PPD 101

I shot this a while back on drive through the mountains. I like the general late fall, end of the season moodiness to it.

Halloween Time

A widely known fact about my older brother is that he's got an interest in zombies. Well, that's not fair... it's really more of an unhealthy obsession with zombies. Naturally he's got a ridiculous amount of books and video games about zombies. So many books that he started shipping them to me, I guess to free up storage space.

I'm not one to let books and games go to waste, so I've been reading and playing them. Yes, I've been positively immersed in shambling waves of zombie "culture." So naturally when I was thinking of ideas for pumpkin carving, the first word that came to mind was "braaaaaiiiinnnnnssss!" Thus was unborn the undead zombie pumpkin!



Zombie pumpkins are a fearsome species that feast on the squishy innards of the living pumpkin. We've caught this zombie in the act of eating this poor victims succulent, brain-like guts.

Thankfully it's easy to spot these undead abominations by unhealthy green color and glowing red eyes. Keep an eye out for this unholy menace, and protect your pumpkins!

Kart Racing

My fellow NewsGatorian and coworker Mark L is an avid kart racer, and he was nice enough to invite me out to the track today. I showed up a little bit late, but managed to shoot a couple cards worth of pictures while waiting for Mark's race.




Mark, driving the grey kart, #37, was doing quite well until his kart's drive chain slipped off. He managed to fix it himself while still on the track, burning his fingers in the process, and got back into the race. Unfortunately it was not meant to be -- the chain slipped again and got wound up inside the engine, knocking him out of the race. Better luck next time, Mark!







Check out the gallery for all 31 photos.

PPD 100

PPD 99

Poor chubby dog panting it out at the park last Saturday.

Millenium Bridge Shoot

Last weekend I went on a photo shoot with Christian and a couple girls he knew, Elise (left) and Ronnise (right).

We headed down to the Millenium Bridge (that's the one with the goofy spire at the end of 16th Street). We started out on the train tracks beneath the bridge. There were a couple of railroad drifters down there, waiting to catch a train to San Francisco and hitting a bottle of Wild Turkey. I guess that added some authentic railroad flavor. Thankfully they didn't cause any trouble.

At sunset we headed up on top of the bridge and continued shooting until well after dark. I walked away with about 575 photos, about 6 GB worth. I managed to pare it down to 74 photos. You can see all of them in the gallery, if you've got the time. Christian took about 650 photos and managed to pare it down to the 50 or so in his gallery.

A few more of my favorites...

PPD 98

This is the spire on the Millenium Bridge, and the end of 16th Street. But I think it looks like it could be floating in space somewhere, perhaps attached to a satellite or the space station.

PPD 97

This shot of the building on 14th & Champa being demolished needed a little kick. So I ran it through a process to give it a faux-miniature look that I've been looking for an excuse to use.

For the photoshop geeks out there it's basically a lens blue filter, masked out with a gradient. Pretty easy really.

PPD 96

This was originally an overexposed shot I was going to use for an HDR merge, but it looks cool on it's own. I think it's got a futuristic, "Minority Report" sort of feel, with the tower disappearing into the distance.

Hat tip to Wendy for making me take a second look at this one.

Lane At Work

Apparently one of the posts in my blog caused some duplicates to appear in Lane's product. Here he is working late to fix the issue. How's it coming, Lane?

Lane At Work

Apparently one of the posts in my blog caused some duplicates to appear in Lane's product. Here he is working late to fix the issue. How's it coming, Lane?

PPD 95

I try to stay away from flower photos. But these two flowers have a little more character than usual -- they're not perfect, so they've got a little more character.

PPD 94

PPD 93

I like the "uppity lady with a yappy dog" stereotype here. Also that opposite corners of the frame both have a dog in them.

Model

I've been taking a digital photography class at the Denver Darkroom for the last month. Tuesday was the last class, which included a photo shoot with a professional model. Naturally I got a lot of photos, some of which are not too bad for a first time out. Especially considering the lighting was limited and there were five other people trying to shoot at the same time.



All the photos are up here, including the goofy outtakes.

PPD 92

Every summer Denver has a chalk art festival. It's always amazing to see what those artists can do with chalk -- it's a far cry from what kids draw on the sidewalk!

