A Creek Runs Through It

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.

Reaching the Sky

This is a tree I photographed with my Android while out walking the dogs at the dog park. Edited on the go with Snapseed.

Rufus in the Snow

I know I've been neglecting this blog for a month or more and there's no one to blame but myself. Not only have I been very busy, but I've also had, and recovered from, a cold as well as ending up on some sort of weird sleep cycle where I'm tired all day, sleeping all night and tired again the next day.

To be honest, I think it's the cold that upset my sleep cycle. Last night seemed to be the first night in weeks where I slept through the entire night and woke up feeling refreshed.

Anywho, about a week ago it snowed in Denver (again). I mean, it's winter and snow isn't uncommon during this time of year. Naturally, I took Rufus to the dog park. He loves the snow and has a blast running around in the icy cold goodness. I think he agrees with the cooler weather and the snow just makes everything smell new and wonderful. Could you imaging being a dog? Science says they're sense of smell is hundreds or thousands of times more sensitive than a human being's olfactory senses. Imagine always being bombarded with hundreds of scents, many outside the scope of what a human can detect, and when the snow settles down, all those scents are gone. Just gone. It's a brand new world.

Rufus loves it and as a good dog owner, I take him out and let him romp in the snow.

So, here's a couple of images of Rufus at the dog park the other day with the snow coming down around us. Luckily, the Pentax K5 can work unhindered in colder weather than it's Nikon and Canon counterparts.

Rufus Hates Posing

Rufus in the Snow

Fire in the Sky

I went out to catch something completely different from this, but once I saw the rays of light shooting up under the dark clouds, I couldn't help but turn the camera towards the mountains.

That darker straight line is the Cherry Creek Dam and those mountains are more than 30 miles away.

Where the dam meets the water, off to the left of the image, is the Cherry Creek marina and if you zoom into the image you can see the boats floating there as they spend another night tethered to the piers.

I really wish I would have known the sunset was going to be this magnificent as I would have sought out a better view. As it was, this was a happy accident. My only wish was the dam wasn't in the image. However, the walk back to the truck plus drive time, would not have given me enough time to catch this with the rays shooting up and out like they are and that made all the difference between this sunset and hundreds of others.

The Shell

"The Original" SOOC

I know I've been ignoring this blog for a while and I apologize for that indiscretion. While I haven't stopped taking pictures, both with Android and with Pentax; and while I haven't stopped sharing them on both Google+ and Streamzoo, I just haven't been in a place to sit down and type out posts.

Today, hopefully that changes.

The image to the right is one I snapped at the dog park a few days ago. This shotgun shell was just sitting out there on the walking path in a place designated for dogs, horses, cyclists and runners.

It's not really a place for shot guns or their shells. Now, granted, this area used to be a gun-dog training area, but casual dog walkers eventually took it over from those trying to teach their hunting dogs not to fear the sound of a shotgun firing and to retrieve on command. Occasionally a shotgun shell is found in the park, some older than others.

For giggles I played with a handful of photo-editing software options and differing techniques to create the images below. Since this image was simple, had some depth of field and a foreground subject matter it was an easy image to experiment with in this manner. This first one, How the West Was Won, I edited with the online service, PicMonkey. There are strong similarities between PicMonkey and Google's Creative Kit (formerly known as Picnik) and that can be ascribed to PicMonkey being the pet project of those developers who originally created Picnik and left Google after their program being acquired by the search giant.

On to the edits!

Winning the West

 I decided to give this image an "old west" or sepia feel since the lonely shotgun shell lying on the ground just shrieked "leftover from the OK Corral" to me. It's not from anywhere close to Tombstone, AZ, but Colorado was also a part of the western expansion of the late 19th century and that was good enough for me. In order to complete the feel of the "old west" I rounded the corners and darkened the edges.

Edit on the Go

Since this was an Android original, my first edit was using Google's (Nik Software) Snapseed Android app. While far more feature filled than many image editing Android apps, Snapseed is still just a mobile app and therefore limited. The image, which I stated before, screamed old west and instead of creating a sepia image, I just boosted the contrast, made the image black and white and then added some texture --  hopefully to give the image a classic feel, perhaps a little nostalgia from the 40s or 50s, before color film became widespread and monochrome still ruled the world.

My impression of the final edit is an image found in an old newspaper or magazine, accompanying a story about murderers on the run in New Mexico, Utah, Texas or the Mojave Desert.

Like PicMonkey before, Google's social network, Google+'s, online image editing software is easy and convenient. While this image edit became the template look for the above wild west look I settled on above, I used Creative Kit because... well, I was bored. That's right, I was logged into Google+, became bored and decided to play with Creative Kit.

Aftermath of the zombie apocalypse

This edit was a little different, instead of  "old west" I saw the final image and immediately thought of the what the world would look like in the aftermath of the impending zombie invasion. Not the zombies running around trying to get at our brains, but rather what the world would look like once the last zombie has been dispatched from existence. It won't be sunshine and rainbows, I think, but a wasteland devoid of humanity with the ground littered in the shells of bullets giving proof to humanity's fight for survival. Sure there will still be people, but perhaps a tenth of the population of any given geographic location, I think.

A Walk with Rufus

I took my dog for a walk earlier this evening and didn't bring my dSLR along with us. I know, I know, bad Magic Elf Box.

To be honest, unless Rufus is off leash he's usually just in the way: pulling on my arms while I'm framing an image, nudging the tripod/monopod, getting into pictures I don't want him in or not into pictures I do want him in.

Today I just decided to bring along my Android. I'm sort of like Luke Skywalker like that.

All images were edited with Snapseed.

The first image, to the right, is of a pair of shoes I saw there at the park months ago, the last time Rufus and I walked over there. I saw them still sitting there under a bush and decided to take them down to the lake shore and use them as a prop. 

The picture of shoes is something I've been wanting to do and this was just a serendipitous moment.

What really surprised me was the number of dead fish on the beach and in the water. A ranger (or was it the Park's GM) once told me this was natural but I've seen too many stories on the news about swimmers getting rashes and mutant fish to trust that line of spin.

This fish was just sitting there and I think I might have stepped on him before noticing him lying there. There was still a little bit of snow near his tail (that's the white stuff back there) and you can see the line in the sand where I removed a twig that served no aesthetic purpose what-so-ever. Not that a dead fish is aesthetic at all, but the twig didn't fit the image I wanted. 

Remember, I went out with only my Android and Rufus to keep me company. While the coyotes were howling and Rufus was sniffing the dead fish I was able to capture this image of the Cherry Creek lake, Denver Tech Center and what can be seen on the mountains in the background.

At one point we saw (I say "we" but I mean "I" -- Rufus doesn't notice these sorts of things) a bicycle chain dangling from this gate post. I have to conclude, since this is a very active bicycling route, someone's chain broke and they either field replaced their chain or called for a ride and left this dangling for a good Samaritan or park ranger to dispose. 

To be honest, with Rufus pulling on the leash eager to move on, I only had a chance to take this one picture before he dragged me in front of a father/son duo of bicyclists. Not the greatest shot, but I like juxtapositions and this one has metal and wood, man made and natural.

I have noticed, though, the images appear better on my Android with Snapseed than they do displayed here. For some reason the colors aren't jumping out and the sharpness doesn't seem to be as prevalent as it appears on mobile. Is it the screen? Hm.