SmugMug Appreciation Sunday — No. 036

In brief, these posts serve to introduce new readers — and reintroduce regular readers — to photos from the early days of this blog and, occasionally, to photos from days before this blog came into existence.

As mentioned Sunday, we — Melisa and me — used to live in Colorado, and I took a few photos while we lived there.

Today, I offer two short galleries of photos from Colorado. The first is documented in THIS post, and it’s from July 2005. It coincided with the first visitors we had after moving there. As is our wont, we went on a drive.

Here’s the thing . . . it may not seem like it, but 2005 was a long time ago when it comes to my photography. I snapped 32 photos, of which 27 are included in the SmugMug Gallery (HERE).

Just a few years later, as I got into the swing of shooting digital and memory cards fell in price as they increased in capacity, a similar drive would produce a few hundred photos. In fact, knowing the areas I drove through, I’m surprised I only have 32 photos from that drive.

Sure, we had guests, but still, these days I could — and have — accidentally snap 32 photos if I happen to sneeze.

It’s not just the number of photos . . . it’s also the processing. These were the days of the D100 . . . and limited adjustment sliders in Lightroom and other software packages I was then using.

I’m not saying the photos are crap, but they have a different look and feel.

Mind you, some still rank as some of my favorites, despite — or, perhaps, because — of the processing.

I mentioned before that the D100 has a different ‘feel and look” to the photos it takes, in part because of the onboard sensor and processing. Or, maybe, it’s the editing.

See, I don’t think it’s the tools. The thing is, the D100 had some color modes that were inherited from the then flagship cameras; color modes that are not embedded in the RAW files of my newer cameras. Or, it could also be the lower pixel count. Whatever the reason, were I to snap that photo with any of my newer cameras, the raw image wouldn’t look the same.

. . . perhaps it was the light . . .

It’s also the landscape. I don’t remember the landscape looking the same in later years . . . then again, the Western Drought seemed to start a few years after we moved there, and, combined with the Beetle Kill, it changed the look of the landscape.

I don’t remember seeing sights like this a few years later . . . I have photos.

By the way, a photo of my then vehicle, the mighty Suburban.

Anyway, the slideshow for the gallery is below, but for now, let me get to the next Gallery (HERE), documenting our ascent and hiking of the Catamount Trail, in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado.

I should give a bit of a background, but before I do, let me mention that’s US-24, linking Colorado Springs to Woodland Park . . . a road I would travel nearly daily from the fall of 2006 to the fall of 2013 as I commuted to and from my job in Woodland Park, from our home in Monument. Some have seen this, but if you haven’t, here’s a video of me driving a portion of that road . . .

Anyway, Catamount Trail . . . 1,700 feet in elevation change, 4.6 miles round trip. Sure, we like to walk and hike, but there’s a story with this . . . I short one, I assure you. You see, we’d been in Colorado just over a year, and this was before I would go back to work.

Before we settled on a house, we lived in an apartment building and had met a couple we’d become semi-friends with. They were part of a group of ‘elderly’ people who went on regular hikes on local trails (among other stuff they did . . . and still do). The Pikes Peak Over The Hill Gang.

I’ll wait while my readers pick their jaw off the floor . . . yes, we joined a social group. It didn’t last long for the same reasons we don’t join one now. People are messy, with dynamics that range the spectrum of petty drama.

Most of all, we’re different. I know lots of people say that, but we are. Some say ‘unforgiving’. We eventually found more and more reasons not to participate in stuff . . . and they forgot about us and we about them.

But, on that April 27, 2006, we joined a group going on that particular hike. We had fun, actually, and even went on a couple of other hikes (or, at least one more), and then, that was that.

This, then, is the record of our Catamount Trail hike. We had planned to do it again, but, somehow, we never got around to it. I guess social pressure being absent, we did other things. By the way, the post for those photos is associated with one of my NaNoWriMo efforts (HERE). That’s where you’ll find the photos and maybe a bit more info . . . or not.

Anyway, here are the slideshows for the two galleries. If you prefer, you can just visit the galleries by clicking on the links I provided above.

Note: the transition is set to 2sec, but — if you move the cursor anywhere within the photo — you’ll see a pause button on the lower left, and, once paused, you can use the left and right arrows on both sides of the photo to navigate the slideshow. If you click anywhere in the photo instead of the pause button, you’ll exit the slideshow and find yourself in SmugMug. You can still scroll through the photos or interact in other ways.

Slideshow of Driving Colorado – July 2005 Gallery — (27 photos + one new)

Slideshow of Catamount Trail Gallery — (20 photos)

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

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