Palmer Park – Colorado Springs

I had two hours to kill after dropping Melisa off at her class. Since I had my camera with me, I decided to pay a visit to Palmer Park (you can read about the park HERE and HERE)

I’ll have other opportunities to shoot inside the park, but on this day I picked a small area where I could park the Tahoe, climb some rocks, examine other rocks, and spend an hour or so in quiet solitude . . . almost.

This particular dead tree offers a lot of opportunities for identifying “faces” on its damaged and scarred bark.

Here; perhaps this is a little better . . . note also how it’s captured a young Ent and it’s holding it at arm’s length.

Let’s see . . . I see a pretty good Salvador Dali face near the bottom of the frame, the face of a whistler halfway up, and something that may or may not be giving me a raspberry near the top.

There are extra photos in the SmugMug Gallery HERE, but for the post I’ll try to keep it to only relevant captures. Of course, I’m fairly lax in my definition of relevant.

I liked this composition . . .

I was shooting with my Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 lens, and I noticed the focus points are not in focus. Annoying that.

When I bought the lens I did a few tests and programmed an adjustment into the camera specifically for this lens. I guess I’ll have to repeat the test and tweak the setting.

For them who might not know, we’ve been having rain every day for nearly three weeks now, and everything is soaked. On this particular day, I was out during a lull, but it was overcast, and most everything was wet.

The rocks are particularly interesting, but I’ll cop to postprocessing pixy dust having been used to bring out some of the colors.

Here’s another view of the tree . . . it turns out it’s not holding a young Ent after all; it’s just an extension of the larger branch itself.

I climbed a little higher . . .

It’s probably not a good idea climbing around these rocks on my own, especially carrying 15-20 pounds of gear that can shift at any time and make you lose your balance.

That’s how one can nearly sprain their foot and almost fall off a ledge . . . my foot is almost back to normal now, thanks.

I’m going to write something now and I don’t want any flack because of it. The comment is based on having traveled to Hawaii and seen exactly what I’m about to describe.

That’s the type of rock that in Hawaii would have the locals put leis and offering of fruits on and around it to appease and incur favor from a perceived fertility god.

There was a can of beer near this rock, which, by Western standards, is nearly equivalent and probably more effective.

I mentioned it was cloudy, so I was shooting at f/2.8 to get as much light as possible through the lens. That made the depth of field shallower than I like. Take these two next two photos. The first one has the rocks in focus, and the second had more of the foreground shrub in focus.

I tried combining the photos and it did a pretty good job except for some of the branches show some ghosting.

That’s because the two shots are not exactly from the same spot. Oh, well.

By the way, notice the sad face carved in the middle rock.

Here’s an interesting rock covered with lichen.

Just then, I heard the beat of wings and a Flicker flew by me and landed on the other side of the dead trunk. I changed lenses and swung around the other side of the tree so I could see the possible nesting site.

I can’t be sure that’s where the bird went. There was a small area of the circumference that I could not see from my vantage point. It could be the nest was on the opposite side of the above hole.

I waited for a bit, and  while waiting I occupied myself shooting the branches.

It was about then that the place was invaded.

One group came over the ridge to my left, and one group came around the base of the rocks to my right.

When they came in sight of each other, they proceeded to yell American Indian-like sounds at each other . . . or what passes for American Indian yells to children who have no idea what American Indians yells sound like.

I did shoot a movie but forgot to take the camera off autofocus . . . sorry for the poor video quality, but the noise is well represented.

I went back to my shooting as the kids played cowboy and indians.

A short while later the groups decided to recombine into one big group. As the lower group waited, the ones up on the rocks headed back down.

A couple of the kids noticed me shooting and waved as I waved at them.

As quiet slowly regained a foothold, I went back to my solitary ways.

I got up to the top of the ridge, and just had time for a few more shots before I headed back down.

This shot, along with a few others, is a contender for best shot of the series.

Probably, the shot with the rocks and the tree trunk at the beginning ranks as my favorite, but this is a close second.

On the way down I passed a couple of clumps of cacti . . . they looked ready to bloom. I hope I catch them next week in full flower.

This next one shows the buds the best.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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