As I was crouching down to take a shot of the art, I noticed this composition and snapped it almost immediately. I didn't even realize that the guy standing there happens to be a friend of mine! We hadn't planned to meet up or even talked recently, he just happened to walk into my frame and I took the picture thinking it was a complete stranger. It's a small city...

PPD 91 - Airborne

I ran across a group of skaters in an alley off Park Avenue. Half an hour and over 200 shots later I filled up my memory card and headed home, but they were still at it. I've got more memory cards now.

PPD 90 - Happy Birthday to Dad

Today is my Dad's birthday. I believe he's turning 29. How about that, next year we'll be that same age!

PPD 89

Last Saturday there was a mini-festival over at City Park, including a burlesque show (I think it was called the "Black & Blue Burlesque Show", but I can't find a link except one to MySpace, and I refuse to link there). Anyway, it was.. umm.. well worth watching :)

This isn't necessarily one of my favorite shots from that, but it did make it through post processing first, so I could use it for a class.

PPD 88 - Designated Smoking Area

If you can't read the sign, it says "Designated Smoking Area."

This is intended as a commentary on the status of smokers recently. Particularly how they're increasingly pushed off into the dingy corners of society where they won't be in the way. Regardless of whether that's good or bad, that's the way it is. In keeping with that I went for a hyper-gritty urban feel with shot.

For the Denverites out there, this little corner is sandwiched between a couple buildings off of 17th & California.

PPD 87

I was out cruisin fer snaps one day and spotted this tree with some nice bark texture and a big old hole in it. Maybe a squirrel lives there?

PPD 86

This excitable young pup was stuck on a second floor balcony, unable to investigate all the passersby. He satisfied himself by watching carefully and barking frequently.

PPD 85

I took a walk down Cherry Creek after work on Firday. In the shadow of a bridge, next to the locks where the gondolas load up, I spotted this heron. He perched there for at least ten minutes before a bored gondola operator scared him off.

But think about it - this is right in downtown Denver, during the middle of the evening rush hour. Kinda reminds you why commuting sucks, doesn't it?

PS, although that was my favorite there are three more pics here, here and here.

PPD 84

This striking wall and "doorway" is facing onto a small basketball court behind a school. The bright primary colors and geometry of it caught my eye from a block away.

PPD 83

Tahoe Pictures - Finally Done!

Yeah, I know nobody really wants to see anyone else's vacation photos. But I'm just happy to be done with these already! They're all under my Vacation category on SmugMug.

PPD 82

I haven't done a PPD in a while, so I figure I'm justified in actually doing four shots this time.



I found this set of birdhouses on a weekend bike ride near Alameda & University. While I was taking these the couple that lived there walked up, no doubt wondering what the heck I was doing taking pictures of the back of their house. After I explained that I wasn't a peeping tom they seemed rather flattered. The birdhouses were made by the mother & her daughter as summer projects.

Morning Juggler

On my daily walk to work I spotted a juggler. He was kind enough to let me take a few (dozen) shots while he waited for his friend.



Click through to see the rest.

Walking Wash Park

Last Sunday I took a little stroll around Wash Park to stretch my legs. Naturally I toted the camera along - I still need to justify the expense to myself. Thankfully I got a few decent snaps.

This dog broke free from his owner and took off on every dog's dream - a wild goose chase! He had a great time of it, with his owner in pusuit yelling after him.
In case you were wondering, the dog's name is "Baby Boy". Who names their dog that?

This was the only gosling I saw all day. I stalked him for the better part of twenty minutes trying to get a close up shot. It's not easy getting closeups of wildlife with a wide-angle lens!

Some people on a bench gave this squirrel a Skittle. Not exactly healthy, but he really seemed to like it.
He must have been fearless, engrossed, or hoping for more - he let me within three feet to take this shot.

Come on, gimme a Skittle!

I'm crazy squirrel guy, gimme some candy!

He sat up and twitched his tail at me for about twenty seconds, but his sudden onset of cuteness still did not score him a Skittle.

People's Fair 2007

We took a spin around People's Fair today and got a few decent snaps. Check out all of them here.