It was only a matter of time...

Until the tinderbox that is Green Mountain, went up in flames. Today, I witnessed the entire north face of the beautiful Tertiary age (less than 65 million years old) Green Mountain go up in flames, smoke and ash. It was a terrible sight to see since there were such high winds and so many homes potentially in danger. I had been quipping for some time that one of these days, Green Mountain would no longer be green, but scorched black, since this summer has been so dry. It was only a matter of time, and so far, we've been lucky. Now, luck has run out. All it took was a singular bolt of lightning.

I was drawn to the maelstrom. We drove up into the thick of the smoke near Red Rocks Community College when the wind was blowing north east and it was a powerful sight. To be nearly enveloped in smoke from a fire that is less than a mile away was stupefying. "My god," was the phrase of the moment. I was compelled to capture the atmospheric fury of the event with my camera and so our adventure took us back and forth along 6th Ave to find a good spot for pictures. We found a couple of good spots. One was in the Staples parking lot off of 6th Ave and Colfax Blvd, another at the entrance to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds.

After taking quite a few pictures, some artsy, but most were just normal sights captured from the perspective of a spectator to natures anarchy. I've selected the best photos and created a gallery of what we saw today. Some of the photos may seem bland, some may seem striking. Look at them and create your own experience out of what I've captured. Sharing what I saw with my eyes is what I wanted to accomplish. This is what a photographer does. It's a pity that moments like these can test a photographer's nerve and ability. I feel I could have done better had I unfettered access to the area, but I did the best I could with the resources I had at my disposal.

Green Mountain Wildfire Gallery

A Normal Life

It is incredible to me how quickly life can swing into chaos, but still seem normal. Since I finished school, I actually feel like I'm busier, which is kind of odd. I have my job (Tues-Fri), a 6 year-old daughter, a home to keep up and an always tired fiancee. These four things keep me busy and at times a very fructrating busy, but all the while, everything still feels normal. I wonder what life will feel like when I replace the job part with "My first semester at a 4-year college." Hmmm.....

I've been taking tons of pictures lately. If you head over to my Flickr, you can see my daughter in her first dance recital. It was really fun trying to shoot in a very low light situation and I'm very proud of how my camera performed.

Adventures at Dusk

I decided to be adventurous tonight and take my daughter for a walk along the lake behind our apartment complex. I've been down there before, but have never really explored it too much. Zoey was my trailblazer, she plowed through branches, brush and reeds to find new places (or beaver homes to her 5 year old brain). I used the adventure as an opportunity to take some stylistic pictures. I chose to shoot in black and white and at high ISO (1600-3200) to give my photos a grainy, vintage look. After reviewing some of them on the camera, they look pretty good. I am usually not one to experiment, but tonight was an experiment for me. I was going to a high contrast, film-like look to my photos and I hope I succeeded (I think I did). I'll post my noteworthy shots on Flickr later.
The best part of the whole trip was how fearless my daughter was. As I said before, Zoey just pushed and climbed through the forest without fear or trepidation. She was excited and curious; a combination of emotions that I seldom feel anymore, but tonight, I felt them. I was bolstered by my daughters bravery and followed her without fear. We will have to do that again sometime.