Powder in Boulder- Hurray!

And it keeps on falling.... 12" so far, and the weather is calling for 6-12" more!! Wow!
I took bella dog on a walk and took these pics on the way... They don't do justice to just how much snow there is out there.

Early morning

Note to self: Bring multiple extra batteries when shooting in cold weather! I almost learned this lesson the hard way when, after taking about five shots with a newly charged battery, my camera started flashing the low battery emblem.
I jolted awake at 6:00am this morning to Bella barking at her reflection in a glass door. Being that I was bug eyed and confused, I decided to drive about a half an hour to try and get a few sunrise pics. I positioned myself with the tripod right in front of me and after a few test shots the camera died. "Shit!" I said with a slight chuckle of my ridiculous luck and got back in the car. I held my only battery in front of the heater vent for a few minutes and watched as the sun started to light peak behind the church. As the sun fell into optimal lighting position I got out for round two.

I managed to fire off another 10 shots before both my hands and the camera froze again. Fairly pleased that I at least got a small second chance, I got back in the car and headed back towards town. There were some shimmering aspens on the way back to town and now that the camera was warm again, I managed to squeeze a couple more out. Not a bad morning but I never want to be restricted by battery power again. Lesson learned.

Winter Neditation

Another epic adventure happened yesterday in Nederland, CO. What started as 2-3 of us trying to go for a nice Saturday afternoon ride turned into a possy of 7 riding through snow, ice, rain, and hurricane force winds. Terrific!

We took the 12:10 bus up and left the beautiful sunshine and 65 degree weather in Boulder. It was 42 and just beginning to snow when we arrived. Typical Ned weather. Fortunately all of us had prepared and thrown in some extra layers and a shell to keep the moisture out.
We began the first ascent of the day and as we climbed up the road we noticed that the ground beside us was shifting from brown and green-to bleach white. "Oh man," I said with a smirk, "Gonna be a fun one!" The snow conditions were perfect. It was deep enough to cover the majority of the ground, but shallow enough to still have traction for the climbs. If you have never experienced moutnainbiking in the snow, I highly recommend it. Great fun!

I took most of these pics at the beginning of the ride before the weather really started to turn on us. Once the rain/snow started to really fall, I decided getting the hell of of the mountain was more important that the possible photo op.









(Gotta love Whitty's face here... never fails)

















We stopped at this one turn to try and get Mr. Mari catching the drift.. I gotta figure out the perfect angle for these types of shots. Not sure yet, but practice, practice, practice...


And here is Peter Gaston shredding through the trees..

Hall Ranch

Hall Ranch felt like a haul today... For those of you who don't have any idea what I'm talking about; Hall Ranch is a local mountainbike trail out here in Lyons, CO. I can get there on my bike in less than 10min and it's a solid hour ride once there. The climb is not to challenging but enough to make my heart rate reach about 300bpm! "It's this damn 70-200 2.8 in my pack that's making me slow," I told myself. But I know that wasn't actually the case at all.

It seemed right from the get go that the sun was on it's way down much faster than I was on the way up and I therefor I missed the perfect light by about 15-30min. Oh well.. Note to self- Leave the house at 4:30 instead of 5:00 next time.

When I reached the summit I pulled out the camera to catch a few friends eating some dinner in the nearby field. They looked up to see what my gun scope look-a-like lens was doing then went on with their business. Must be nice I thought- hang out in the shade all day. Come out at night to eat some grass and go back to sleep at night. Ahhhh the life of a deer.

Since I didn't get much else today. I figure I'll show you a few picks from the Adventure Photography Workshop I attended. It was one of the most incredible weeks that I have ever spent with my camera. If you have any inclination to become a better photographer... GO THERE! Worth every single penny, and then some.. Here are some shots... enjoy:

Back to school

I remember seeing a photo a while back of Old Main, a building on the CU campus, with it's three east facing spiral staircases. It caught my attention and apparently burned a mental image in my memory. I feel like this happens a lot with me and photographs. The more I look at other photographers work, the more I try to imitate them. Is this normal? Should I be more creative? Not really sure, but either way I decided to take a picture today of Old Main for myself. It was a little dark to be shooting without a tri-pod but still came out fairly clear.

It's been hard for me to devote the time needed to do this blog everyday. I get caught up with the day to day activities and next thing I know it's 10:00pm and I'm exhausted. I end up doing what I did in school for years and write enough to get by, but not enough to excel. My blog is turning into a 2.8GPA blog. I have been telling myself that this blog is for the pictures anyway right? Wrong! I'm going to make a conscious effort to make sure that both the writing and the photographs are as thought out as possible... sorry for the side note, but anyway...

When I got back to the bike shop this evening with all my camera gear in hand, I looked around and realized that I have never taken a picture of such a classic and influential shop. I took this shot to around 6:30 of all the bikes in a perfect line. After working at Full Cycle for years, (like most things) you stop noticing the 'little things'. I'm going to try and notice a little more and see what comes from it.


This last shot is an up-close of a disc rotor and caliper. A bit dark, but being that I only took about 20 pics today, I had a limited number to choose from... my fault.


Tomorrow is a new day, new beginning, and a new post for this blog. I plan on bringing my 2.8 up to at least a 3.5 tomorrow. So if your reading this, stay tuned...

