Photos from Castle Peak, Co

Learning a new trade

The decay of Virgil

Whose Gun?

Hiking the Devil

It's the beginning of winter and the number of hikes and outdoor excursions one can easily go on are in the lower numbers in Colorado. Unless you ice climb, have any interest and experience with mountaineering in the winter, and enjoy going out to hunt you are pretty much narrowed to short hikes on nicer days if you don't wonder too far into the front range. One of those hikes is The Devils Head Fire Tower. The trail closes December 1st and the road closes to the parking lot just short of a mile down the road but taking the opportunity to get there is a treat. It's a short 3 mile round trip, not counting the extra walk from the closed road, and the view is even better in the winter. Lots of low flying clouds and create some very dynamic photo opportunities that shouldn't be wasted. It was another successful ascent for 2013 and probably the last one for the year. Cheers!

La Plata Peak

Rampart

Test Roll

This last winter and spring I used a single roll of film with a new film camera I bought online. The intent of this was to discover whether or not the camera was broken in anyway or had any light leaks. I bought the camera for my lil'sis Cassidy, who has been expressing an interest in photography. What sort of person would I be if I didn't feed that interest? Anyway, it appears that the camera works great and can't wait to see what sort of photos she comes out with in time.

Mt. Democrat and Mountain Smith

This past Fourth of July Bailey and I went for a little morning stroll up Mt. Democrat in the Mosquito range of Colorado. Out efforts brought us to the top before noon after a 10am start which gave us plenty of time to goof around on top and see what sites there are to see from 14,170 feet.  Aside from the 100 some odd cars parked before Kite Lake at the trail head, the only life to see was a couple marmots and shedding mountain goats who must have had a much earlier start because by the time we made it to the top they were heading back down and moving much slower than we were.  Overall it was a quick in and out ninja ascent of the mountain and we are looking forward to seeing the few from the top of longs next week.

Mosquito Mountain Range

Tangerine Man

Soft Moving Water

I don't take the time to write in this blog too often anymore, so I thought a quick entry would suffice.  I have been absent from the world and most of my friends for a spell now and have been slowly weaving my wicked presence back into a few peoples lives to find that where I had thought somethings would have been different are quite the same.  Not unlike changing seasons, the people around me seem to never completely change.  Occasionally they shed limbs of dying yellow and brown leaves leaving a bare, frail, yet strong skeleton with strong roots planted in rich soil.  Come spring time they grow their leaves back fuller and more abundant than in previous years.

This is something I'm going through myself.  While I have always appreciated seeing the change in season and the leaves abandoning their fresh green colors, it isn't a process I ever took to making my own.  At this time, I am embracing the changes that are occurring while at the same time holding on tight to the things that keep my world slowly turning and allowing my alternating seasons to bring me more change and yet another year with new leaves where there weren't before.  Because where somethings change, other things always seem to stay the same, and that's how I like it.

Mountain Smith Commercial #2

Over the summer Brendon Harris and myself set off to make a few short commercials for Mountain Smith Packs, a company based out of Golden, Colorado.  The video above is the second of the two.

Matt Lloyd: Jack of All Trades

Matt Lloyd has been a great friend of mine for some time now and of all the people I know in the world climbing right now I have never met a more amped up individual.  Matt's psych is boundless and his climbing background is more broad than any other climber I know.   This is a great short video that showcases Matt in his element; even though it is a fraction of what there is to know about him.

Mountain Smith and Paper Bird

Over this last summer Brendon Harris (Clint Chesterfield) and myself went up into the mountains and made a commercial for Mountain Smith backpacks.  The objective for this shoot was to show off the Mountain Smith lumbar line which is a top selling lineup of packs and essentially show off how well they work in an effort to bring the fanny pack back.  The first mountain shoot was on Mt Sherman a few miles outside of Leadville, Colorado and with a little help from Paper Bird to spice up the sound, this is what we came up with. 

Wet Plate Van Camera Returns

D-Town Buildering

I managed to dig up an old article with a few of my photos in it that I don't remember posting about.  Cheers!

http://www.dpmclimbing.com/articles/view/d-town-buildering

Mugshot Installment #4

Mugshot installment #3

Neo vs Retro

Technically, neither of these styles are new or old.  They are a mix of new and old.  Old style vignette with color alteration and contrast manipulation  has become a craze and is by no means in short supply on the internet, mainly twitter.  But, it is an easy thing to do with or without the use of an iphone application.  Just a quick 20% up on contrast and saturation, a few tweaks to the curve scalse red, green, and blue, lens distortion for the vignette, low percentage opacity colorization, low percentage opacity solid pink color filter and BAM!  Your photos match the ones on grandma's book shelf. 

Vintage Wedding

Tracy and Brian Schwartz

This last Saturday I helped take photos at a wedding for the first time and learned that it is a lot more fast paced then I had thought.  Between the waiting and and hand shaking and waiting and sitting there is a lot of running around.  It's not at all like any of the shoots I've done with athletes who can jump up and do it over it's one time and get it right.  Overall I think it was mostly successful despite a few missed opportunities I had a great time.