Jasonisms

Great sunset tonight that I almost missed if not for trying to get a photo of a rainbow to the east. Glad I had a chance to see this sky spectical in all its glory. These are straight out of the camera, no post editing at all. 

I hadn't been to  Roxborough State Park  in a couple of years. A friend of mine happened to be on that side of town and when the subject of "what next" popped up we decided to check it out as neither of us had been there before.  Me, because dogs are not allowed and her because she never really went outside or explored her surroundings.  I decided to go today and for the first couple of hours the sky was overcast with a solid ceiling of grey. It wasn't until the clouds cleared that the full Majesty of the park became apparent. 

Earlier today I was at the store and one of the sample-persons was handing out these Hershey's Kisses. Plenty of people taking a few kisses but very few people buying a bag. Not even me, but I'm more prone to buying peanut butter cups than Kisses Regardless, I was able to grab this quick snap and thought I'd share.

I've had a couple of friends recently accuse me of being depressed. Not "I'm having a bad day" depressed, but clinically depressed. I brushed them off citing I wasn't depressed, just tired. While I've been sleeping better this past week since my cough has subsided, I have still be extremely tired throughout the day. Earlier today I was on the phone with one of those friends and she again accused me of being depressed. "No, I'm not," I said. "I'm just tired." And that means I lack motivation to do just about anything constructive. She told me that was a symptom of depression. I wanted to argue with her but then she said something (I can't recall exactly) and I had an epiphany: I haven't been taking pictures. I always take photos. Sure, there are times where I have set the camera down for a week or two, but never have I set the camera down for this long. It's been nearly two months. Sure, some of that was driving 1.5 h...

Denver, from Rocky Mountain Wildlife Refuge . This was only the second time I have ever been to the park and not seen a bison or two within fifty feet of me. In this image you can see Dick's Sporting Goods Park , then the Commerce City municipal building and, in the distance, the Denver skyline. The right half of the image is mostly industrial buildings popping up through the trees.

Grabbed this shot while out walking the dogs earlier today. Couldn't figure out how I liked the edit best: color, black and white or with the green tint. What do you think? This is a mobile shot edited with Snapseed.

Went to a Solstice party last night hosted by my good friend, Glenda, the Good Witch of the North. Some fire dancers gave us a little show as they whirled and twirled bowls of fire in the night. I have some video as well, but I haven't seen them yet, so I can't tell you if they're good or not.

Found this little toy car at the dog park this morning while out walking the dummies. So, being who I am, I decided to take a picture of the little thing. Now, I should mention, this car is about the size of a Monopoly piece. The first image is the original; the second being edited with the Snapseed app on my phone; the third is the Snapseed edit run through the Tsu photo editor powered by  Aviary ; and the final, edited by the Flickr mobile app. Original: Straight Out of the Camera Edited With Snapseed Snapseed Edit Through Tsu Flickr App Edit As you can seen, each image has it's own merits. Well, except for the first one, that one's just terrible. I'm still trying to get used to the new camera on the new phone.

Did you know I got a new phone the other day? Yeah. I did. And naturally, my first photo with the new phone is of my dog, Rufus. Here he is edited with Snapseed and then filtered through EyeEm's filters.

You know, it occurred to me the other day that I hadn't written or posted anything here for far too long. I guess that's the price of trying to keep up with four different blogs. Anywho, last weekend I took some pictures while out riding motorcycles with some friends. The trip was an overnighter and I didn't bring my dSLR because I didn't think we'd be stopping as much as we did, but I did have my handy-dandy Note II and GoPro. If you want to read about the ride, click this link This was our group at the top of Independence Pass between Leadville and Aspen, CO. This was actually one of those happy accidents that seem to pop up now and again and bring some unexpected joy into our lives. I had the GoPro mounted to the front of the motorcycle to record the winding twisties up and down the pass only to have it take this still instead of recording video. I still don't know what caused that since the camera is set to default to video, but it happened and it turned out...

