  Thanks!

14Jun

Walking to Indian Peaks

Today we head over to the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area.  When we arrive to the area my wife and I were really disappointed to find that the last 2.5 miles of the road was still closed.  We decided to make the hike anyways.  This opened some pretty unique shots that I wouldn’t have been able to get during the open season as IPWA is one of the busiest hiking areas in the state.  I had a couple great windows through the trees to stand in the middle of the road and grab some shots of the mountains in the background.  These peaks climb into the sky showing their rocky cliff sides that make for gorgeous photos.  The top of the peaks are part of the great Continental Divide with Rocky Mountain National Park just on the other side.  I hope to one summer take the trail from this side of the divide to the other side in this area.  That would be a great challenge but provide for some amazing views.

11Jun

Mossy Walls

WOOOWWWZERS!!!  I can’t believe it has been almost a month and a half since the time I have blogged and posted a photo.  Life has been lots of fun but busy since moving to Colorado and finding a great job here.  It is a pace that I’m not use to after growing up in small town Iowa.  I’m not use to having SOOOOO much to do outside of the house, which we are in love with.

Memorial Day one of my best friends came up to visit my wife a I.  One of the days we headed up to the Mt. Evans Wilderness Area for a long hike up to Hell’s Hole.  This hike was pretty strenuous but absolutely gorgeous!  We started off around 9,300 ft and ended up at around 11,500 ft above treeline.  Along the way there were several waterfalls, though many of them were only about a foot high, like the one pictured here.  I really liked this one though because it had a some great moss along it’s sides.  So I crawled back towards it to get this close up.  I thought it turned out alright even though my processing skills are rusty right now.  I see myself revisiting this one again.

I hope everyone has been great!  I can’t wait to get back into photography and blogging.  I have felt like a piece of me has been missing.

26Apr

Maxwell Falls

Hello Everyone!  This past weekend we made our way up to the Evergreen area just about 30 minutes away to hike up to Maxwell Falls.  We had a great time hiking up with some family that live in the Denver area as well.  The hike was very scenic with lots of small waterfalls to take photos of.  The only bad thing was that things are just starting to bud out up in the higher country.  I hope to get back up here later on in the year to retake this photo with some more green in the photo.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

24Apr

Hello from Denver

Hello Everyone!  Boy, it has been way too long since I’ve posted.  As some of you know I took this long hiatus to prep for a move out to Colorado from Iowa.  I’m proud to say that my wife and I safely made it out to our new home.    We’ve gotten all settled in and have started to get comfortable with our new surroundings.  This past weekend was great as we got up to the mountains twice this past weekend for some short day hikes.  That’s partially why I didn’t have this post ready for Monday, opps!

I won’t be posting everyday for the time being.  I really want to work on the quality of my photos both out in the field as well as in the post processing skill set.  This is another reason I took my hiatus.  I had to take a step back from photography for a bit to get my thoughts in order because I felt my work wasn’t at the standard I want it to be at.

Today’s photo was taken at Denver City Park back in the middle of March while I was visiting Denver.  Things hadn’t greened up yet by this time.  If you want to see a much better photo from this spot, check out Rick Louie’s photo.  The large mountain you see is Mt. Evans and to the right of it is downtown Denver.  Mt. Evans has the highest paved road in North America, taking you just over 14,000 feet above sea level.  It is a very cool road to travel up but very nerve racking.

05Mar

A Classic

Happy Monday everybody! I hope you had a great weekend like I did!

Today we go back for a classic truck I found in Key West. I’m not going to pretend anything about classic trucks because I don’t know anything about them. I do know when to respect a truck as cool as this one.

I love to write for my blog and post pictures. Unfortunately, starting this week I will be posting less frequently with new photos for the blog. I’m in the middle a large transition in my life that needs to take priority for the next month or so. On the other side I plan on having stronger photos and more knowledge with photography.

24Feb

Broken

Happy Friday everyone!

The drift wood you find out in the desert is so cool!  The harsh environment causes the trees to grow in the manner.  It makes for an interesting specimen to photograph.

I hope you have a great weekend with great opportunities to shoot!

23Feb

Twisted

Another simple image from the hike towards Delicate Arch.  The surrounding area on the way up to the arch is just stunning.  It is always good to slow down and take in the surroundings on your way to your final destination.  This can be tough sometime because you get so excited to that really cool spot at the end of the hike.  You never what you might find when you take everything in.

22Feb

A Path to Nowhere

This is one of the last paths you take to get to Delicate Arch.  There is one more turn and another straightaway like this then you have arrived to the most photographed arches in Arches National Park.  I really liked this view as it gives you a feeling that you are trapped and there is nowhere to go.  As you turn up ahead in this image there is an unmarked climb to get to Window Arch that I talked about on Monday.  You can see views of Delicate Arch through Window Arch here and here.  I recommend this small climb, it is an amazing view!

I hope you are all having a great week!  We’re halfway to the weekend!

21Feb

Framed Flatirons

Composition is, as I’m sure you know, very important to a successful image.  It is something I learned from my training in college for landscape architecture.  As I’ve grown as a photographer I’ve began to realize that I get composition as a whole but I don’t notice the small details when behind the lens.  This image shows what I’m talking about.  I wish I had noticed how shallow the flatirons are in contrast to the downed tree.  I wish I propped the camera up a bit higher to get more of flatirons in the image.  Paying more attention to these little details is something I’m really working on.  Hopefully this will help take my images to another level of quality.

Creative Commons Noncommercial

I have decided, after much research and thought, to change my licence to Creative Commons Noncommercial.  I was really torn on this usage issue for awhile and was even completely sold on watermarking every photo to keep my photos “safe”.  I even was slowly watermarking each image with my newer logo.  Then Trey Ratcliff came out with another article talking about why he chose Creative Commons.  This was the article (I can’t find this article or else I would have linked it) that finally convinced me to move to a Creative Commons Noncommercial licence.  This licence allows people to use my images for blogging, wallpapers, etc.  This is acceptable as long as I get proper credit with my name and a link back to my site.  It’s a win/win for other bloggers and me.  If you would like to use my images commercially you will have to contact me to acquire a licence.

One reason I chose this licence is because it may help get me more exposure outside of the photography blogging realm.  You can ask, how will I make sure all blogs give me proper credit?  Simple answer is that I can’t.  The internet is a massive world.  I figure people are going to take my photos whether I have a watermark or not.  I might as well give people who want to use my photos the right way an opportunity to use them.

This has been a controversial topic in the photography world for awhile now.  I’d like your opinion.  What do you think about the Creative Common Noncommercial licence?  Maybe you might convince me to move back to a full lock down copyright.