A beautiful week in Colorado

by | Jun 18, 2012

We spent the past week parked in Golden, Colorado and we just love it here. The bus is parked right next to a river/creek and is within walking distance of downtown. We’ve got a great view of the mountains and the weather has been beautiful. Not too shabby!

Our time here has been spent on both fun and productivity. One of the things I’ve been wanting to do is completely clear out the storage unit I have in Boulder. I’m happy to say that it’s 90% finished and should be empty within a month! We’ve also been preparing for my upcoming workshop in Iceland. We leave on Thursday and will be in Iceland until July 2!

While sorting through my storage unit, I came across this old billboard I had restored. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, but I just love it.

I also have great friends in the Boulder area (I used to live there) and it was great to catch up with them. We spent a lot of time this week with our friends Jay Nelson and Lesa Snider. It’s always a treat to be able to spend quality time with them. On Saturday, Karen arranged a birthday dinner for me at the Boulder Brewing Company, where we hung out with a lot of old friends. Afterwards, we finished off the evening at Jay and Lesa’s place, having cocktails and playing a round of “Trailer Park Wars,” a pretty hilarious game Karen got me for my birthday. (It would truly be appreciated by fellow RVers.)

Me, Karen, Jay and Lesa. Karen and Lesa took a painting class in Golden, and we all hung out afterwards.

Sunday was my actual birthday, and I treated myself to a badly-needed massage. Later, Karen and I went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Boulder, Ras Kassa’s (Ethiopian.)

A grainy iPhone shot of my Ethiopian birthday dinner.

During the course of the week, we also got to hang out with my friend Diane, who currently lives on Maui but just happened to be visiting her parents in Denver. We just love coincidences like that! We spent the day showing her around Golden and took her to Golden’s second largest brewery, which is a fun little place located pretty much in a residential neighborhood. The building is so small that it might seat 12 people max. Then they have a nice little outdoor patio space next to the building. It’s a TINY place, and what makes it kind of funny is that they dub themselves the second largest brewery in town. Golden’s largest brewery, as many of you know, is Coors.

We also got to meet up with my friend Sharon, who I hadn’t seen in years! It was great to catch up. We met at a Denver restaurant called Linger, which was a really interesting place. It was an old mortuary turned into a funky restaurant. You’d think it’d be morbid, but it actually had a really fun vibe. Karen especially liked that the entire bar was made out of Lite Brites.

Here is me, Karen and Sharon at Linger in Denver. It was taken with the fisheye lens attachment Sharon has for her iPhone!

Announcing new training events

In other news, I’d like to announce some training events I’ve got going on later this year. First of all, I’ll be teaching at the California Photo Festival in Los Osos, CA, which is run by the Light Workshops. I’m going to be teaching a variety of classes there, including HDR, light painting, panoramas, and more. You can check out my classes and sign up for the event HERE.

I’m also going to be teaching a 4-day workshop on HDR photography Nov. 29 to Dec. 2. This will also be held in Los Osos, CA, with the Light Workshops. We’re still finalizing the details on this one, so check back at www.DigitalMastery.com for for details soon.

In my HDR workshop, we’ll go over both shooting and post-processing techniques for achieving images like this one, which was shot in Lower Antelope Canyon.

A Golden week and a retro weekend

by | Jun 11, 2012

This past week has been a blast! In my last post, we were just leaving the Starlite Classic Campground, en route to Golden, CO. We spent two wonderful nights at the Starlite, where we thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Larry and Sylvia, the campground owners. As I mentioned in my last post, I also got the opportunity to lightpaint some of their incredible vintage trailers. While we left the campground on Sunday, I spent the rest of the week processing the images and was really pleased with how they turned out. Check them out below.

As I mentioned above, our next stop was Golden, CO. We stayed here for about three weeks last year and just loved it. The campground is in a beautiful park, along a river, and is within walking distance to downtown. We’ve been spending our time here working, walking, and processing images. We’ve also explored some of the fun places Golden has to offer. The Foothills Art Center was hosting a Chihuly exhibit, and I was excited to check that out. Chihuly is a very famous glass artist, most known for his colorful chandeliers made of twisty blown glass. Another fun place we visited was Woody’s, which is pretty much a really good pizza place/pub. We went for a late dinner on Monday and then returned Tuesday for their movie night, where they serve up free popcorn and play a movie on all of the screens in the bar area. Karen is a film nut, so when she heard about movie night, I knew we would be going.

The best part of this past week was most definitely the weekend. We returned to Starlite for the Colorado Classic Campout, which is an event where vintage trailer owners gather, have fun and show off their trailers to the whole group. One of the fun things about the weekend was that Karen and I did NOT stay in the bus while we were there. Instead, we left the bus in Golden, drove the Mini to the Starlite and stayed in the TikiBago, one of the rigs they rent out to guests. Just as you might suspect, the TikiBago is a Winnebago completely decked out in a Polynesian theme, complete with a tiki bar!

Karen and I enjoying the luau.

On the first night of the event, we had a meet-and-greet, followed by a movie under the stars. Of course, the featured movie was “The Long, Long Trailer,” starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. On the second day, there was an “open house” where everyone got their trailers all spiffy so that guests could check them out. Karen and I loved seeing the insides of all these amazing, vintage rigs. In the evening, there was a luau, complete with tacky Hawaiian shirts and a limbo contest! When things got dark enough, I lightpainted Birdie, a beautiful pink trailer decked out will all kinds of authentic vintage fixin’s.

Here, I’m trying to act all suave, as if I’d actually make it under this limbo pole. (I DID made it under the pole but Karen says I cheated.)  Behind me is the TikiBago, our lodging for the weekend.

Sylvia and Larry announce the door prizes for the Colorado Classic Campout.

Sunday morning started with a spam burrito breakfast, and then everyone said their goodbyes. As I said in the beginning of this post, the week has been great for me. I’m excited about this series of lightpaintings I’ve started, and I look forward to continuing it. I’m thinking about creating a calendar out of the images. Many thanks to Larry and Sylvia at the Starlite Campground. They do such a great job, and we had a blast at their event.

More to come…

Here is “Birdie,” a beautiful Cardinal trailer completely decked out with vintage accents. Many thanks to owners Jim and Diana for giving me the opportunity to make this image!