Some friends of mine came to town this August and I had a chance to go riding with them while they were here. Steve and Sash are a married couple who divested themselves of all their belongings and hit the rode. They live almost exclusively on their bikes, traveling around the county, making friends and enjoying the good life. I didn't take a lot of pictures while they were in town but these are a few I was able to grab. The first image is of South Park County, Colorado from Kenosha Pass. Then Sash's Vstar 650, my SV and a picture of Steve and Sash.

Grabbed this little gem while out walking my dog. Once again I didn't have my dSLR on me and had to grab this with my Android. The image is of a dead tree's branches reaching for the sky. This was treated with Snapseed, as usual for photography on the go.

While returning to Colorado from a funeral in Florida I took a little side trip to Victoria, KS and the Cathedral on the Plains: http://www.kansastravel.org/cathedralofheplains.htm It was about 100° F out and we had dogs with us so we didn't stop for long. Just long enough to pop our heads in, grab a couple of shots and then walk the dogs around the grounds. I'd hoped to grab a shot of a lonely church settled out amongst the rolling fields of Kansas, but the village of Victoria got in the way. Instead, I only grabbed these couple of shots with my phone. Interesting story, according to a church employee, the area was settled by German-Russians. In the seventeenth century (?) Germans were invited to Russia to cultivate the land with the promise of no taxes and no military service for 100 years. When that time was up those families, who never assimilated, left Russia for the New World and promised of no taxes and free land to farm. Some of them came to Kansas. This church was buil...

Came down to Florida for a funeral and haven't been taking too many pictures. Luckily I had my phone on me when we went out to dinner at a waterfront restaurant in Sebastian, FL. The first is the full color version and the second is the sepia styled image. I know it's not fashionable but I really love how the sepia one came out.

Haven't been taking too many photos lately. I don't know why, maybe its the heat or the rain or just my being too tired. Or, maybe I'm just being lazy. Who really knows? Anywho, here are two pictures from yesterday. Once again I failed to bring my dSLR and once again the lighting was perfect. These two I grabbed with my Android. One, a sunflower from behind because the light was better that way. The other, a number of flowers with a wire fence given a vintage look and feel (I hope).

Took the Pentax out for a while today and filled the memory card (a couple of times). That is, I didn't start off with an empty one, made some space by deleting a bunch of images, took a bunch of photos and then had to delete some more, etc. The image below, however, was captured and uploaded from mobile. The sky had some great texture tonight and I happened to be at the base of Plaza Tower One. Unfortunately, my dSLR was full so I grabbed this little gem with my Note II. I wish I'd left a bit more sky at the top, but what are you gonna do? As always, edited (not much) with Snapseed and uploaded on the go.

Went to lunch with a friend and grabbed this little gem without her knowing. I've since sent it to her and she was very pleased. As always, edited with Snapseed.

Goofygus Just like the nearly 365 other days of the year, I took Rufus for a walk about an hour or so after his evening meal. We didn't go far, just to a nearby park where I let him run around off leash for a few minutes. While he was rolling around in the grass I saw something I'd always wanted a picture of but have never been able to get. Rufus hates the camera. He really does. It doesn't matter if it's my Pentax or my Android. As soon as he sees the camera in my hand he turns away. Today I didn't have my dSLR, just my Android, so I grabbed a couple of quick shots, much to his dismay. I had to hold him down with one hand while I snapped with the other (which isn't easy to do on a 5.2" touchscreen, by the way). Anywho, this is one of two images I captured that I liked enough to share. Why Goofygus ? Years ago Rufus was acting goofier than usual so I gave him a slight nickname. As always, edited with Snapseed.

I keep forgetting to post my images on here. I'd been without editing software for my dSLR (Pentax K5) for a couple of months and sort of got out if the posting habit. However, with mobile photography there were still gazillions of options. My most commonly used is Google's Snapseed by Nik Software. Anywho, here's a flower from this morning while out walking the dog.