Dead Weight
Friday, October 30
Last Sabbath was one of the clearest days I’ve seen in Colorado - the air was pure and clear, visibility was amazing, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The view was amazing.
Josiah and I were standing at 14,148 feet atop Mt. Democrat in the Colorado Rockies. You could see for hundreds of miles in every direction, and some believe you can see more 14ers from atop this peak than any other summit in Colorado.
The hike to the summit was fairly short, an elevation gain of only 2100 feet over 2 miles, and a well-marked trail all the way to the summit. The snow made it a little more difficult in places. Exposure in some places made for some very cutting winds and icy trails. And although the hike isn’t any too difficult, I don’t like carrying extra baggage around. My gear is pretty light, and aside from a headlamp and pocket knife, I don’t pack anything that I don’t plan on using.
There are four peaks above 14,000 feet in a convenient loop, and we’d planned to climb as many as possible. I’d brought along my GPS to track out elevation gain/loss, moving/stopped time, and total trip length. About 10 minutes into our hike, the cold got to my nearly-worthless Duracell rechargeable batteries and they died, leaving us with my slightly less accurate, but nonetheless realistic and honest, estimates of trip details.
When we cleared the summit, we had 360° views for hundreds of miles. At that altitude, the already blue Colorado sky appears deep and rich. Directly above you it’s so deep it’s almost black. Every peak above 12,000 feet is snow-capped, and the contrast is breathtaking. Although I’ve now summited eleven 14ers, the views never cease to amaze me.
This is a fitting place for a picture - but I don’t have one...
During Fountainview graduation in June, 2007, I did a night-summit of Mt. Askom. At 8376 feet, it’s about 400 feet below the elevation I grew up at in Colorado. However, the views are still breathtaking - especially at sunrise. Thinking we’d summit during the night, and in an attempt to travel light, I’d left my camera in the truck at the trailhead. We arrived at the summit about 5 minutes before sunrise. This was, without a doubt, one of the sweetest and most bitter mountaintop experiences I’ve had. The most amazing sunrise I’d ever seen, and no camera with which to capture it. After that day, I swore I’d never climb another mountain without my camera. And I haven’t.
As we stood atop Mt. Democrat in Colorado, I took off my pack and pulled out my camera. Not just any camera - a full-frame D-SLR with a wide-angle zoom lens. 3.2 lbs. at normal elevation, but at 14,000 feet, it weighs in at an astounding 7 lbs! I’ve lugged this beast to the summit of eleven 14ers. When I pulled the camera out and turned it on, nothing happened - the battery was dead. I might as well have taken a brick up that mountain.
Hmm, I wonder I there’s an object lesson there somewhere.
Josiah and I were standing at 14,148 feet atop Mt. Democrat in the Colorado Rockies. You could see for hundreds of miles in every direction, and some believe you can see more 14ers from atop this peak than any other summit in Colorado.
The hike to the summit was fairly short, an elevation gain of only 2100 feet over 2 miles, and a well-marked trail all the way to the summit. The snow made it a little more difficult in places. Exposure in some places made for some very cutting winds and icy trails. And although the hike isn’t any too difficult, I don’t like carrying extra baggage around. My gear is pretty light, and aside from a headlamp and pocket knife, I don’t pack anything that I don’t plan on using.
There are four peaks above 14,000 feet in a convenient loop, and we’d planned to climb as many as possible. I’d brought along my GPS to track out elevation gain/loss, moving/stopped time, and total trip length. About 10 minutes into our hike, the cold got to my nearly-worthless Duracell rechargeable batteries and they died, leaving us with my slightly less accurate, but nonetheless realistic and honest, estimates of trip details.
When we cleared the summit, we had 360° views for hundreds of miles. At that altitude, the already blue Colorado sky appears deep and rich. Directly above you it’s so deep it’s almost black. Every peak above 12,000 feet is snow-capped, and the contrast is breathtaking. Although I’ve now summited eleven 14ers, the views never cease to amaze me.
This is a fitting place for a picture - but I don’t have one...
During Fountainview graduation in June, 2007, I did a night-summit of Mt. Askom. At 8376 feet, it’s about 400 feet below the elevation I grew up at in Colorado. However, the views are still breathtaking - especially at sunrise. Thinking we’d summit during the night, and in an attempt to travel light, I’d left my camera in the truck at the trailhead. We arrived at the summit about 5 minutes before sunrise. This was, without a doubt, one of the sweetest and most bitter mountaintop experiences I’ve had. The most amazing sunrise I’d ever seen, and no camera with which to capture it. After that day, I swore I’d never climb another mountain without my camera. And I haven’t.
As we stood atop Mt. Democrat in Colorado, I took off my pack and pulled out my camera. Not just any camera - a full-frame D-SLR with a wide-angle zoom lens. 3.2 lbs. at normal elevation, but at 14,000 feet, it weighs in at an astounding 7 lbs! I’ve lugged this beast to the summit of eleven 14ers. When I pulled the camera out and turned it on, nothing happened - the battery was dead. I might as well have taken a brick up that mountain.
Hmm, I wonder I there’s an object lesson there somewhere.
Photoshop
Saturday, October 10
Here's to Photoshop!
That's it!
It seems there's no end to what you can do to an image in Photoshop. From simply enhancing the colors, to merging multiple images to create something completely different, Photoshop is an amazing tool, and has saved many a sorry picture for me. :)
The image in this post can be seen on the intro page of my website. You can see the progression of layers from start to finish. Assuming that most of my readers are Photoshop savvy enough to understand the lingo, and not being too lazy to write a step-by-step tutorial, I'll just give an overview of the steps involved in enhancing the image here. If, however, the interest is there, I am willing to do a step-by-step tutorial. In the mean time, you're on your own to figure out the details.
- I opened the original image.
- Added a black fill layer with a lens flare and set the blend mode to screen.
- Duplicated the layer to enhance the colors.
- Added a color balance adjustment layer, adjusting the darks, midtones, cooling the areas around the lens flare to give that nighttime look on the left of the image.
- Added a hugh saturation adjustment layer to increase the hugh and saturation while decreasing the lightness. I set the blend mode to hard light and decreased the fill to 40%. This more than anything else added the 'pop' to the image, giving it it's rich colors.
- Added a curves adjustment layer and using a slight 's' curve, increased the contrast further.
- Added an exposure adjustment layer and used a layer mask to increase the contrast between the sunlight and darkness.
- Combined all the layers in a new layer on top (CMD+SHIFT+OPT+E) and used the burn tool to darken the edges of the image.
- Added another hugh saturation adjustment layer to darken the sky on the left, really giving it that night look.
- Then I added stars... This was done in two layers for different sized stars with varying brightness. To render these stars, I used a combination of a add noise filter and adjusting the threshold. Then I masked out the clouds.
That's it!
