I’ve begun working on some new still life images for my Untold Stories series. The images are an interplay of light and shadow, texture, and the juxtaposition of objects. The “meaning” of the stories is left up to the viewer to decide on.

Evergreen Fine Arts Festival August 25-26, 2012 – Evergreen, Colorado  www.evergreenfineartsfestival.com
Estes Park Fine Arts Festival, September 15-16, 2012 – Estes Park, Colorado  www.fineartsguild.org

I will be offering affordably priced framed photographs, as well as matted photographs which are ready to be framed.  I’ll be accepting credit cards, as well as cash or check.

I’ve added a few new images from my ongoing Specimen series of still life images. This part of the series focuses on seeds my wife & I are planting in our garden. As the plants begun to produce, I’ll also be doing still life images of the fruit and vegetables to compliment the seed images.

Colorado has a wide range of scenery to choose from, whether you are taking a family vacation, or adding to your archive of landscape photos. Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve may come as a surprise for those who think of Colorado as being just mountains and grassland. The park features the tallest dunes in North America which are the centerpiece to diverse landscape of grasslands, wetlands, aspen and confier forests, alpine lakes and tundra.

The park and surround area offers a wealth of photographic opportunities. While the sand dunes may be the primary draw for many, there are even more options in the nearby grasslands, wetlands, and in the mountain which are right next to the dunes.

Basic info about the park and area

The park has a low entrance fee of $3 per adult, and that is valid for one week. For only $15 a year, you can get an annual pass for the park & preserve, and that will cover the pass holder and all family members. If you plan on visiting other national parks and federal rec lands, perhaps the $80 America The Beautiful annual pass is the choice for you.

There are campgrounds in the park which run $20 per night. They are pretty nice, offer restrooms, and each site has picnic tables, fire pits, and bear boxes to keep your food in. (yes, there is the chance of bears.)  While I prefer camping in the wild, far away from the noise of others, the camp sites in the park seem to offer a little bit of privacy. If you have a high clearance four wheel drive with suitable tires, and know how to drive in soft sand and through deep creek crossing, there is a four wheel drive road (Medano Pass Road) that takes you into the mountains where you can find more private, primitive camp sites. You can also get a free permit to backpack and camp in the dunes.

Another camping option is at the Zapata Falls Campground, which is a few miles south of the Dunes, and on BLM land. I stayed there on this trip, and it was fairly nice.  It appears to be rather new, and when I was there they were not charging a fee.

San Luis State Park just west of the Dunes also offers camping, as well as boating and other water sports on San Luis Lake.

On the way into the park, you’ll see the Oasis which has a small store, restaurant, and has camping and lodging. It is also the nearest place to get gas if you’re running to low to head into Alamosa or  Fort Garland.

When to go

I’ve only been to the park in April and May, so I’m not an authority on what time of the year is the best choice. But I will say that it is best to pick a weekday to go, so you can avoid the weekend crowds. If you are photographing the dunes, the nearest section will be crawling with people during busier times. But since the dunes cover around 19,000 acres, you won’t have much trouble getting away from others if you hike a bit.

For me, April or early May has been a nice time to go. In general, you beat the summer vacation crowds, and the temps are still fairly reasonable. There is also a chance that you may be able to capture some snow covered peaks in your photos, although there was little snow left when I was there this week.

The park does have aspen groves in some of the forest areas, so fall would also be a nice time to go if you are looking to squeeze some fall color into your photos. Photographing in winter could add some interesting contrast as well. I’ve seen some beautiful images from other photographers who have shot there during the snowier months.

Best time of day for photography

It goes without saying, that early morning, and early evening will give you the most dramatic lighting on the dunes. Mid-day will be much flatter lighting, not to mention it will much hotter. I have seen times where mid-day clouds rolled in and created some interesting lighting effects where the dunes were covered with a mix of shade and ares lit by sun poking through clouds.

Expand your horizon

Try not to get tunnel vision and only photograph the sand dunes, there are other spots to photograph as well. Hike the Mosca Pass Trail, or head up Medano Pass Road (on foot or by 4×4) to get off the sand, and in the mountains. The plains surrounding the dunes also offer some photographic opportunities, as you can from my photos in this article.

I find that when I drop any preconceived ideas of what to photograph, I end up seeing more deeply, and finding many new things to photograph. Some images work, while others may not. For me, the photographic experience is a mix of meditation, exploration, discovery, and pleasant surprises.

If you see an image you’d like to purchase, but it has not been added to the shop yet, just contact me!

New still life photo added to the Still Life gallery.

A new image which will most likely be part of my Passing Glances series. I believe I took this photo on Alameda off of Federal in Denver. Shot with the iPhone 4S and the Hipstamatic app, then tweaked with the Snapseed app for the iPhone (they have a Mac version too, but I don’t have it… yet).

As we drive in our cars, we often do not fully see our surroundings, and most likely miss details such as these captured in my images. These images were taken with me as a passenger, and some when I was the driver.

View more from the series here.

With my black & white photography,  I usually prefer a warm tone, or sepia feel. My previous inkjet printing system used the standard color inks from Epson, but left much to be desired in recreating the tone I sought.  When printing B&W or sepia tones with color inks, you inherently encounter metamerism (color shift) problems. While I have managed to make sepia prints which look great in incandescent lighting, they often get a green cast in daylight. Not acceptable

To produce the best B&W prints from an inkjet printer, special black ink sets are required. Instead of the usual CMYK inks, these ink sets are only tones of black.

For my work I chose Carbon inks because they have a warm tone that fits the look & feel I want to produce in my images. Carbon inks are also the most lightfast ink ever tested by Aardenberg Image Archives. These two things allow me to now offer the finest print possible to my clients. I’m finally able to achieve a print quality as good, or better, than the silver prints I used to make in a traditional darkroom.

My test prints from this new printer and carbon inks have been incredible. I’ve tested the inks on both the Hahnemule Photo Rag Bright White, and the Moab Entrada Natural. While the Hahnemule has always been my favorite, the warmer tone of the Moab Entrada Natural really fits the tone of the Carbon inks the best.

Prints will be available from the shop on my site, which I’m currently updating. If you see an image in one of the galleries which isn’t in the shop yet, feel free to email me and I’ll add it right away.