Now for the highlight of my Santa Fe trip: visiting with my step-brother, Jeff. The writer at work:
The cat:
The cat after he realized he was being photographed by a dog person:
The cat being emotionally needy:
The cat’s emotional needs being met:
Happy New Year!
As promised, the photos from the Santa Fe part of the road trip. Got up early Friday to try to catch good light in downtown Santa Fe . . . starting with the store next to my hotel:
Next to the gun shop and the hotel was a sculpture gallery. (Welcome to Santa Fe!) I liked this piece against the excruciatingly blue Santa Fe sky:
Then had some fun with it in Lightroom:
Then spent two hours walking around downtown Santa Fe, first with the 14-42mm:
Photoshopped an electrical wire out of this one! Progress!
I just loved this statue of St. Francis of Assisi dancing on water. He’s dancing so joyously his toes are curled!
Getting set up to sell jewelry to tourists:
Pause for hot coffee and cheese danish and a switch to the Nifty Fifty — at the Burro Alley Café.
The eye of the aforesaid burro:
The rare white buffalo:
Fun with HDR and Photomatix.
Loved these ladies – in a store window (also HDR):
More adobe and blue sky:
And my favorite, though I’m not even Christian:
To be continued… with photos of my step-brother, his gorgeous office, and his cat. Yes, this very very dog-oriented blog is about to host its first cat photo. Be sure to tune in!
Road trip to Cañon City, then on to Santa Fe. Here are some photos from the road. Santa Fe photos coming soon.
I’ve made the trip to Cañon City with co-counsel a number of times to visit clients at one of its correctional facilities. The cool thing about driving alone is that I finally got to stop and take a picture of this, Route 115 between Colorado Springs and Cañon City.
Did they find the giant insect while exploring space? Unfortunately, as you can see from the sign, the museum is currently closed, so that question will have to be answered some other day.
I spent much of the drive on back roads, which provided constant reminders why I love the West. This is from Route 50 heading out of Cañon City.
This from Route 522 in northern New Mexico.
This from I-25 north of Pueblo heading back to Denver.
From a grocery store in Fort Garland, CO
I loved the drive and the quality time with my brother in Santa Fe. Good to be back home in front of the Broncos game now.
Went to the The Snug to listen to some Irish music and watch the Broncos. (Tim might list the activities in a different order.) One of the musicians had asked if I could take pictures and, with a warning that it would likely take me a few sessions to figure out what I was doing, I gave it a try. Indeed, I have a lot to learn. I didn’t want to use a flash because I thought it would be disruptive, so I ended up shooting at 1600 ISO, resulting a lot of noise. But the combination of shooting indoors with the afternoon light coming through the windows made it hard for me to figure out a good exposure. I took over a hundred photos and these were the only ones within shouting distance of good.
Still and all, it was enormous fun. The music was awesome, and spontaneous Irish step dancing broke out. A really great afternoon with some great friends.
(Updated to add photo of Cara and replace Kevin’s photo with one less pink. I recalibrated the color temperature in Lightroom, though I did not attempt to calibrate it with the number of whiskeys consumed.)
Cara, woman of many talents: fiddlin (above) and signin (below):
Aaaaand, you’d never know this guy is a lawyer:
South Pearl Street’s Winterfest — as advertised:
and in reality, at 72 degrees on December 1:*
Yes, that guy is selling poems. Why not, eh? South Pearl Street is a little slice of Portlandia in Denver. In fact, if you look carefully, the booth behind the poet is
where Tim bought a $12 jar of pickles, and which of course reminded me of
We also bought $50 worth of organic crap — what sort of weird spell do local farmers’ markets cast? — and I took some pictures. Like this one, which seems to fit with my penchant for photographing random textured distressed things,
but was in fact taken at a stand selling random textured distressed things.
But this is the real deal: the side of an ancient pick-up truck. Not sure why I like distressed vehicles so much. Oh. Right.
Another random photo:
And two bonus dog photos. Watching the Winterfest crowds wander by.
And Saguaro, just after this morning’s bath, helping me practice with the new flash.
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* That is not a political statement. It is an accurate statement about the weather. That is, we did not get pulled by snow-covered horses through snow-covered streets. I walked through Winterfest in shorts and sandals. In Denver. In December.
I know you’ve all been on the edges of your seats to see my photo essay, the final assignment for Digital Photography 201 at Illuminate Workshops. The wait is over! Of course, just in time for the final class, I had all sorts of legal adventures — trial prep! settlement! appeal! — and a major head cold. So I didn’t actually attend the final class. Or the make-up final class. Or the make-up of the make-up of the final class. What can I say – lawyers suck at non-law things.
The assignment read:
Decide on a subject whose story needs to be told. … A story that is close and personal to you.
Shoot everything you can about your subject.
Make us see the subject from your perspective.
We were to edit down the photos first to 30, then to 12, print them on 11×14 paper, and present them at the last class. But I missed the last class (twice) and I’m not good at following instructions anyway, so my photo essay has 20 photos, and is blogged, not printed. It also reflects the fact that I ran out of time — even with an effective two-month extension — and had a cold. Did I mention the cold? So some of the photos reflect long walks around Denver thinking about my subject, while others reflect a bit of casting about my office last night for meaningful props. But I think they show both my subject and some of the composition and developing skills we’re learning at (did I mention?) Illuminate Workshops.*
And the outtake … because nothing happens here without full canine supervision:
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* How’s that for apple-polishing? And I’m not even getting a grade!
