12 posts tagged “photography”

Just a couple of pics I took from my phone camera today while Strix was driving.

View through the sun roof in Strix's PT Cruiser.

The leaning water tower of Groom, New Mexico.  It's not as famous as the leaning tower of Pisa, nor as famous as the other famous structure in Groom, being the mildly disturbing giant cross, but I find this more interesting.

Strix took this picture recently of our fourteen-year-old cat, Baudelaire, or Bobo for short.  I took it over to icanhascheezburger.com to pimp it out a little.

 

Here are yet more pictures from the train ride Mom and I took on the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.  These are from the trip back from Cascade Village, and they were taken through the soot-covered window of a moving train, so forgive the quality.

Much of the line runs right along the side of a mountain, so those who are afraid of heights might not want to look down.

Another Oh-My-God-We're-Gonna-Die shot.

Probably my favorite scenary shot from the trip.

A view of the steam engine ahead of us on a left turn curve.

A couple of more straight down into the river shots.

A similar left-hand turn allowed me to take this shot of the steam engine ahead of us, but this time with quite the sunburst.

This shot wasn't an artifact of the light or anything.  The white cloud to our left is steam from the engine, drifting away.

A rather pristine lake we passed.

And that's all!  Sorry to take so long to get them all posted.  Thank you for indulging me.

In conclusion, I'll say that it was a lot of fun!  Strix and I will definitely have to do this together sometime, preferably in the summer when we can stay in the open observation car longer and take prettier pictures.  I've heard that it's really nice to do when the leaves are changing, but that you have to book during those weeks well in advance.

One of my most talented neighbors (perhaps my most talented neighbor) Michelley-Chelle retouched my picture of the train with the unfortunate shadow across the nose to lessen the shadow.  Here is the result:

Original

The Michellified Version

Thanks, 'Chelle!  You're so smart!

More pics from Telluride:

There was a borded up building Telluride that had some interesting and confusing graffiti on it.  This one says:

SAVE THE WORLD
BAN THE PREIST
FREE THE NUGS
KEEP THE [PEACE SYMBOL]

Evidently, the author is using some code with which I'm not familiar.

This one says:

DON'T TAKE
THE PEACE
OR FEED THE
BEAST, BUT
KEEP OPEN
MIND'S, AND
BE OPL

Surely, this is advice we should all live by.

On the same building, this borded up window was made into a display for the Telluride's Bill of Rights, adopted by their City Council, I suppose.  The sign says, "Your Civil Liberties are Safe in Telluride."  Under the sign and above the display, someone else wrote:

"But Not Your Property Rights"

I'm sure there's a story behind that.

Never let a boogie board or a used ski go to waste.

Miguel County Court House

Some mountain views we took on the way out of at a sight-seeing pulloff.

This is Lizard Head Peak.  Check out the Wiki article on it; it's interesting.  The first guy to successfully climb it, in 1920, said, "A rottener mass of rock is inconceivable."  I would imagine so.  It's also over 13,000 feet at the top, so bring your oxygen.

In honor of my mother staying with us for a while, yesterday her and I went to Durango and took a ride on the D&SNGRR steam engine, which has been in operation since 1882, to Cascade Canyon, Colorado.  Visit the Railroad's web site for some fascinating reading about the train's history.  It used to haul gold and silver ore from the mines, and now it just hauls people.

During the summer months, the train runs all the way from Durango to Silverton, Colorado (thus the name).  During the winter months, the danger of avalanche is too high, so it only runs a little more than halway to Silverton, stopping at Cascade Canyon before heading back.  It's a short trip to nowhere, but people take it for the scenary, photography opportunities, and the experience of riding in an actual steam-powered train that was originally built in the 19th Century (although it has been rebuilt and refurbished many times since, of course).

Has nothing to do with the railroad, but I took a picture of this on the way to the railroad.  These are the doors to the General Palmer Hotel, a fixture in Durango.

A mural on the side of a building depicting Main Street in Durango as it looked in 1890.  There is an unfortunate shadow of a street light post ruining the shot, but you get the idea.

A sculpture of three young horses outside the train station.  One of the train cars can be seen in the background.

The front of the station.

A view down the Observation Car, which is an open air car where it's easier to take pictures of the passing scenary.  Unfortunately, it was too cold to spend much time in there, though a number of the passengers tried.  I went back into it a couple of times, then gave up.

A view down Coach #2, where we were seated.  A word of warning if you ride this train: the men's room in Coach #2 doesn't have a lock.

The Durango-Silverton more or less runs along the route of the Animas River.  This is a shot I almost didn't get of us crossing the river, with a footbridge in the distance.

I got this picture violating the rules of the Observation Car, which were to keep your all your appendages inside the car.  I'm such a rebel.

A couple of slightly blurry pics of another train we passed that had not stood the test of time.  It had been left on this side rail to disintegrate over time, but it still looked cool.

A view of one of the many points of rapids along the river.  You can also see the ice forming on the rapidly moving water, giving you an idea of how cold it was.  No swimming.

A view in the Concession Car, where Mom and I went to get something quick to eat.  If you want something hot, it's going to be microwaved, and you have to be rail thin (get it? rail thin?) to work behind that counter, but they had a pretty impressive array of junk food and a full bar, to boot.  You could get whatever drink you wanted, and then immediately dump it down the front of your shirt because you're on a train and bouncing around like a human pinball.

