Monthly Archives: October 2011

Horse a piece

Posted by JEANNE RAMSAY on

I don’t know much about horses (Equus ferus caballus).

I do know that they’re large, and they’ve been on the planet for a long time…domesticated since 4,000 BC (who doesn’t love wikipedia?)

Some are brown. Some are black.  Some are white.  An Appaloosa has spots.

They go “neigh, neigh,” and in the winter they can pull a sleigh (usually with bells on)…I’ve even seen great big horses pulling carts of beer through the snow (on television often during Budweiser commercials).

I have ridden a horse a couple times in my life.  Usually under duress and at a management team-building retreat.  It’s always scary (because I’m a city girl…and where are the brakes on those things anyway?)

That doesn’t mean that I don’t find horses and all the accoutrements beautiful.  I do.

I didn’t have to look far to find these two photogenic horses…they were prancing around the training ring at our neighborhood park.  One of them was adjusting to a new bridle something or other.  And they posed for me.

For those of you who thought you were going to read about Bar Dice and shots…yer buyin’, eh!

Today, it was white

Posted by JEANNE RAMSAY on

It snowed in Denver today.  The first white snow of the season is always bittersweet…beautiful to look at, but it’s messy driving. The still leafed-out trees weighed down with nature’s white burden caused power-related problems, broken trees and insurance claims.

It was still pretty – the white, that is.

According to empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com, the color WHITE is significant because it symbolizes “innocence and purity. White is the beginning of everything, before anything is muddied or thinking is ‘colored’.  White represents the clean slate, helping us through times of stress, and allowing us to put the past behind us and preparing us to move on. White represents the positive as well as the negative aspects of all colors. It contains an equal balance of all the colors of the spectrum.”

Rest easy, snow-bound compatriots; after all, white is just another color.  White means so much more than snow.

In fact, I am posting photographs of things that are white, but not snow –  just to prove my point!  

 

 

Perspective allure

Posted by JEANNE RAMSAY on

Glamorous moments are found in the most unexpected places:  wandering past an often ignored bush along a sidewalk, peering into a dried up field of weeds, or catching the long, low rays of sunlight at day’s end.

Enhance your view of the world by looking at it from a fresh perspective.  Underneath, sideways, crooked or askew.  Above, below, or cross-eyed.  Darkened, lightened, softened, or hardened.

The allure is often left in the dark and unexplained.

Images of a walk in the park and a stroll under a bridge (Red Cliff, Colorado).

Focus on nature

Posted by JEANNE RAMSAY on

The Denver Botanic Gardens is a local destination.  It’s almost in my front yard.  I’ve visited before.  But not like today.

Today I tried to focus on something different.  Focus itself.

Focused attention?  No.  I was totally paying attention.  I was in the moment, to be sure.

I was trying to focus my camera on nature…all at once:  photographic composition, proper exposure and technical execution, exquisite light quality, artistic expression, contrast of color, texture, and emotion, etc.

Well, that’s nuts.

Nature doesn’t work that way.  Nature happens in moments.  Sometimes the moments happen in color, or not.  Sometimes nature’s moments are a contrast in light or texture.   Sometimes nature is not at all artstic.  At other times, nature’s moments are elusive or ambiguous.  And sometimes, the best of nature’s moments are unfocused.

Stop squinting.  

The local wildlife scene

Posted by JEANNE RAMSAY on

I haven’t been to a zoo in years.  Maybe more.  Not by chance, by choice.

But, today I decided the zoo would be a picture perfect way to spend a picture perfect autumn afternoon in Denver.  The temperature was in the high 70’s. The sky radiant in brilliant blue punctuated with high, wispy white clouds.  The perfect opportunity to try to capture (!) animals with my camera.  So off I went.

I saw lions (all hiding in the tall grass, their faces to the wall), and tigers (mostly sleeping inside having just eaten a gigantic lunch no doubt), and bears (I actually didn’t see one bear except the cute white one which I did manage to photograph – in fact, I’m fairly certain that my chances of seeing a real bear are better on the local hiking trails than at the zoo – just sayin’).

Monkeys are impossible to photograph because they won’t hold still.  Cute as they are, I don’t think they like being photographed – they’ve probably all agreed.

Peacocks know they’re the most prized of all photographic subjects at the zoo once they care to show their hand – but they don’t.  Care.  To show their hand.  Instead, they lure amateur camera bugs into following them around countless baby strollers and under picnic tables in the hopes that a full panorama of peacock beauty will be presented.  It won’t.  Sigh.

Chain link fences and slobber-covered, plexi-glass panels separated me from dozens of precious “animal planet” expressions…countless missed National Geographic-caliber shots, I’m sure.  But I did manage a few shots that I consider worth sharing with you.

Oh, and this is directed to one dad in particular, camels are not pachyderms.

The fantasy of Las Vegas is fascinating

Posted by JEANNE RAMSAY on

Bedazzled in sequins and dripping in diamonds, the glitz and glamour of trendy clubs and flickering neon signs is dizzying. Costumed or perfumed, strutting or staggering, throngs of people on the streets are submerged in a sea of enticements. The Strip’s flirtatious, beguiling, eye-popping extravaganza of escapism is where the wildest of dreams can come true…more accurately, be purchased.

As alluring as that may be for some, what I found in Las Vegas was something different, a bit calmer, something perhaps less obvious. For me, the fantasy of Las Vegas revealed itself in the architectural details of caricature buildings. A ghostly shadow, a shimmering reflection, a tortured angle, or a unique perspective; all a sublime illusion.