Playing with the tripod and some longer exposures in the back yard. I didn’t notice Saguaro in the first one, but it looks sort of cool.
Also having fun with the nifty fifty and bug photography.
Coming in for a landing!
And finally: practicing developing in Lightroom with an orange dog. (If that modifier is misplaced, please know that *nothing* in this house happens without the participation of the orange dog.)
I’ve been trying to figure out how to combine photography practice with dog walks. Before today, it has consisted of:
Come.
Come.
Seriously.. come. Here. No, over here.
Sit.
Sit.
Good dogs!
[Put leashes on ground.]
Stay.
Staystaystaystay.
No! Sit. Staaaaaaay.
Good dogs!
[Compose. Focus.]
Click!
[Pick up leashes.]
Let’s go!
Rinse. Repeat.
Until now! I solved the problem with some gen-u-ine nerd gear: a web belt and a large clip.
Now that is some seriously crappy photographic composition. But you can see my nerd-gear dog-walking photo-practice hack. And my ca. 1972 tennis racket. Both the belt and the clip were available on amazon.com, with the interesting side effect that ordering the belt — which has oddly knife-shaped pouches that will be perfect for dog treats — put me in interesting company.
Guess the pouches weren’t specifically designed for dog treats. Anyway, all in the service of my continuing efforts to learn how to use my Nifty Fifty.
Brought my camera along on the half-mile stroll that serves as the dogs’ inspiration twice a day. If you know what I mean.
I know I’m supposed to edit myself out of the photo, but I thought the reflection was sort of cool.
I wanted to get a photo of this dog — thought the black fence against the black and white dog was cool …
. . . .but forgot momentarily I was attached to a dog or two myself:
All is well. After a brief discussion of who was alpha, we proceeded along our way.
While this could easily be a reference to my brother, who will soon be joining me on the other side of the half-century mark, it is in fact a reference to the lens that our photo teacher recommended as a great all-around lens: the 50 mm with a wide aperture for interesting shallow depth of field photos. He confidently asserted that it would not be expensive and would be a good addition to our camera bags.
Not sure what his definition of “not expensive” is but this did not gibe with mine:
At the same time I was pondering this advice, I was puttering around in our basement looking for the lenses from my ca. 1984* film camera — which, like my dslr camera, is an Olympus — and found that I was already the proud owner of a 50 mm (ok, ok 49 mm) f/1.8 lens.
I started trying to figure out how to use it with my current dslr camera. It didn’t fit directly, and the first two calls I made to photography stores that will remain anonymous resulted in the advice that (1) this was impossible and (2) that it would cost me $150 for an adapter. Seriously: just that contradictory. But I went on ebay, ordered the adapter in the (blurry; damn!) foreground of the photo above — for $14 — and voila! I have a nifty fifty!
Clearly I need to learn more about how to use it, but damn it’s going to be fun!
BTW, I actually grew this pepper. But that is for yet another blog post.
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* Faithful readers who are paying close attention and/or are related to me will say, “ca. 1984? but didn’t you say you got your 35 mm camera for high school graduation? And you graduated high school in 1978, so what gives?” The full answer to that will have to await another post that I’ve been meaning to write about having my backpack stolen in Singapore with my camera, money, and passport from the lobby of the Sheraton, putting my frantic mother** on a plane back to the States, contacting the law firm I was working for in Taiwan,*** being put in touch with a Chinese pop star who happened to be a friend of one of the partners, who loaned me money and took me out to dinner****, which allowed me to scramble around Singapore in a taxi getting a new passport, visa and plane ticket. I was cameraless until that summer when, back in the States and visiting friends in New York, I bought a new one almost identical to the graduation gift, and carried on with my untutored but enjoyable photographic career.
** You think I could have afforded the Sheraton on my own at that point??[UPDATE: ******]
*** And that is one of the other reasons for this post. Just the other day, I found myself trying to explain what a telex was. It was sort of 1984’s email in a way. You typed into a teletype machine in (say) the Sheraton in Singapore and it would print out momentarily at (say) a law firm in Taipei.
**** If you think the style disparity between me and Miss South Africa was vast, I only wish I had a photo of my dinner with Theresa Teng.***** But, alas, the thief had my camera.
***** Only when I googled her for this post did I learn that she passed in 1995 at a very young age. RIP, Theresa. You did a very good deed for a very lost and scruffy Waigwo student at the height of your stardom. Above and beyond.
UPDATE: ****** For the record — see Comment #1 — this was not my mother’s fault. I violated Travel Rule #1: Always Keep Your Backpack With You At All Times. I’ve also violated Travel Rule #2: Don’t Stay In A Hotel With A Preying Mantis on the Bed. And #3: Always Wear Sunscreen when Lying on A Beach Below the Tropic of Cancer, even in February. And many more, I’m sure. Live & learn!
Thought Snax 
