Multicolored Beets

Baskets O Plenty

Throughout the summer we try to grab dinner at the Wednesday night market and hang out in the park. It’s a good way to break up the week and relax with the kids.

Bundles of Carrots

Jar of Cherry Tomatoes

Eventually berries turn to peaches and then to squash and then it’s October and the farmer’s market is no more and I wait through the winter for it to return.

Veins Of Green

Red and Green Tomatoes

Next Tuesday Boulder’s newest event and the first event I’ve ever tried to organize, Cause To Rock, will finally see the light of day. Cause To Rock is a battle of the bands event using the video game Rock Band instead of a traditional band. Each audience member buys a ticket and the procedes go to the winning band’s charity of choice. My friend, Jared Kohlmann [T] [F], and I thought up and have been working on making it happen for the last two months and as the final days before it fly by I am excited and terrified all at the same time. As of today 5 “bands” have signed up, many tickets have sold and, thanks to my friend Ef, we had an article written about the event in the Colorado Daily. Band signups are open for a couple more days and there are still tickets available for the event so if you would like to come we would love to have you.

So I photographed it.

Filled with beer cans, beans, apples, corn, plastic bottles; this fire was still hot to the touch long after people had left.

Hillside covered in trash. I used the large black bag at the bottom to clean up camp.

Organic matter littered the site. Just the thing that attracts and eventually kills animals like bears and coyotes.

Cucumbers

Apples

Apple eaten by animal(s).

Fish carcass found 4 feet from our tent.

And then I cleaned it up and hauled a bag of trash larger than what my family puts on the curb each week home.

To the people who do this: The words I have for you are not fit for print but I would be happy to say them to your face. There is a comment box below and while I will remove expletives I will not remove your comment, please explain to me why you think this is ok.

Oh yea ….

Not everything burned.

Limer Gymnast with Organs Copyright: Gunther von Hagens, Institute for Plastination, Heidelberg, Germany, www.bodyworlds.com

So after a walk through the museum we headed into the Body Works exhibit. Body Works is an exhibition of real human bodies and body parts that are posed and then preserved through the process of plastination. The results can be displayed in the open air and viewed without the distorting effects of other preservation methods. The bodies are posed doing all types of activities including hurdles, archery, figure skating, and gymnastics so that you can see how the body changes as we move. In addition to that various layers are removed or separated to allow you to see into the body. The experience is very cool and allows for laymen to see parts of the body that you would normally only see if you were learning to be a doctor.

Heart, opened longitudinally Copyright: Gunther von Hagens, Institute for Plastination, Heidelberg, Germany, www.bodyworlds.com

As much as I wanted to see this exhibit for myself, it was important to me to bring the kids and involve them in what we were seeing. Before we went I explained to them that these were real human bodies that were displayed as a result of their choice to donate their bodies to science after death. If they had been uncomfortable with this we wouldn’t have gone but neither one seemed to be bothered by it. Once we entered it became pretty apparent that R, our 5 year old, was not very interested in what was being shown. I’m not sure if he was having a hard time connecting what he was seeing to other human bodies or if he was just tired but every time I tried to explain what we were looking at his eyes kind of glazed over. However, the 8 year old, K, was connecting with everything that I was explaining and was very interested. Being able to point to the exhibits and then touch on K’s body the corresponding bone or muscle really seemed to set what she was seeing in reality and excited her. The displays of the blood vessels of various body parts and animals not only peaked her interest but, for me, really set in reality just how extensive our vascular system is. Overall Heather, K and I really enjoyed the Body Works exhibit. Unfortunately R just wasn’t into it although as I write this he remembers what is in these pictures and seems interested.

Blood Vessel Configuration of the Head and Brain Copyright: Gunther von Hagens, Institute for Plastination, Heidelberg, Germany, www.bodyworlds.com

Out of the 200+ people that were in the exhibit our children were the youngest. As such, I feel the need to give a few warnings to other parents who may be planning on going. My first warning is to gauge the interest of your children in this. It will take you 1.5 to 2 hours to go through the exhibit. If you are able to pay attention, it’s amazing. If your kid is bored or freaks out, you will get to pay for a quick walk through a dark hall glancing at the things you wish you could examine. My second warning is that every body part is on display. If you are not comfortable talking with your kids about every part of the body, including genitalia, you may not want to take your kids. We have always tried to be very open and honest with our kids in this area but I understand that some parents choose to wait to have these sorts of discussions. My last warning is that the display is the result of people and animals dying. Your kids may have questions that result in unpleasant conversations afterwards. K was curious and concerned about the baby skull that was on display showing the skull in it’s pre-fused state. We explained that not all babies survive and that some mommies and daddies choose to donate the body to science to help doctors better understand the body. This seemed to help her understand.

All warnings aside, this is a great exhibit and I am considering going back to take more time. For me it solidified in reality many of the things we are taught about human physiology through drawings and concepts. If you go I suggest calling the museum to find out when there is a less busy time to go. It was very crowded when we went on a Saturday at 5:45pm.

In addition to Stepan and Oleg, who came with me last year, Jennifer Yu came with me to Monte Vista and proved herself to be an great traveling companion. I have heard that she is an excellent chef and seen the results in her equally excellent food and landscape photography. I met Stepan and his dad, Oleg, last year and was so happy they could come again. Stepan does some awesome development at Room 214 when he is not out climbing and shooting.

