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.

It’s Thursday and yesterday was quite an interesting day. I managed to get my taxes to the tax preparer finally, only today I need to gather a few more things because things changed so much in 2009.

I’m up early this morning to get a head start on a day, which like yesterday, is full of potential for falling apart in a spectacular way.

So, today’s photograph is a picture of a cactus flower. I don’t know what kind of cactus, but it’s pretty common here. These beautiful blooms are paper thin and delicate and almost transparent when the sun hits them just right.

I saw it one day when I was stressed and in a real hurry to get out of here. As I was pulling out of the driveway, I saw a splash of color in my cactus planter. I stopped the vehicle, got out, got my camera and shot this picture of a gorgeous pink cactus flower.

There’s some history behind my enjoyment of these flowers. One June day (I think it was in the 90s), my ex and I went for a drive up Unaweep Canyon. When we got to Gateway, he headed west on a road that took us through a valley. As we traveled further into the little valley, I noticed that the valley floor was covered with color. That color was these blooming cacti. Completely covering the ground, on either side of the road, were spots of bright pink (like the pink in this picture), spots of bright yellow, and then what appeared to be a mix of those two colors—a light peachy orange. I think that was the first time I’d seen that variation, although it does show up around this area, too.

I’ve never seen a valley floor covered with color like I saw that day. Of course, I haven’t been up that road again at that time of year. I think, also, that was one of those things, accidental and perfectly timed.

That was one of the last times I went camping with George because of his penchant for scaring me with the terrain in which he chose to drive. At one point during that drive, I like to tell how he had a five-foot wide vehicle on a four-foot wide road. It was a switchback road, sandy and unsolid, and it included a shear drop. Eventually, I got out and walked until it looked safe again. I’m really not even sure why I went there with him that day, except that he had a way of guilting me into doing things I’d rather not. I love it outside, but he made it frightening for me, so I didn’t like going with him. This trip was the trip that solidified my resolve not to go with him again — and I don’t think I ever did.

In any case, when I saw this flower, smiling from the planter that day, brightening and lightening my day a great deal in the process, I was reminded of that June afternoon many years ago. Since I didn’t have a camera at the time, it is only a memory.

I need to get on with this day. I have a lot of work to do, and I have time to make up from yesterday’s personal difficulties. I have to ask some questions also, to move forward with some work.

I hope today goes more smoothly.

Cheers!

It’s Monday morning and I had a good weekend. The sunrise was pretty red this morning, so I thought I’d try to capture it. I really need a new camera. I’ll just have to figure out how to make that happen.

I had a strenuous walk on Saturday after an aborted attempt to hike Serpent’s Trail on the Colorado National Monument. I could have done it, but the person I went with didn’t feel well. I then walked the Audubon section of the River Trail on the Redlands. It felt so good it was hard to turn back. It was sunny and there was a cool breeze that kept me from overheating. Before getting back to the car, I was stung by a bee. That thing swelled up pretty interestingly, but it went down. Now it itches like crazy. Windex seems to help. Shades of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

It was my plan to get some fall color pictures Saturday and Sunday. After my walk Saturday, I went to Ouray and started heading up Red Mountain Pass. THAT is INTENSE. Even though they don’t really provide any real protection from plunging to the bottom of that ravine, guardrails seem to say “safer.” I stopped a few miles up to check out a map to see what was on the other side of that pass and I couldn’t see how to get back in good time without maybe navigating that pass in the dark. So, I’d like to go over it, but I’ll need to start out earlier, with a clear destination. By the time I headed away from the house after dinking with my camera, I really couldn’t decide exactly where I wanted to go. I should have just gone to Paonia and hit a couple wineries. I’m sure the colors would have been as good, if not better, than what I saw in Ouray. In any case, I took no pictures. Not sure about colors this year. What I saw was more dry and brown than lush and turning gorgeous shades of yellow, orange, and red.

I still have big plans for color shots. Perhaps I’ll head up over the Grand Mesa sometime this week or weekend, and see what I can find. Also want to go to Mud Springs and over, as well as travel up Unaweep Canyon to Naturita, Nucla, Norwood, and then over to Ridgway. Got lots of driving to do before the first snowfall. But, any more, I really don’t want to be home all the time.

So, with that under my belt, I need to get my day and week started here. Have lots to do. Am glad to still have a job.

Happy Monday!

I won first prize at PALS (Palisade Art Lovers Show) in 2008 for this photograph. I took this photograph behind the Butterfly Pavilion in Grand Junction, Colorado. After a snowfall, the sky cleared and the sun appeared and I went out to find some pictures. This seed pod was perfect and in its dampness, a rich and shiny brown that caught my attention. I composed this shot by placing the pods on the cleanest spot of snow I could find.