Assignment Monday

What's up with this? Well, because I work out of home, I don't get out much other than to run errands or for an occasional gig. This translates into a boring Jenny who has little to talk about other than inane personal stuff that few people really want to read about other than mommy (Hi, mom!). While I make an exception now and then - case in point: Apollo's recent surgical drama - that isn't something I typically want to share on World Wide Web for all the world to see.

The very first Assignment Monday is a bit of a cop out. I had planned to take a certain photo in a certain setting, and I was excited about it. And even put some thought into how to stage it. And what happened? I forgot the damned camera.

Sigh.

So, I prowled my sparsely furnished apartment for something semi interesting.

Infrared Ice in Water Glass

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Dried Wheatgrasssomething

At Elk Meadow Park

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Ready for winter

When I set out to create something - whether it's a photo or a piece of writing - sometimes it takes its own course instead of following the one I had intended. It's almost as if I've poured some of my own traits into the piece of work. Namely stubbornness.

Anyway, I had intended for this image to have a specific look.

Original

But I wasn't able to create it, and so I pursued different looks. Ultimately, I came out with something I liked far better.

Finished.

What do ya'all think? Like? Dislike?

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Another Como picture

This isn't a great picture, ah well.

It looks like someone tried to improve this house/barn/whatever not too long ago. Why do I think that? Check out the windows in the roof. Those are new(er), fairly clean windows. On all other old structures that I saw, they were gone, broken, or really dirty.

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Ghost town Como in HDR

Como is a dying town. It's not quite a ghost town yet. There are still about a dozen or so people living in the town. Unfortunately, the train station I wanted to photograph was closed to public. I even tried to find a way to sneak around the fencing, with no luck.

Fortunately, there were a number of old buildings in various states of disrepair for me to photograph.

Brief recap about HDR - HDR is a compilation of 4-8 images in a succession of exposures, laid over one another to create an image that can be very true to life. It can also be manipulated to be hypersurreal.

This is an image of a building I shot at perfect exposure - 0.0.

Now, I also shot this building at -0.5, -1.0, -1.5 (underexposed) and +0.5, +1.0, +1.5 (overexposed). I used Photoshop's program to merge the images for me. As a side note for the user of PS3 - apparently, its HDR merging program isn't very good, and there are better ones out there. If this is a technique you want to seriously pursue, investigate alternatives.

Anyway, back on track. After I ran the hdr merge feature, this is one of the results I got. It's harsher, which works well for this sort of image. However, it's not really exciting.

So I tweaked various things and got this...
It's not quite hypersurreal, but it's a lot more interesting. I could've pushed this further and come out with even more bizarre results, but sometimes that's just over top and can be a turnoff. Additionally, if you look closely, it's obvious that by making these tweaks, I lost some details that really makes this building interesting, like the wavy, warped sideboards along the side and the plywood in the windows.

Looking this over, I prefer the first HDR results because I can see more potential in it, as far as photo manipulation, like making it look vintage and vignetted - much like what I did with my niece's photo. I will try find a happy medium between the two though, and see how it looks first though

Incidentally - I photoshopped behind this old ramshackle one out. See original to compare.

I'll have more pictures later.

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Perseid meteor shower

Tip - click on the photos for large images.

What's this? A meteor? But it looks so odd!

It's a plane.

I only saw one, albeit very brilliant, meteor. It streaked where I didn't expect it - right under the moon. The moon was pretty bright, plus I had the city lights to contend with. So I satisfied myself by taking pictures of the stars, something I hadn't done since my first photography class about 15 years ago. I'm probably dating myself here. Geesh.

Anyway. I had only a few minutes of exposure for these pictures. One downside to digital - it takes them awhile to process the image after I'm done taking a particular image and it's very boring standing there in the dark twiddling my thumbs waiting and waiting for it to greenlight so that I can take the next image.

I wasn't feeling patient tonight and was really tired, so I didn't want to take long exposures. Next time, I'll bring something to read and go nuts.

I must've jarred the camera slightly. There's a tiny bobble at the start of the star trails.

Of course, now I'm back home, I've got my third wind.

Not a stellar pic. har har, punny.

It's very disconcerting to be standing there in the dark, totally oblivious to anything nearby, then the camera's night light comes on for a split second - and I see a million bugs swarming around me.

Not bugs.

I'm still itchy at the thought of those bugs!

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It's a weed, not a flower!

This weed's head is about 4 or 5 inches wide. Not your typical dandelion puffs. As usual, no clue what it is, but I thought it was interesting looking.

