Today I went back up the Trail Ridge Road - long story short is that I had mechanical problems with my film camera and ruined a whole roll of fill from yesterday’s trip. Not happy because I had some pictures taken in the fog and there was no fog today ! I was however not gonna be defeated.
This time I saw a moose cross the road but that will have to wait for the film to be developed. Then once at the Homestead site I saw a caravan of Earth Roamers - super high end truck campers going from $1/2 million to $2million. They are manufactured just up the road from us in Dacono, Colorado but I’ve never seen one in person. Then on up to 11,800 ft ASL to the gift shop/cafe and was confronted with a panhandler- I’ve never encountered a panhandler at this altitude!
While the rest of the group when on a bike ride I decided to explore Trail Ridge Road = I had intended to take it all the way to Estes Park but stopped short of it. What a fantastic mountain road. It is the highest continuously paved road in America toping out at 12,000 ft ASL. I stoped at the ticket and snack shack at 11,756 ft ASL.
Today, Wednesday 8/24/22 we went on the guided Continental Divide Trail with side by side Can Am off road vehicles. These machines are designed to go off road , over boulders etc. We saw people with new Ford F-150 going up and we both thought that was a big mistake. Never take your only vehicle on one of these trails - far better renting.
August 21, 2022 is my birthday - now officially allowed to sit at the adults table. Celebrated with friends from the Airstream Club of Colorado. We were at the Tavern at Grand Lake Lodge.
Every summer the town of Wheat Ridge where I live has a weekend Carnation Festival - WR used to be a center of carnation growing. Most of the activities we don’t go to - concerts , fireworks. We always try to go to the Saturday morning parade.
On my daily walk in the neighborhood I saw this. This is a beautiful house, perfectly landscaped. So it was scouted to be used as a backdrop for a commercial by Adam’s Polishes which is a high end line of car care products based here in Denver.
Just a few pictures shot with my Digital IR converted Canon point and shoot. On the way out to Colby I stopped into High Plains Raceway and it was WRL ( World Racing League) weekend. Then onto Eastern Colorado - Cope, Colorado. In Kansas I went thru St. Francis . Before work I shot some scenes in Goodland , KS
A diptych is a combination of two images placed immediately next to each other to make an artistic statement or comparison. The photographs can be identical or they can be different; there are no hard and fast rules – they simply have to be next to each other.
When I bought the Kodak H35 Ektar half frame point and shoot it wasn’t so much with the idea of saving money by getting two exposures on a normal 35mm frame, although there is that to think about. It was actually to see if one could actually get a diptych in camera. It’s a bit of hit or miss to get two similar subjects next to each other AND in the same vertical vs. horizontal orientation. The examples here were shot relatively randomly.
Denver Art Museum had a great exhibit of and about Georgia O’keefe’s photography. Most of us including me ( until seeing this exhibit) think of GO as this great painter who was married to Alfred Steiglitz a central figure in 20th century photography. She was however her own photographer relying on her circle of friends who were also photographers to expand her repertoire. Todd Webb was one such friend. She was more concerned about shape, position and light than learning the technical aspects of exposure and development. The photos in the exhibit were at times very small, almost like what you would get from a drugstore processing. The O’Keefe family had always embraced photography but it appears that Georgia’s serious efforts began when she was in her 60’s.
This weekend the Rocky Mountain Vintage Racing club held their annual race to benefit the Child Cancer Foundation. Here are a couple of photos from the event.
It isn’t shocking that someone is robbed in broad daylight but what the F’in Jesus was this preacher doing with a million in jewels! That’s the story.
I have the perfect song for this situation.
Now you fashion-lovin’ Christians sure give me the blues You must unload, you must unload You’ll never get to heaven in your jewel-encrusted high-heeled shoes You must, you must unload
For the way is straight and narrow and few are in the road Brothers and sisters, there is no other hope If you’d like to get to heaven and watch eternity unfold You must, you must unload
I’m starting this blog without having seen my first roll out of this camera. It is a plastic 1/2 Frame camera. Instead of 24 mm x 36 mm negative frame - it shoots 24 mm x 18mm - this now gives it a vertical format instead of a horizontal one. It also doubles the number of farms per roll. It is a point and shoot with a simple lens. They suggest shooting it with ISO 100 or 200 film - it does have a flash for indoor shots.
I just finished this roll while traveling to Kansas. For my C41 I’ve gotten lazy and just pay the money to have TheDarkroom.com do the work. I have the C41 kit by tomography sitting at home but in order to use it so it doesn’t go bad one would have to save 10 rolls at a time to develop. Anyway it also makes it hard to wanna do it myself with the service and quality coming from The DarkRoom is so good
I am pretty impressed with the quality of this little plastic beast. Might be worth using on Ektachrome given the high cost of slide film - probably would stick to shooting it in outdoors.
The images above are uncut straight from the camera diptych frames. This can be difficult to get them this way but you could shoot 3 shots and at two of them should form a pair.
What Is a Diptych?
Here is the diptych definition, put simply a diptych is an object that is made up of two parts, a singular piece of artwork formed by a pair of panels joined together. Diptych artwork can feature paintings, photographs, drawings, carvings, or any flat piece of artwork.
My favorite Bison rancher, Dan O’brien doing a Public Service Announcement about people continuing to think that they can get close to bison and survive. Every year typically in Yellowstone several tourists are injured or killed because they do not heed the warnings from the park rangers.
On my way home from Goodland , KS I went thru some amazing cloud and rain formations. Nothing serious or dangerous but just interesting shafts of rain back lit with the setting afternoon sun. Here they are - some are slightly redundant but interesting nonetheless. OBTW they were all shot in color and then taken into BW as I think this makes them more dramatic
Just got into my Hotel Room here in Colby, KS for my two day stint working. The A/C was on full blast with the shades closed. While I appreciate the cold on a day of 100 degF it was a bit much. After getting the A/C turned down - I opened up the shades to find this. What else would you expect in Rural Kansas? Glad to see the land being used to grow something.
A brief trip to Syracuse to visit with family. Was able to see my one and only grandchild, Ivria. Spent time with Alex and Lisa, her parents. Then it was off to Oneida Lake where I stay with Hilary and Kris. This entailed a Dave Mathews Band concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. There was visiting with Luna and Indie, Hilary’s new but large dogs.
I believe that many corporations are bad - I only have experience with one medical corporation up close and that’s Centura which is an amalgamation of CHI ( Catholic Health Initiative) and the Adventist Church. As the petition states orange Flight for Life plane and helicopter colors are themselves their own brand. They’ve been around for over 50 years and now administration wants to change colors to better fit in with their brand. Estimated cost to repaint the fleet $1 million or more. I was only given a 3% raise this year - about a third of inflation. But they have money to repaint equipment that doesn’t need this.
A couple of months ago this same CEO pleaded with staff not to bring in the union. This is why you need a union because clearly Administration is clueless as what a health systems priorities should be. I am in the enviable position of being a part time worker . So if Centura ever reads this:
1] It’s called freedom of Speech
2] It’s called truth to power
3] Peter Banko save your BS proclamations about God’s love and the work we do on his behalf. Try walking the walk for once
Why do I shoot E-100? Well I wasn’t for awhile - it’s expensive at almost $20 a roll, costs $3 more than C41 to develop at TheDarkroom.com and I used to think it was hard to shoot because of it’s limited exposure latitude. All of this is true but I shot a last remaining roll about a month ago and I was amazed at the beauty of the output. I don’t think I could shoot a steady diet of it but for certain projects it’s worth it. For difficult lighting just bracket your exposures.
