Revealing the Hidden Beauty of Colorado
We got out early this morning once again. Started our walk around 7:30 AM with a temperature of 41 degrees. Sunny. Sightings:Birds: Canada geese, Starlings, Robins, Cormorants, Ducks, Kestrel, Western Meadow Lark, Turkey VultureCritters: Mule Deer ___________________________________________________________________________________________
Lake Pueblo State Park is located less than ten miles from my home in Pueblo, Colorado. I retired to Pueblo in late 2012 and very shortly thereafter made it a habit of taking a daily walk with my two dogs and a camera (weather permitting) along the Arkansas River below the Lake Pueblo Dam. Walking the same route daily might, at first, seem like a boring endeavor but I quickly found that there was something new to be seen on every outing. I got to know the best places to spot certain types of wildlife and I gained an appreciation…
Colorado has many well known landmarks. There are many more not as well known but equally magnificent. Some of them are natural wonders and others are man made. I will try to highlight those lesser treasures on this page. The iconic image of Colorado is Pikes Peak. Above is a view of the peak seen from in front of the dam at Lake Pueblo on an early Spring morning. There is still snow on the peak while the short grass prairie is beginning to go green.
Not having made it out for a walk today I have reached into my archive to find this image from one year ago. This nesting site perched on top of a utility pole has been active for many years. Each Fall after the birds had migrated for the Winter the power company (I assume) would break up the nest only to have the birds rebuild it the following Spring. But things have not gone well for the site. In 2018 the nest caught fire and was destroyed. Then in 2019 (pictured above) the would be parents were not successful in…
This morning it was all hands on deck! Clear, calm weather and a Super Moon nearing the horizon. Up at 6 AM and set up to shoot on the dam at Lake Pueblo State Park before 6:30. I had my three main cameras hanging from anyplace I could hang them. I set up my Olympus E-1 to try a time lapse series of the moon setting. I have to work on that today and it may or may not be blogged at a future date. No promises. Next I had my Panasonic Lumix GX85 which I brought to try some…
Over the last couple of years I have been trying my hand at time lapse photography. Below is one of my better efforts. This clip is comprised of 279 individual Raw frames shot at seven second intervals. Exposure on all frames was f-5.6, 1/3 second at ISO 100. I used neutral density filters fitted on the front of the lens to allow for the longer exposure but I did not record what exposure factor I used. These images were developed and cropped in ON1 Photo Raw (2109) and then exported as FHD .jpg files for “animation” in Pinnacle video editing…
After four or five days of self imposed (with government encouragement) quarantine I managed to rise early this morning and make it out to my normal walking/shooting area near the Anticline fishing pond at Lake Pueblo State Park. We, Whisper and I, made it to the parking lot right around 6:40 AM. The morning was crisp, sunny and calm just the way we like it. Even before we arrived I had a feeling the walk was going to be a good one. On the way out to the park on Highway 96 I caught sight of a large flock of…
Liberty Point is one of my favorite landscape subjects in my area. Isee it with every visit to Lake Pueblo State Park and it has anability to take on different moods and appearances which vary with theweather, my vantage point, season and time of day. On warmer days Isee it in the mornings and on cooler days I see it in late afternoonsand evenings. Many people will tell you that it is the highest pointin Pueblo County but that is really not so. It is the second highestpoint, the first being Greenhorn Mountain in the far southwest of thecounty. Nevertheless…