Sunday, January 1, 2012

2011 July/August Colorful ColoRADo eZine Edition

July/August 2011


Welcome to my fantasy eZine "Colorful Colorado." Every two months, I include the best photos from my wanderings. One shot gets a glorified position on the 'cover' made with FD's Flickr Toys Magazine Cover application over at Big Huge Labs. This is a catch-up effort for the blog. 

Cold hearted orb that rules the night
Summer is always a good bet that lightning will be popping over the plains giving us a top deck seat up here in the foothills. Anyone can grab a bolt or 2 or even more simply by letting the shutter hang open for long periods. I once had the good fortune of manually opening the shutter in bulb mode  expecting to keep it open for about 30 seconds and so had the aperture and ISO adjusted accordingly. To my surprise, a huge bolt scared my finger off the release and at that moment the "get the best lightning shot in the shortest amount of time" contest was born. Of course I'm only competing against myself at this point. To date, I haven't done better than 1 second in the 'Cold hearted orb' shot, which of course it is too dark and greyscaled (based on my settings), but I keep trying. The cover shot was set up much better and happened in about 8 seconds. Keep trying, the more you take the better your chances...

Love, American Style.
Fourth of July is always an exhilarating yet mind-numbingly frustrating time because of the beautiful fireworks displays that are over before you know it. I always have a couple of techniques planned but usually get sidetracked and end up with less than I was hoping for. Focal pulls, lens cap covers for more explosions in one frame, spins, zooms and tosses are but a few of the techniques I go for if I can remember. This year I managed a great pull but was disappointed in the trails being cut off at the top of the frame. A toss was not realized and the lens cap cover produced a wash of incoherent streaks. Better luck next year! Always fun for the manic photographer at any rate.

ID me?
This summer we saw an explosion of ant mimicking beetles with iridescent shells. The trick of course is getting them to stand still!
DIA corners 1

With summer also usually comes vacations. And for me that means DIA (Denver International Airport). I have dreamed about hanging out in prohibited areas taking shot of planes and art around the property but let me tell you the cops are on you faster than you can set up your tripod if you park in a no parking area. Again I come away with less than dreamed of material. When do I get a press pass?

 Visit the full set on Flickr for more uploads.

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