Something new and different... iPhone images from Colorado!

Regular followers may have been waiting for me to continue posting about my Sweden and Iceland trip of June/July. However, I ran out of time to finish those posts before taking another trip... this one to Montana (more about that eventually) and Colorado. The main reason I went to Colorado was to take a Photo Tour of Colorado with John Barclay and Dan Sniffin, two marvelous photographers who have been leading such tours for many years.

The tour was not only terrific fun... I learned an incredible amount of tricks, tips and techniques for post processing. Improved post processing of my images has already resulted in increased attention to my posts on both Flickr and Facebook.

Some of the MOST fun was discovering iPhoneography... thanks to John and Dan, I've spent a few dollars on more applications (hereafter referred to as apps) for my iPhone, learned a few tricks to improve my ability to take pictures with it and had LOADS of fun with both taking pictures and processing the images after capturing them.

This collage has images from several different locations all over the area between Ouray, Silverton, Durango, South Fork, Creede and Fairplay, Colorado. All were taken with the Hipstamatic app set for Kodot film using the John S lens.

The center image is of a barn seen near Bayfield, CO (more on that later in this post); the phone booth was on the side of the Silver Thread highway not too far outside South Fork (you all do know what a phone booth is, right?). ;-) The cute house in the lower left was just as cute inside (the tenant moving in that day invited me in to see it when she saw me taking a picture of the outside), the Coca Cola cooler and assorted relics of bygone days were on the porch of the general store (closed on Sunday) in Creede, the Aspens were everywhere so I'm not at all sure where I took those two photos and the Shaft Restaurant is one of the two places in South Fork where I had dinner while staying at the Arbor House B&B there for two nights... I HIGHLY recommend staying at the Arbor House if you ever find yourself in South Fork. The rest of the images were all taken at the South Park Museum in Fairplay, Colorado, an open air museum set up to show how people lived in that area in the late 1800s. It was a fascinating place and I could have spent more time there if only I didn't have to drive to Denver to catch a plane home that day!

The next two collages show the steps in taking the red barn image from the original (taken with the Apple supplied iPhone Camera app set to take an HDR image) to a finished product through several steps.

The left image is the original, the right is after retouching (Retouch app) to remove the overhead wires and pole. (note that the entire image isn't visible in this collage but you will see it at the end)

The image on the left is the original image after processing with the AutoPainter app using the Benson effect (I may never pick up a paintbrush again); the center image is the result of blending the original (after retouching) with the AutoPainter image (50% opacity) using Iris; the image on the right is after cropping slightly, still in Iris.

The finished image after further cropping and a bit more tweaking in Iris.

PS - If you want to see another scenic image (taken with my Nikon D90) from Colorado and some more iPhone photos, visit the two most recent posts on my photography blog.

A Packed Day of Tourism in Stockholm, Sweden on June 21, 2011

Regular readers may be pleased (I know I am) to know that I've figured out how to enlarge the images included in small size... just click any image you'd like to view in the larger size. If you found your way here from World Bird Wednesday, where I'll be posting later on this week, you may want to scroll down the page to the bird images which are towards the end.

Hang onto your hats for a parade of collages from a day so full that I cannot begin to share it all!

We started our day wandering through Gamla Stan (the old part of Stockholm and the location of the Royal Palace) where we saw colorful fruit and vegetable stands, lovely building details, wandering tourists and a nursery school on parade, a gnome outside a shop door, a BIG bag (filled with construction debris and too heavy for any human to carry) and the Swedish Academy where the Nobel prize winners are chosen every year.

We tarried long enough in Gamla Stan to take numerous photographs of narrow streets, building facades, steeples, windows, and even a "pissoire" (urinal) near the Royal Palace. We also had coffee and a pastry (sorry, no photograph as I wasn't fully awake yet) and observed the changing of the guards afterwards.

Street filled with people, lovely facade reminiscent of Dutch architecture, quiet side street and window of a shop not yet open.

Steeples everywhere... so many different styles to catch the eye.

Another quiet street, what might be the most photographed pissoire in the world although it is apparently no longer in use as a urinal and a strange piece of wearing apparel, especially as shown with a jacket and tie! Can you imagine wearing a vest made of tiny skeletons? (photographer reflection in lower right)

Hotels along one of the many scenic waterfront areas in Stockholm, the Royal Chapel, the organ in the Royal Chapel and the church (kyrka) on Skeppsholmen (more about that later in my journey).

Much pageantry is associated with the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace in Stockholm... the outgoing guards were wearing blue uniforms whereas the incoming guards were wearing black uniforms. Those wearing white were members of the marching band providing music for the ceremony. The tiny inset showing tourists in the first of the two collages above is a small taste of the huge crowd gathered to watch the show... the two men wearing plaid on the right are my brother (nearest the camera) and his partner... the woman, also wearing plaid, with her back to the camera on the left is my sister. As the band marched past us (second collage of the two shown above), I was happy to note that the leader of the band was a woman!

The building in the upper left corner is a small portion of one of the wings of the Royal Palace (I believe it is the wing where the private apartments are located, hence the privacy covers over all the windows.); the building on the lower right was built from 1882-1889 and is the headquarters of Norstedts, Sweden's oldest publishing company. I'm not sure about the other buildings that caught my eye!

Leaving Gamla Stan, we wandered past the Opera House and through a park where I spotted a Black-backed Gull perched on a statue... it took me about 10 minutes to make my way closer and closer to capture the image in the bottom right. The wooden windmill is out of place in that it was seen in our next destination, Skansen Park on Djurgården, but I needed an image to fill up this collage.

Nude statue seen in a quiet courtyard, gorgeous steeple on the House of Lords and the Stockholm City Hall as seen from a distance.

