Photowalkin, Part III

After taking several years off, this year I decided to have another go at the Worldwide Photowalk on October 3rd. I did the walk previously in 2011 and 2009. Skipped several years due to bad weather or just general lack of interest in the selected location.

This year it was at the Terry Bison Ranch just south of town on the WY/CO border. It's main claim to fame is, not surprisingly, a herd of bison. They take you on a little train tour through the bison, if you want. It also has an assortment of other animals - camels, llamas, horses, donkeys, ostrich, peacock and other critters. Kind of a mini zoo, along with some old westy stuff, a large campground, etc. Basically, its a touristy place.

But since I've always just gone past it, never to it I figured I'd go. The weather was - ok. After a long very warm fall, we had a couple pretty chilly days, normal for October. But a big change. Temps were in 40s, mostly cloudy. Day before was foggy and misty rain most of the day, that would have been tough to do much outside photography without all your equipment getting wet.

21 people signed up, I'd guess maybe 15 or so showed up to wander around taking photos for several hours. Quite honestly, I didn't capture much that I thought was very good. Though working on them later, a few came to life once I mixed a little Photoshop in. Let's get started...

This was one of my first shots. They have this little homemade 'suspension' bridge, over a marshy spot. It was kinda bland, against a gray cloudy sky. But the sun was trying to peek through. So I went heavy on the contrast and color, made it into kind of a dark, 'moody blue' scene. Just playing around.

There's a number of pieces of old horse-drawn farm and construction equipment on the grounds. This is a detail shot of one - an old Case. Didn't have to do much Photoshop work on this image.

The hood emblem on an old International schoolbus that was converted to a tour bus, and later became a chicken coop on wheels. There's a number of free-range yardbirds (chickens) on the grounds, and this bus is their home. Another image I didn't have to do very much to.

 A horsehead hitching post on a fence. Tie up yer horse, head on inta the saloon, pardner! I did a little more on this image - saturated the whole thing, then desaturated all the background but not totally. Just trying to make the horse stand out from the background a little more.

An old Adams Leaning Wheel Grader. It would be slow going grading a road with one of these, but I'm sure it did the job, eventually. This image is by far the most Photoshopped. Besides giving it the antiqued look, I had to remove a lot of things - a stop sign, a fence, an asphalt road and railing along the interstate, which is actually at the line of the ground and the sky. After all that it looks like an old photo of a discarded piece of machinery rusting away in a field. Or at least I think it does.

Finally, we come to my entry in the Photowalk competition. This was really bland looking at first, and I figured it was a throwaway. But once I started playing with it in Photoshop it surprised me and really came to life. Funny how that happens sometimes. It's the inside of a metal pipe used as a slide in a big homemade playground setup in the campground. All I had to do besides make the colors and textures pop was clean up a few small distractions, rotate and center it. And for this location, this is what I consider my 'best' photo! I like the changing colors, the texture and the spiral swirl in the pipe. Uniquely abstract!

Only 3 people entered the contest in our walk. Kinda surprised me, with ~15 people there weren't more. Here's the link to the photowalk page, for as long as it is active-
http://kelbyone.com/photowalk/walk/cheyenne-wy-united-states/

The winner for each location is entered in the worldwide competition. I'd say I have a pretty good chance this year (I didn't win either of the other prior walks I entered. Which I can go on in detail about...)

*** UPDATE***
My entry WON the Photowalk for my location. So I am entered in the worldwide competition! That's cool. According to the website there were 999 walks worldwide. So that means there should be 999 entries in the competition. For 1 Grand Prize, 10 Runner Up Prizes and 1 People's Choice prize. So the odds are slim. And they always pick winners from around the world, only a couple from the US. So if my photo wins, it will have managed quite a feat! More to come soon...

Bad Moon on the Rise?

Went out last night to take photos of the big lunar eclipse.

It was both a Supermoon eclipse, as the moon was about as close to the Earth as it gets, and also the 4th 'Blood Moon' in a recent series of blood moons.

There's all sorts of religious, mythical and other attachments to such events. Whether they really mean anything I'm not sure. That's up to everyone to decide, and time itself. Anyway, on to a couple photos!

The night started with a awesome sunset. God beams on the horizon under the clouds. Wait - clouds? They'll obscure the eclipse! Fortunately, that didn't happen. The clouds broke up and mostly drifted away. They did get in the way briefly during the eclipse but for the most part it was totally clear! Unusual - the weather rarely seems to cooperate during such events.

I took a series of photos, made a collage as most people do showing the eclipse coming and going.

These were all with my smaller camera, and the exposures were off a bit, a little too overexposed on many. But it still made a good series all together.

There were a number of people out watching the eclipse when I was. Though everyone left by the time it was in full 'blood moon' eclipse. I was the only person watching the eclipse end.

Glad the weather cooperated. If I shoot one of these again I'm going to use my DSLR with long zoom lens so I can get closer and control the exposures a little more.

Quest for Color, Part 2

One week later, new location, what did I find?

Much the same. Some color, lots of green. Lots of pale yellow or leaves that have fallen already. Talk about an inconsistent fall. The whole color change things seem discombobulated this year. Sigh.

Starting off with a little sky action. There were a few more clouds this weekend, which always looks a little better than a plain blue sky. These HDR clouds make quite a nice puffy, fluffy look over this large rock feature.

A touch more color here. All the grass long ago turned yellow, everything else is this years grab-bag of colors, along with the remains of a long ago burned tree trunk.

Who needs color, when you can get black and white drama? A rock and sky shot is wrapping up this quest for color! Almost looks like a infrared image!

Quest for Color, Part 1

Fall rolls around again, so time to head for the hills, look for a little fall color!

After a very dry, then very wet spring, followed by a mostly dry summer, we now have a late fall. No frost, and temps have been summer like. I'm not sure if that affects the color or not, maybe it does. For this time of year, it's been VERY green, with not much color change yet.

Though in spots, it has changed, but the colors are very dull. Some of the leaves have a lot of dark spots, some fungus or something. Some leaves have fallen already. Not sure this is gonna be all that colorful of a fall this year. Bummer!

A meadow with a pond, a little color but a lot of green. Shot in HDR, which helped pop a little detail out in the sky, which was looking almost plain blue. The clouds have kind of a unique shape to them I think.

A curtain of leaves, yellow and green - the order of the day.

I'll head out again next weekend as long as the weather permits, maybe find a little more color in another location. 

Sky High

Just got back from a summer vacation trip to visit some family. Got a few interesting photos along the way. My favorites were a bunch of stormy weather, very interesting clouds I got one day late in the trip.

The all-seeing eye? Nope. Just a large roadside sculpture, leading down a highway with 6 more very large metal sculptures. Some are pretty nice, some are just - unique. But they're all big!

A nice train relief on a building (actually at a rest area!). I toned it, but the actual color of the building itsn't much different than the photo.

Catch the buzz! Nice close up of a bee on a flower at my brother's house. Besides the bees there were literally squadrons of big dragonflies around but I didn't manage to get any photos of them.

The first of my stormy day photos. They were all shot in HDR. I tweaked the color to make it a little more bluish. I really like how all the cloud effects really pop out in HDR. Though sometimes it can be a bit 'much'.

Another shot, in this one you can see part of a rainbow near the ground.

I was shooting in a yard that borders a horse pasture. And there were several horses and ponies out in the field. They weren't quite as interested in the clouds as I was.

Its a storm-o-rama! This is a 180 degree view, composited from 4 photos. Really interesting sky, in-between running for cover from rain showers, which there was no shortage of either! Some pretty heavy downpours in fact. But I didn't get any of those tricky lightning shots.