Clyde Hoadley

Grand Opening

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Sat, 18 May 2013 22:30:00 +0000

I rode the motorcycle west on US285 early this morning to visit Colorado's newest state park on its grand opening day.

Staunton State Park has been 30 years in the making. Frances H. Staunton left the initial 1,720 acres to the state in her will; adjoining acreage was acquired over the years through land grants and funds from Great Outdoors Colorado. It is a beautiful park and one I will return to.

I went on one of the guided tours. The tour only covered a small portion of the park; that was a good thing because I was worn out by the time I got back.

Follow me.

Over the Hills and Far Away

The snow covered mountain in the distance is Pikes Peak
however, I may have heard her wrong.

Lions Head

I bought a commemorative pin
The color is off in this photo.

Backyard lamp

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Sun, 12 May 2013 03:06:00 +0000

I picked up my little Olympus pocket camera and went walking around looking for interesting things to snap pictures of. I came back with a few interesting photos. I think this one is the most interesting of todays photos.

Blue Hi Contrast filter

Antique Light

Original

I Made This

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Wed, 08 May 2013 02:44:00 +0000

I am not having a second childhood - I'm have a third childhood.

I made this using free Sketchbook Expres for iPad by AutoDesk Inc. I worked really hard on this so I expect lots of kudos.

Work. Work. Work.

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:45:00 +0000

Allright, that should be volunteer, volunteer, volunteer.

Last Tuesday we were working on putting in a path through a new garden behind the visiters center at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. I got to run the dirt compactor to compact the fine gravel we put down on the trail. We've had several weeks of snow delays. It started snowing again that night and snowed all day Wednesday.

This is what I do best.

We were repairing a washed out spot on one of the hiking trails. This was in November 2011.

Has Spring Sprung?

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:14:00 +0000

A couple of friends and I had a good ride to Brush and back this afternoon. We had planned on eating at a really good steak house there, but it hadn't opened yet, so we had Tex Mex at the "Home Plate #2" restaurant instead. After lunch we hung out awhile at the the park in Fort Morgan. We had a few tense moments when we found ourselves on a really soft gravel road on the way back, but we stuck with it and made it through. We stopped at Lulu's in Watkins for a beer, but just one.

The forecaster said it could snow again on Wednesday. I don't believe him.

I made an offer on a Townhouse last Friday. I was just notified that the seller accepted my offer, so I will probably be moving to Arvada a month from now.

I'm almost finished compiling my second book. It's a picture book with commentary of photos from last summers travels. I keep messing it up with misspellings, missing Title page, pages numbered wrong, writing in the third person, etc. I almost have everything ironed out and should be able to send it off to the publisher on Monday. It will be 96 pages and have over 180 photos.

And to think I could have been Dr. Who

In honor of Ryan White

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:09:00 +0000

Ryan White died from complications of AIDS 23 years ago today. He was one of a small number of highly visible people with AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s who helped change the public perception of the disease. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White

Piano practice

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 22:47:00 +0000

My mother tried to teach me to play the piano when I was a child. I didn't like piano lessons and never did very well. I haven't played the piano in 50 years, but I've always wished I could play.

I picked up an electronic piano that was on sale. I have a Learn Piano DVD course and a music theory book. After the first 3 lessons I can name all the notes and keys, play "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" & "When the Saints Go Marching In" without any mistakes, and know some basic cords. I'm about half way through the theory book. I'm actually enjoying it.

Following my nose

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:07:00 +0000

This morning I took out my helmet camera and went snooping around the neighborhood to check out the snow storm. I just followed my nose.

Urban Photography

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 05:35:00 +0000

I don't know if I should call this urban art or networking done right.

I guess it doesn't matter, I think it's a cool picture. I took this with my iPhone.