The Snow Line

I awoke this morning to chilly rainy weather. I figured it would be a good day to stay inside and organize the bazillion photo's I have on my computer currenty but the dogs looked at me and convinced me otherwise. So we drove up towards Estes Park a bit to a fun hiking trail. It was pretty cool becuase the closer we got to the trail, the more snow there was on the ground. I realized pretty quickly that Lyons was just warm enough for rain. About 50' in elevation up from my house, there was snow everywhere. Here are a few shots from the expedition:

Sweet Sunday

So I tried to get out of bed before sunrise today and get some good pics but the snooze button was within reach... I ended up taking the motorcycle for a ride later instead and took a few pics of this ancient church on the Peak to Peak highway. This first shot is of a stained glass lamp. Being that it was high noon- I had trouble finding any sort of interesting lighting so I used the sun coming through the glass to make it somewhat interesting.

After getting home-job searching for a bit- I went to the dog park with my two very unique models, Bella and Ruby. Bella dawg, as many of you know, is my dog (the lab). In case you can't tell by this pick. She's a pretty happy dog. Once again, the light was nothing special because it was around 4 or so.. But at least I'm out there with the camera...



This next shot is of Ruby aka Rube's. She's a bit crazy at times, but a true sweetheart.. After we left the park I got home just in time for a 5:30 yoga class. It's been nice going to yoga lately but I remember tonight around 6:15, I looked out the window and saw nothing but pink/blue/white/red skies. It looked like one of the most incredible sunsets I've seen in a while-and there I was in Yoga trying to find my inner 'zen'. Guess you can't be there all the time.... Lesson Learned, Gotta get up and make it a point to get really good shots! Until tomorrow...

Neditation

There are a fortunate few of us who understand what the true meaning of Neditation is. First of all, you have to be in the beautiful mountain town of Nederland, CO about 20miles or so west of Boulder. Secondly, you need to have had AT LEAST five beers the night before. Third, you need to be poaching illegal mountainbike trails with 1,500' technical climbs right from the get go. Forth, it's important that your on a "bigger" 34lb bike with a backpack full of camera gear/water/and all the other Safety supplies needed to make sure everything runs smoothly. And fifth, it helps if you had a greasy steak-egg-cheese with a large coffee less than an hour prior to getting on the bike. At this point, you're only starting to scratch the surface of what it means to neditate. Some may call it tunnel vision, or the most miserable way to spend a Saturday afternoon. But not us! Joe, Whit, Hayden, and myself found neditataion as the OHV lane to enlightenment and anti-hangover.

We didn't get going until around 1:00 because we were all moving a little slow this morning. It was a perfectly clear afternoon and all the snow that was on the ground had melted due to the last few warm days we've had. The conditions were perfect for a ride. The trails were nice a moist (which doesn't happen near enough here in the CO) so traction was no issue. The issue, for me anyway, was lung capacity!

This first shot is of Whit going through the trees. I always have trouble setting up for pics because I get one chance and then they're gone. Joe gives me about 2 minutes to (a)find a perfectly lit picture spot while descending down the trail at full speed (b) stop, get my camera and lens out and attach them (c) set up the shot [exposure, shutter, framing, focus, ect] (d) take a good enough picture when they come roaring by to justify taking the time to wait for me... There are no re-takes, re-runs, or re-do's. But I love it! Challenging and invigorating

This next one is of Whitty loving life on the way down. Once again- not perfect light, nor shutter speed (blurry), but it definitely shows how much fun we have in Ned. I tried to get down and shoot him drifting the turn (in the shade I might add) solely because I was having so much fun descending myself that I missed all the real great photo ops... Oops, oh well...

And this last shot is of Joeseppi at the skate park apre ride. I really like this park for taking photo's but not so much on a sunny Saturday afternoon. There were so many people there that I didn't feel comfortable getting down in the bowl for some creative angles.. I've been hit by a guy on a skateboard before- not something I need to do again. I want to get back out there again before the real snow starts falling. A sunrise shoot could be fabulous.

So nothing to spectacular today in the photo department- but I was quite far from not having and incredible Saturday in one of my favorite places.

Here we go...

I'm not going to lie. I had been thinking about doing a blog for a few weeks now but had not actually sat down and forced myself to do it until my good friend Todd Parsons sent me an email today saying that he had started his own blog. Well damn... I thought, I really need to do this! So here it is.. Day #1


As most of you know, I am steadily practicing in the art of photography. I figure that based solely on the the law of averages; if I take enough pictures- I'm bound to get some good ones every once in a while. Right? I plan on posting 3 new pics everyday. Hopefully with the helpful critiques from my loyal blog readers and some occasional visitors; I can only see my photo skills going in one direction, up! This being said, Tell me what you really think of my pics!.. I'm fairly convinced that I am my hardest critic... try to prove me wrong.

I've started today with some of my most recent pictures in Moab UT. I spent about five days out there with my buddy Joe and somehow convinced him to get up early for a few of these shots. (wish I had been a little more to the right on this last one- don't like how the deraillieur is cutting off Joe's leg) You all should give me some feedback and we'll see where it goes...