Running out of time, but I have many more pictures, so stay tuned.

So here are pics I took this weekend in Telluride, Colorado.  But first, here's a camera phone pic I took of myself because, well, I'm vain.  (Spelled it right that time, didn't I?)

I'm so vain, this blog is probably about me.  And yes, I am smiling.

Just a non-operational ski lift.  It's still the "off-season," though the "on-season" starts in just a couple weeks and everyone seemed rather nervous because it's unusually warm for this time of year and the outlook for snow is poor.  The pile of snow you can see at the bottom of the frame is from an artificial snow machine, but it was climbing into the fifties in the afternoon so they couldn't keep it out of its liquid form.

A couple shots of the mountains surrounding the town.

A couple shots of the San Miguel River.  Don't look directly into the second picture, or you'll go blind from the sun shot.

From Google Earth - what it looks like entering Telluride from an almost ground-level perspective.

Various shots taken from inside the free gondola ride to the top of the mountain.

Telluride from space.  No, I didn't take this one!  It's from Google Earth.

If you take the gondola all the way to the top, and refuse to get off, it goes back down the other slope and deposits you in a quaint little mountain village called... Mountain Village.  (Someone lost their marketing job over that one, I'm sure.)  It's not a real village, but a shopping and resort area built by the gnomes of Telluride to fleece the fleece-wearing tourists.

Some ski lifts in Mountain Village.

Here are some kids in Mountain Village doing some really down-scaled snowboarding on what little artificial snow had survived the warm afternoons of the last few days.  They were wearing shorts.

We can make snow.  We are as gods!

A statue of a Ute Warrior in Mountain Village.  The plaque could have read, alternately, "You stole the lands of my ancestors and all I got was this lousy statue," or "Ute all have a good time in Mountain Village, now, y'hear?"

A statue of a woman skiing, with Farah hair and seventies sunglasses.  The ski pole in her left hand is bent, presumably where somebody thought it would be fun to climb the statue, and to add insult to injury someone stuck a small pumpkin on the end of it.  Click on the picture for the large version - it's worth it.

The same statue from another angle, so you can see the pumpkin better.  I also, um, inadvertantly got a better shot of the skiier's backside.  I want to shake the sculptor's hand.

Between the woods and frozen... pond... on the coldest... warmest... okay, whatever.  Despite the temperatures being too warm for decent snow, it was cold enough, apparently, to make a thin layer of ice over this pond.

I got down on my butt to take a picture of these cat tails.  I hope it was worth it.

Rustic, ain't they?

An AED just out for anyone to use, which is a great idea.  This is for when the tourists realize how much they paid for a latte.

A climbing rock in the middle of the village.  All of the handholds had been removed, apparently to keep people off of it in the off season.

A sign outside in Mountain Village.  The sign within the sign (metaphysical!) says the following:

Skiers!

What to do if you encounter a snowboarder:

• Remain Calm
• Do Not make eye contact.
• Do Not make sudden or threatening movements.

We took the gondola back to the top of the mountain then got out to walk around a little and enjoy the view.  On the way out of the gondola shack, I had to stop and take a picture of this sign:

Do not touch indeed.

Various shots from the top of the mountain.

This was just a sign pointing to one of the ski slopes, but I found it interesting.  Just on the other side of the sign is a very, very steep drop.  Strapped to the front of the sign post is a big padded buffer.  All I can think of is it's there in case people lose control of their skis and hitting the sign is their only alternative to going straight down the mountainside.  Gee, I wonder why I've never wanted to take up skiing.

A view of the canyon/valley on the south side of the mountain.  Some of the buildings in Mountain Village can be seen, bottom left of the frame.

A paw print from something very large.  I don't know enough about animal tracks to tell what.

Another view of Telluride from the mountain.  I like this one because it's easy to see where the glacier had cut into the mountain slopes on the north side of the village.

A hole with a small bunch of flowers in it.  I've written a little story to explain why they are here, but it's long, so I'll post it tomorrow.

I have more pics, but it's getting late.  See ya.

Here are some pics I took of Angel Peak about two years ago.  I just now uploaded them to Flickr.  Angel Peak is a rock formation in the middle of some beautiful badlands in the Southeast area of San Juan County, New Mexico.  Because of the lay of the land, it's visible for about a hundred miles in every direction, making it quite the landmark.

 

I'm going to be out of town on our anniversary, so we celebrated it last night by going to The Bluffs, having some wonderful food, drinking some splendid wine, and listening to some superb jazz played live for our enjoyment.  It was very pleasant.  I guess I'll sign up for another fourteen years.

Strix got a new Olympus camera recently (kind of an anniversary present to each other), and these are some of the pictures I took with it after the battery charged just to try it out.

The younger of our two cats, Paganini, or Pag for short, watching the birds outside.

This is Hedwig, the stuffed owl that we have purched over our living room.

These are shots of a hand-painted ceramic chess set that my biological father made, and which I received when he died.  If anyone knows where I can get the molds for this set, please let me know.  On of the pawns is cracked from when the cats knocked it off the table.

Pag looks so contented because he knows that he can't be blamed for the broken chess piece.  It happened before he joined the family.

A strange macrame thing just inside our front door that we never bothered to take down.  I'm sure 70's-era crap will come back in style eventually.

A sword my brother got me for Christmas a few years ago.  I recently wore it to my first SCA event.