We Are the Love People

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:24:00 +0000

http://www.standingonthesideoflove.org/

Rocky Mountain Wildlife Refuge

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 23:16:00 +0000

My first Photo/Art show

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 00:56:00 +0000

I just finished installing my first Photo/Art show at Mr. Lucky's Sandwiches, 711 East 6th Ave., Twelve of my photographs will be on display through the month of February. These are the same photos I used to make my calendar only larger and framed.

It wasn't a bad exercise

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:52:00 +0000

I spent an afternoon tramping around Washington Park yesterday. Besides enjoying the warm weather I wanted to exercise my photographer’s eye. I took my Canon XTi and 75-300 lens with me for some practice. It turned out my photographer’s eye wasn't the only thing that needed exercising.

This is what I saw.

This is what I got.

What went wrong here? Two things went wrong.

The camera has three different ways of measuring exposer. Evaluative metering is the camera's default metering method. Evaluative metering examines the entire frame and calculates an averages exposer; it is suitable for most photos. Partial metering is almost like spot metering; it calculates the exposer using only the center of the frame and is suitable for strong back lighting conditions. Center-weighted metering is a compromise between Partial metering and Evaluative metering; it uses the entire frame but places more emphasis on the center of the frame. Center-weighted metering is good for when the photographer wants to modify the exposer just a little using the exposer compensation dial.

I've had problems blowing out the sky in some of my pictures. I changed the metering mode to Partial metering (spot metering) thinking it would give me better control over the bright clouds. Changing the metering mode was a reasonable thing to do assuming I knew how to use it.

When you point the camera at a subject and press the shutter button halfway the automatic focus will engage and focus the lens. If you continue to hold the shutter button halfway down the camera will hold that focus setting while you re-compose your picture. My mistake was forgetting that the camera only holds the focus point and not the exposer setting. I would zoom in on my primary subject, press and hold, zoom out and re-compose. That works fine for auto focus but not for auto exposer.

To use the zoom press and hold technique for exposer metering I needed to also press the * button. It's not necessary to hold the * button in - just press it once with my thumb and it will hold the exposer setting for 4 seconds long enough to re-compose my shot.

I wasn't wrong to change the metering mode, though Center-weighted might have been a better choice, the problem was I didn't know how to use the advanced metering mode.

Having an interesting subject and a good composition is important, but knowing how to use my equipment is equally important. That's what practice is all about.

The Eagle has landed

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 03:43:00 +0000

There were 4 Bald Eagles in these trees on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge -
2 adults & 2 juveniles.

Don't use auto focus when taking pictures of birds in trees; the branches and twigs in the tree confuses the auto focus. It isn't the bird that's out of focus, it's the picture that's out of focus, but it's not too bad.

That's some good grass

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:32:00 +0000

Denver has had a stretch warm days so I've taken the motorcycle out a couple of times this week. Saturday I grabbed my camera and rode out to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. There were a lot of people visiting the refuge Saturday.

I didn't see a lot of wildlife. That's how it is - somedays you see a lot of wildlife and somedays you don't. The time of day makes a big difference too. I saw a lot of Bald Eagles but they were too far away to photograph. This Bison was right next to the road; she was more interested in the grass than she was us tourists.

It would have been a better picture if I waited for her to lift her head. oh well, live and learn.

The 31 days of December

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 04:36:00 +0000

A couple of people have encouraged me to publicly display some of my photos; maybe even sell some of them. I don't want to hassle with collecting sales tax, or mess with all the forms and legal stuff, so I don't plan to sell any of them (unless the price is right and we can do it without government supervision.)

A neighborhood restaurant displays local art work in their dinning room; it's usually a different local artist each month. They will let me display some of my photos in February.

I've selected the photos I plan to display and have had test prints made of a few of them. To keep the cost down I'm going to do the mounting myself. I plan to display them on matt board without frames.

On a whim I had calendars made from the photos. I'm sending one to each of my brothers, sister, Aunt, and have given one to several of my friends. I almost forgot to keep one for myself. The company I used is a little expensive, and there aren't any price breaks for larger quantities. I've found a different company for next time; they have good price breaks, the more you order the cheaper they get, and they offer more print & binding options.