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Thorny flower

I'm not keen on posting pictures of flowers, but I'm just absolutely fascinated by the local wildlife and flowers. The pear cactus are starting to bloom on the foothill Apollo and I trek on regularly.

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Pictures from the hike today

Last night I had trouble getting to sleep, and naturally overslept today. I didn't venture into the mountains...the general rule of thumb here is, if you can't get to the halfway point of your hike by noon or 1 PM, don't go. Given that I got up at 10 AM...Apollo and I went to the usual foothill park instead.

Sometimes a normally blah picture can be made interesting by using the background.
The smog over the city (beer factories yea) made this picture a little problematic to work with. I ended up with a 60s or 70s polaroid vintage feel to this picture. I don't love it, but it's interesting.

Below is a shot of the same mountain range as in the June's banner pic on the blog. Just a better weather day.

This picture in thumbnail isn't spectacular, but if you look at the large version (click on it), it becomes much more impressive in its simplicity.

The foothills here are bigger than the mountains back East. We've had so much rain that everything here is very green. It's quite a striking change. Usually by June, it starts to dry out and get brown. But I think it's good because we had such a late spring. The farmers here definitely needed the help because they had to delay their planting.

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Friday Apollo

Behind Apollo, that's a big storm rolling into Denver. Taken last Thursday.

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Huff n' puff

Taken about a week and half ago. This is one of my latest favorites.

Last weekend, I picked up an excellent book of dog-OK hiking trails and picked what looked like an easy trail to go on. I made copies of the instructions from the book, packed Apollo in the car and went to the park - Golden Gate Canyon Park - and what should've been a 20-minute drive to the trail head turned into an hour and half of swearing.

I gave up and briefly considered going on a different trail that I spotted. But I didn't have the topo map for the other trails in the park, I didn't know how difficult the trail was, it was really windy and I wasn't dressed for that, AND there were storms rolling in and out of the area. I didn't want to chance getting caught in a downpour.

After I got home, I looked online; there was a fork on the way, and the book's directions said nothing about taking either one. So I had assumed it was the straighter route, when I should've taken the sharp-turning route. Major amateur mistake: I didn't doublecheck the directions. Lesson learned.

Weather has generally been foul for the past few days, both Apollo and I are getting antsy from lack of exercise.

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A Spare Sparrow

Little blurry...

I've been occupied working on a new Website (boy, slow going because I'm not a pro at design), and consequently, not as much time is being spent on fixing up pictures. I did this one a couple weeks ago. Shot at the foothill that Apollo and I trek on regularly.

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Friday Apollo

"Heyyyy"

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A local roadster show

We had rain most of the weekend which pretty much ruined my outdoorsy plans. I got a little shopping done Saturday. Sunday, the morning was dry so Apollo and I went for a two-hour hike. About 15 minutes after we got back home, it started to pour. Good timing. Monday, it drizzled on and off all day. I noticed that there was a small car show near me, at a biker bar and decided to go. Apollo and I walked down to it and while I snapped some photos, he got tons of attention. Heaven for him! Little did I know that I had forgotten to put the memory card in the camera!

Well after I got back to my apt, I realized and went back down to reshoot, but alas, they were winding up for the day.

Most of the cars at the show were vintage roadsters, some cars had upgrades, some were true to the original design. One very old, rusted car, I noticed was sitting in a different lot across the street. I asked someone who seemed to know his stuff why it wasn't here with the other cars, and the gist of it was: The owner of that car gutted it and replaced it with anachronistic parts. Like plastic skull for the shift knob. So they effectively banned him/the car from being a part of the show. Haha! I like these guys.

Which version do you like better?

I like both, but considering this car is, I think from 1920 or 1930s 1940s period - I'm just guessing based on Hollywood flicks - I think the black and white one is more fitting.

P.S. Does anyone know what car this is? Or what time period it's from?

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Friday Apollo

Not the black box thing again!

Apollo hates it when I pull out the camera and 9 out of 10 times, he'll look away.
Not the best background. I was going for an industrial look, but obviously failed. Either way, doesn't he look purty?

Have a great weekend. Watch out for the drunk drivers.

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Self Portraits

In the chrome, you can see Apollo and me reflected at least five times. Maybe six...


I am in love with classic cars. One day I will own one. In meanwhile, I just enjoy ogling them. This hulking beast is sexy! Look at the curves and the lines!

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Friday Apollo

At the Garden of Gods

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A thousand years old tree

Whose name I can't remember.

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Standing Sentinel

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Garden of Gods

Click on the picture to fully enjoy it.

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