I took this picture on Glade Park in the Fall of 2003.

These little purple flowers covered the ground in an area that had been devastated by a wildfire the year before. I took lots of pictures, but couldn’t capture the starkness of the landscape. What captured my imagination most was how soft the lavender carpet was underneath those charred trunks and limbs.

This was the best picture I got; just a wallpaper shot of a clump of purple flowers.

I liked this angle looking at the switchback at the top of Serpents Trail hike on the Colorado National Monument.

Actually, this isn’t a glow, but it was a bright orange. This is what I get to see many mornings. It’s like a kaleidoscope; ALWAYS different and ever-changing.

For this, I took several shots with different settings. The sun rises so quickly, I think it might be a good idea to get some setting worked out, then save the custom setting. Perhaps that would then require fewer adjustments.

This is better than yesterday’s effort. I used the real cam, not the phone. I’m not displeased with this one.

Happy Monday!

Bonanza! I found the two old photos, and I took another shot today! I didn’t want to complete and post this entry without the “froggy” picture. I looked all over for it this morning, and it was just now that I remembered I had named it “froggy.” I’ll now attempt to get the pictures inserted in some logical order.

In trying to find the two photos of that old tree below me (from November 6, 2010 entry), I spent a lot of time looking at pictures from 2001 to now. I’m having so much trouble with my camera (translation: ME) and as I looked at old photos, I found some really good shots. I may be trying too hard. There’s also the possibility that the lens on this machine just isn’t what the lens on the older cam was. I got used to getting good, clear shots, AND the color was almost always good. Guess I’d better dink with white balance? (I believe “dink” is a tech term?)

So, on to the shots of “my” tree.

This shot is from my house and it was taken on a foggy day prior to March 6, 2004. I believe I shot it before I owned a digital camera and this is either a scan of the photograph or the negative.

This is the old spring shot. This one was taken on March 29, 2006. The day I snapped this picture, the sky was heavy with those blue-gray clouds that often push through Western Colorado on the way to drop their load of snow in the high country. It was an incredible weather day, and during a break in the storm, I headed out to get a picture of this tree against those incredibly dark clouds. This one was cropped a lot at the bottom to eliminate some old boat that looked like it had taken a bumpy tornado ride.

After starting this entry, I decided to go on down the street and take a shot of that tree from essentially the same perspective as the old spring storm shot. Apparently someone removed the old boat. I should thank them for that.

How can you not love an old soul like this? On foggy days, its bare arms reach out through the mist when I can see almost nothing else below. In the fall, I get to watch the sun play on the changing colors of its aging leaves. In the spring, I get to see it leaf out in new green. In the summer, and earlier than you’d think, it develops a single patch of yellow leaves near the top.

I love its gnarled branches.

Do you know there’s a really cool old tree on the way to Montrose? Another big, old one like this. You can find it on Highway 50 just before you drop completely down into the valley; before the airport. There are two hills on the south side of the road, and between those hills is a stand of trees that I look for each time I drive by. I can’t remember if there are power lines intruding or not, but I’ll bet there are. I guess I should pay closer attention. I thought I’d been pretty observant to notice them in the first place — not to mention to remember each time to look for them. I often think to stop, but by the time I get to Montrose, I really just want to get where I was headed.

Well, this has been fun, and it all started with a hike on the Colorado National Monument yesterday. Now, up there are some old, gnarly, very interestingly bent trees!

Went for a hike today on the Black Ridge Trail of the Colorado National Monument.  It was a warm, sunny day and absolutely perfect for a hike. I went with Carol, with whom I’ve hiked several times, and met through Twitter. In fact, this trail was her suggestion. She hikes all over and is introducing me to lots of new places to hike. I’ll do this one again.

I was really disappointed in the quality of the pictures I took, so it’s very clear that I have a lot more work to do with that camera. The largest problem seems to be an inability to see the LCD to take a well-composed picture. I’ve tried the hat thing to shade the screen, and that doesn’t really seem to help at all. I do believe the the pictures are somewhat more focused since I started using manual focus rather than auto. But, I’m still not happy with what I’m seeing. Tomorrow I think I’ll work with the camera again.