The Great Watermark Project

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 01:00:00 +0000

I've been doing a lot of work in my photo library to make things more manageable. I'm making sure every photo has appropriate keyword tags, a descriptive title, and an informative caption field. I'm also renaming the picture files using a naming convention that will help to identify them if the library software is unavailable. Part of this project includes watermarking many of the photos I've uploaded. This has been really tedious and time consuming.

My watermarks aren't quite this obtrusive.

PS. I discovered that my Picasa photo albums are really disorganized. Since most of them are linked to Blog posts it will be a real chore to straighten them out.

Jupiter over moon

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 04:00:00 +0000

I was awestruck tonight to see the full moon with the planet jupiter just above it. Seeing the two, one above the other, like that is rare enough, but they were also encircled by a moonbow. I felt privileged to see such a sight. It took awhile but I finally got a half-way decent picture of them.

This isn't trick photography

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 18:54:00 +0000

This isn't trick photography, it's Photoshop.

Changing seasons

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 16:48:00 +0000

Time-lapse of sunset

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 05:43:00 +0000

Wow! Two posts in as many days!

This is my first sunset time-lapse video. It turned out alright and I learned a couple of things for next time.

Urban photography and pretty colors

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 17:12:00 +0000

My camera doesn't have a time-lapse function built into it, so I bought a gadget called an Interval Timer that lets me do time-lapse. I had to read the directions several times before I was able to capture this sequence on Halloween night. I programed the timer to take a picture every 10 seconds for 3 minutes. I used the Blend function in Photoshop to combine the pictures into a single photo. It's a real mess but I still think it's pretty cool. Now I know how to use the timer and am ready to make a time-lapse movie of the sunrise and sunset.

I ordered take-out from Brothers BBQ a few nights ago. The sun had just set and the lights were starting to come on when I went to pick-up my order. I looked over and noticed the neon sign hanging in the window. I used my cell phone to capture this photo.

A cold front swept across Colorado and coated Denver with a little snow; this was the same cold front that collided with hurricane Sandy a few days later. I was still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes when I noticed this shot.

I couldn't resist. I think the juxtaposition of the Private Parking sign and the outline made by the snow makes for a great photo.

Just about every artsy fartsy photography book has photos of streaking tail lights, and I wanted to make one for myself. I setup my tripod above the tunnel at 6th & Speer and took several shots between sunset and twilight. They all turned out but struck me as static and uninteresting. I took one of the better shots and cropped it way down to produce a more interesting photo.

They've been running a jackhammer while making repairs to the apartments underground parking garage. The sound reverberates through the entire building. I took a walk around City Park to get out and away from the noise. I took several shots of the Pavilion but really wanted a photo that wasn't a simple straight on shot. I think the bench in the foreground and the frame made by the trees makes this a more interesting photo.

Learn by doing

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:57:00 +0000

Panorama of Cheeseman Park in Denver. Used a Canon T1i on a tripod, tilted to portraiture, and a graduated ND filter for the sky. 11 images stitched together in Photoshop.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo of fall colors in Cheeseman Park Denver. Canon T1i on a tripod with polarizing filter. HDR created in Photoshop from 7 images.

The originals are much, much larger than these; these were downsized for the upload.

Sunset in Washington Park

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 20:53:00 +0000

Sunset in Washington Park, Denver Colorado, October 19, 2012.

Slideshow (doesn't work on iPad or iPhone)

Also see the video: Time-lapse of sunset in Washington Park on Sunday, November 04, 2012.

I will NEVER forget!

noreply@blogger.com (---Clyde) — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:23:00 +0000

Matthew Shepard died 14 years ago today from injuries he suffered during a brutal hate crime in Laramie Wy. five days earlier. I will NEVER forget !