The last set of images were all taken at Skansen Park on Djurgården. Stockholm is a city made up of many islands, Djurgården is where Skansen, the Gröna Lund amusement park and the Aquaria Water Museum are located. We spent our time on Djurgården at Skansen, Europe's first open air park. It was established in 1891 at a time when the rural way of life was changing and was designed to preserve how people lived before industrialization brought about sweeping changes. One can see buildings from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and hear docents explain how people lived in the "old days." There is also a section of the park devoted to display of Nordic animals.

No one going to Skansen Park could miss this guy waiting to make balloon animals for anyone willing to pay him. The animals, a reindeer and a goat, were seen in the Sami area of Skansen Park and the building, maybe a schoolhouse (?), was seen while wandering the grounds after a nasty storm blew threw and soaked everything. I love the light!

The Peacocks and geese wander freely around Skansen Park; the Heron (young Great Blue?) was seen in the animal park. The Peacock was uncooperative when it came to displaying his tail feathers for me... but he knew enough to take shelter from the pouring rain that blew through the park later in the day. I don't know what kind of geese these are.

Some more of the geese (the gosling was wet with rain), a Moose grazing in an enclosure in the animal park and an unknown wee critter (maybe a bunny?).

One last mystery bird... a Sparrow whose ID I have been unable to find so perhaps one of you will know it! A fitting end to our day at Skansen included dinner at the restaurant near the exit gate and a very fine beer! If you've stuck with me to the end, I hope you've enjoyed sharing my day. You've only seen a small subset of the many images I took that day... digital photography makes me picture happy... must learn to censor so I don't have quite so many images to go through on my return!

Big Sky Panorama... Montana, 2010

Is it any wonder we love visiting Montana... we were there in June, 2010 and I'm clearly way late in posting anything about our adventures from this trip. This image is a panorama, stitched together from several images taken off Route 78 and Fox Road outside of Red Lodge, Montana. (We have a vacation home there, available for rent when we are not using it.)

This is a teaser... I hope to post more from our trip soon and hope you'll enjoy this image in the meantime!

St. Croix, USVI - April 23, 2010

Still trying to catch up on posts... our villa in St. Croix was marvelous... if you are ever inclined to go there... look up Amonoka Villa and see if it's available... 3 bedrooms on the main level (a fourth sleeping area in the downstairs apartment), 4-1/2 baths on the main level, huge common area that doubles as a dining room and sitting area indoors, pool with large deck and more dining area space as well as LOTS of lounging furniture to aid in loafing the day away if you aren't inclined to explore the island. There is also a large kitchen, wireless internet, generator (in case of power outages)... all in a gated community high up on the hillside on the north side of the island. The master bedroom suite has two bathrooms!

Anyone interested in tropical plants, birds, lizards (geckos) and/or insects will find plenty to enjoy in the grounds surrounding the villa... the gardens have fruit trees, many flowering plants and bushes and all manner of visitors if one sits quietly and waits. You might enjoy viewing a short slide show of the grounds and spacious rooms.

One day late in the week, we came back to the villa to discover a power outage had disabled the keypad (electricity required) that we used to enter the combination to access our private driveway. Once we realized that there was no power, a quick phone call to the emergency number led us to the caretaker who talked us through getting in the gate. Once inside, and still with no power, another phone call to the caretaker had him on site within 15 minutes to fire up the generator. We were VERY impressed to find out that the generator would give us full power at the villa until the next morning IF the power didn't come back on... but the power was restored within an hour or so which meant we didn't have to rely any longer on the generator.

Our evening adventure was a mixed failure/success... our dinner at The Waves was not so great (seriously overcooked red snapper which required cutting with a knife) and slow service (island time)... but the Mocko Jumbie show afterwards at Carombola Resort was quite entertaining! (Family and friends might like to view the slide show of pictures taken during dinner at The Waves.) We hurried to RumRunners after the Mocko Jumbie show only to find that the rehearsal dinner party crowd had mostly dispersed which meant we didn't get to party that evening with my nephew and his fiancee.

I'll leave you with another island sunset image (taken from The Waves Restaurant) and a photo and a bit of information (a teaser) about the Mocko Jumbies.

Mocko Jumbies (sometimes spelled Moko) have been in the Virgin Island cultural heritage for over 200 years and trace their history back to Africa as far back as the 13th and 14th centuries. More information is available elsewhere about their history and cultural significance. Mocko Jumbies are popular for their performances at many festivals as well as in shows for the tourists and locals who appreciate seeing these colorful dancers high up on stilts doing steps that some of us cannot even do with both feet firmly on the ground!

St. Croix - April 21-22, 2010

Arriving in St. Croix, we were met by the "Villa greeter" (holding a sign with our name) and my brother and his partner who had arrived "on-island" a few minutes before we did. Once we collected our luggage and rental car, we followed the greeter (caravan of two white Toyota Camrys) to our villa. We're in a HUGE sprawling villa with 4 bedrooms and who knows how many bathrooms (haven't counted those yet), a swimming pool, loads of lounge chairs for relaxing outdoors, beautiful gardens... luxury!

Staying at our villa are my sister and her youngest son (oldest is the reason we're all here as he is getting married Saturday), my youngest brother and his partner, myself and my other half and another one of my nephews. Maybe I'll try to get a group photo later!

Meantime, I'm posting a couple images from yesterday... a sunset from our villa and a portion of a most interesting building at Fort Christiansvaern, an old fort built by the Danish in 1749 to protect the harbor at Christiansted, St. Croix... The fort was was partially rebuilt in 1771 after being severely damaged by a succession of hurricanes. It is now a national historic site and is the best preserved of the few remaining Danish-built forts in the Virgin Islands.