Like last year, ProPhotoRental.com was kind enough to let us use some of their professional gear including 500mm lenses for both the Canon and Nikon shooters. Without these long lenses getting close up shots of the birds would have been impossible. To be a bit more dynamic they also let me use a Nikon D700 and I’ve got to say that this is an amazing camera that I wouldn’t normally get to use unless I started selling prints. I only tried out the Nikon gear and being able to see the birds up close using the 500mm f/4 without scaring them off was great. As great as the 500mm is there are times when that much zoom was too much, which is why we also had a 200-400mm f/4 and a 70-200mm f/2.8 to give us a huge range both of which were also amazing lenses. If your shooting wildlife or sports or that guy you’re stalking that lives 3 blocks over I can’t say enough good things about these lenses and you can use them for less than 5% of the cost with a rental service like ProPhotoRental.com. Stepan, while waiting on the birds to do something took this great shot of the Canon 400mm f2.8 that ProPhotoRental.com let him use.

Reflect by Stepan Mazurov

I had two concrete goals with going to the San Luis valley this year; photographing the sandhill cranes and photographing the Great Sand Dunes National Park. I also had a couple of extra maybe goals of some sort of night shot and possibly going down to Colorado’s oldest mission south of Monte Vista but between all day shooting and getting over a cold I was too exhausted to do either of the maybe goals. Jen and I stopped at the dunes Friday afternoon on our way to Monte Vista and shot in the park and then drove out to the outer edge to shoot the dunes and Mount Herald at sunset. Jen has an amazing shot on her blog of this. Saturday morning all four of us, bleary eyed and caffeine deprived, drove out to the Monte Vista Wildlife Refuge and began a great day of shooting. Unlike last year, where we were snowed on at sunrise, we were treated to a great sunrise and plenty of sunshine all day. Our good luck lasted all through Saturday while we shot at a couple of sites and explored around for others and on Sunday while we all went out to shoot again.

Stepan, Oleg, and Jen all had to head back to Boulder on Sunday but I stuck around until Monday and, when it wasn’t snowing, I spent more time shooting the cranes. Monday morning I woke up to a bit of snow covering the San Luis valley and decided to head back out to the Sand Dunes did some shooting at the snow covered dunes. I love finding these little slices in time where something like this happens unexpectedly.

I had a great time with everyone and think I’ll be doing it again next year, hopefully bringing along old friends and finding new ones to join us. You can check out Jennifer Yu’s work at userealbutter.com and jenyuphotography.com. Stepan posts his work on flickr and his dad, Oleg can be found writing about electronics and micro controller firmware design at circuitsathome.com.

As I look through the almost 4000 shots I took this weekend I’ll be publishing one almost every day. You can find these here on the site as well as on my flickr page.

Sandhill Sunset by Jason Janelle

The Butterfly Pavilion is open to the public almost every day and, with it’s huge variety of butterflies and tropical plants, provides a great escape from the winter doldrums that so often catch up with me in February and March. During regular hours tripods are not allowed and it can be difficult to juggle camera, kids, not stepping on the butterflies, not stepping on other people. Because of this they have an open photography tripod session where they open a couple of hours earlier and you can set up tripods and generally have the place to yourself. The last time I attended ( November 2009 ), I shared the place with 5 other photographers and 4 or 5 other staff. The staff were working on preopening things but were extremely open and helpful.

One benefit of attending so early on a cold morning is that, being cold blooded, butterflies cannot move around much before they get warmed up. This is great for photographers because, not only can you set up a tripod, but you can get fairly close to the butterflies without having them fly away before you get your shot. Although I tried not to hover around one butterfly too much in case their little minds couldn’t take it. I ended up staying for roughly 3 hours and really enjoyed the experience. You can see the full set of photos I took on Flickr.

Tripod day appears to be every month on the third Tuesday according to the Butterfly Pavilion calendar and is coming up this Tuesday. It costs a bit more than the regular admission but you have all day access and is worth it.

Ignite is an event where people present for five minutes with twenty slides that advance every ( 5 * 60 /20 = ) 15 seconds. Ignite Boulder is where 750 of your newest friends come to see amazing people present in the Ignite format.

I have attended every Ignite Boulder since Ignite Boulder 2 and have enjoyed every show as well as watching them grow into their current space, The Boulder Theater, where they have sold out for the last 3 shows.

This has become the new date night for Heather and I. The day that the date is announced we get a baby sitter all lined up ( Thanks Judy! ) and on day one we buy our tickets. This is followed by the voting. That’s right, you vote on the presentations that make it to the show.

The night of the show we all pile into the Boulder Theater and, after visiting with old friends and meeting new ones, Andrew Hyde opens the show and explains what is going on, in Ignite format of course. Following him Ef Rodriguez, one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, welcomes everyone. In song. It’s amazing. This is followed by half of the presentations, all of which are great and even if you don’t think so, it’s 5 minutes, go get a drink and it’ll be done. Half way through there is an intermission where we all take a break and a local band plays, Fellow Citizens played at Ignite Boulder 7.

Fellow Citizens playing Ignite Boulder 7

After the intermission the rest of the presenters go on and continue to bring the awesome while the audience continues to practice productive heckling. This continues until, before you realize it, the show has ended and you must say goodnight to sweet Ignite Boulder.

If you have not been to an Ignite in Boulder you have 30 days to remedy this mistake, the next event is February 10th. Tickets for the next event are on sale now.