All that being said, I also took a few pictures with the iPhone. I’m never real happy with those, but today they seemed to be the better photos from this outing. I took this picture of a dead tree. I like the dead and winter trees better than I like summer trees in full green. Somehow, the way those gnarly branches reach out and upward, really make the trees look alive.

There’s a tree below my house that I love. It’s a big, old, gnarly cottonwood that I’ve watched for the last couple of weeks as its leaves changed colors. In the morning sun it looks as though it’s lit from within. Each arm of the tree ends in a large clump of yellow leaves that seem to glow in the sunlight. Unfortunately it’s surrounded by houses and power lines and other junk. That makes a usable picture a little difficult, but I have taken a couple over the years. I’ll get those posted.

I sure enjoy all the filters in Photoshop and the Photomatix App. This is very intense and I used a grunge filter in Photomatix and added some highlight and shadow smoothing. When I took it into photoshop, I cropped it and tried to smooth the clouds, but I think I gave up on that. I gave it a motion blur. There’s also three smart filter layers of varying degrees of opacity and they contain Color Burn, Surface Blur, and Motion Blur. Of course this is not what Mt. Garfield looks like, but in this picture, it sure is intense! What fun.

It’s October 24, and this morning I woke up to see the first visible snow on the Grand Mesa. I’m not looking forward to being cold, but I do love a change in weather. This is the picture I took. I fiddled around with Photomatix Pro and Photoshop and hopefully brought out more color and contrast than the original picture showed.

This is a test to see if this works with WordPress to update my blog. Am assuming I can only still type 140 words but want to test that as well. So, I’ll hit send now and see what happens.

Well! That worked. Not only can I update my blog, but I can use more than 140 letters, and it all goes to Facebook, too. Because what I’ve got to say is so important, I sure wouldn’t want any of it to get lost. 🙂

On with my day.

The drive over Owl Creek Pass was stunning. I love those rocky peaks. I don’t know if there’s a fire somewhere, or if the smoke in the air is a result of the numerous “prescribed” burns in the area. Whatever it is, it made clear pictures of the mountains impossible. It doesn’t help, either, that I have trouble with my camera. You’d think after all this time, I’d have that thing figured out. I did get a few good pictures, though.

I’ve decided that I really need someone to drive while I just hike and take pictures. Where the pictures would be the nicest, there was no place to pull over. I did pull over a lot and walk to where the photo would be the best, but there were too many times it was a fair distance back to get the photograph I “saw” while driving.

I would like to make that run again next weekend. I think it probably doesn’t matter if the trees have leaves. That drive is just so beautiful because of the mountains and the light and shadow on those peaks. Perhaps after some weather, the air will be clearer and afford me better pictures of the mountains.

The road was very well marked, as I’d recently been told. I had no trouble navigating and there was only one place where I thought I might not be going the correct direction. I did just follow what appeared to be the main road and it turned out to be the right road. I can’t think of any part of that drive outside the Cimarron area that wasn’t totally picturesque. I went very slowly, partly because the road was very wash-boardie and partly because I didn’t want to rush it. I believe I was told it would take three to four hours; I was gone over six hours.

So, I took this photograph around Silverjack Reservoir. I likely wouldn’t have even seen this, except that I saw someone dismantling his tripod and camera outfit right there. When I looked back and saw it, I was embarrassed to go back — I don’t want to interrupt someone else’s photo op. After about a mile, I did turn around and when I got back, the fellow was gone, so I was able to take this picture without embarrassment.

There’s a trail there. It’s called the Alpine Trail? I’d like to walk up that. I’m not all that comfortable just heading out on my own. I’m not so much afraid of what I’ll run into, but what might happen if I run into something and nobody knows I’m gone.

Weather is supposed to change today. I’m excited for that. But that is why I was gone all weekend. I thought I needed to pack in some travel time before the weather changed drastically. Even so, I think I might try that trip again soon, trees or not.

This bug was in my driveway one Sunday before my desert walk. I have no idea what kind of bug this is, but he let me take his picture. I was real careful not to run him over when I left. When I came back in about an hour, he was still in the driveway.

I thought this was very cool.