My dogs are "DONE"

You know you take too many pictures of the dogs when you get faces like this...



When you tell this one to stay she looks like she wants to bite you and look away at the same time.


But it is all worth it when you get a face like this...

Gravity Still Works

I thought I would try taking some pictures of drops of water again. The first time did not work out very well.

Here is the setup of the second time.


You can see the bucket of water, wrapping paper and light source. I never understood that the pictures are of the water adn the reflected surface behind it. Here is a good example of the pan of water with the reflected surface.



A couple examples of the pictures that came of this setup.

Busy weekend

Trip to the zoo for Winter Wild Things...


One of the paths through the zoo was right through the lion's mouth!


You can just see Will Rogers Shrine under the giraffe neck.


The snow flake the greeted us as we arrived at the zoo. We spent as much time in line as we did walking around the zoo.

And my favorite picture of the night...


I know that it still needs some work but I was just trying to get any shot. It was dark out, kids running all over the place, and the tigers never cooperate. I think that my wife and I are going to get a season pass so we can go look any time this year.

A nieces' Baptism...






Monday morning I was greeted with this mess. You would have thought a raccoon or bear got into our house!

Piano and Eagles

Early Morning

Maternity Pictures

Step out of the Fog

Perfection

While perfection in photography would be nice the perfect image is different for everyone. Their vision is always different and changing.

Digital Photography School is one of the many links and blogs that I have listed on the right of this page.

Recently they highlighted an author of 3 electronic books that will help improve your photography without spending any money on new gear.

http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/

David duChemin's philosophy on photography... Gear is good. Vision is better



Lucky for me vision is one area that I need to improve.

I picked up these books for a total of $15. We will see if I improve.

Eastern Colorado Sunrise

The new do

The Buick from another angle



Eastern Colorado sky.

Some Recent Shots

Click on the picture for a larger view.



Colorado Springs froze over one night and we had freezing rain for a couple days. This is one of the better shots that I was able to get.



This is one of my favorites for now. It is from an old Buick. I cropped the picture, adjusted it to sepia and that was it.

Labor Day Weekend

Here is a one picture of the several taken Saturday night at the 33rd (?) annual Balloon Classic. There were about 15 balloons there.



We have some good friends staying with us this weekend and racing every day. Heather and I joined them on Sunday and saw her take almost a full second off her tome from the day before.

Colorado Springs Balloon Classic

Image from

ethanbeute on Flickr

Headed to the Balloon Classic this weekend. Hopefully I can get some great pictures.

Clouds

Clouds, originally uploaded by Valentine.markd.

I was lucky enough to take a look out the front door. Welcome back Colorado afternoon showers.

Natural Light

Love, originally uploaded by Valentine.markd.

Red Rock Canyon

Sunflower, originally uploaded by Valentine.markd.

A bike ride through Red Rock Canyon was tough on me so on one of the many breaks I decided to take a minute and smell the sunflowers.

Turning the other way down the valley shows an area that used to be mined. The "steps" in the rocks are very large.

7 Bridges Trail

Post 1

Just a quick picture of the bike ride I did last weekend. It was tough. I got off on the wrong trail and ended up hiking most of the upper section.

Down Hill Biking Breckenridge

This could be one of my favorite activities. I get the best of mountain biking...technical riding and I don't have to ride back up.

It was a little odd getting on the chair lift with nothing strapped to my feet. My ankles didn't hurt when I arrived at the top of the lift because there was no snow board dangling below me.

Starting up the lift was beautiful in the summer.


The first time I went downhill biking I thought our group was going to ride down the face of the mountain just like when skiing. Thank goodness that was not the case. You can see a little bit of one of the trails in the bottom of the picture above.


A quick glimpse of the alpine slide on the left and that same trail cutting through the picture.


Breckenridge has a gondola that runs from the town to Peak 8 but it costs $600 an hour to run so it is not in operation in the summer. There is no parking at the top of the mountain because of the construction of 2 very large lodges (1 pictured above) so everyone rides a shuttle bus to
the base of the mountain.



Just one of the streams running down the mountain. Colorado has been very luck this year with lots and lots of moisture so the hills are green and the flowers blooming strong.

This picture just to give a little scale of the trails on the mountain.

Just before the lift goes over the first rise the top of Peak 8 can be seen and the ski runs winding their way down the mountain. It looks so much different in the summer.

The view from the Peak 7 area was amazing. I took 4 pictures and stitched them together in Photoshop to create this panorama . If you click for the bigger version you can see the beetle killed trees on the mountain slopes across from Breckenridge.


On the way down...


Around every turn there were amazing views of the mountains, valleys and streams. Hopefully I can make it back one more time this year.