The Dark Side

Yesterday I went on an offroad adventure with a friend I met at Christmas dinner. We took his Jeep up and over the hill to a remote little beach called Playa Manzanillo.  We made a wrong turn and wound up on the roads of some new luxury real estate lots they are developing.  Great views though!  This shot is facing the south and Playa Larga.

Eventually, we got back on the right track and dropped into Playa Manzanillo, which is a tiny little coral sand beach with great snorkeling.

Walking in and out of the coral on the beach are lot of little crabs of all different sizes. These guys are so funny! When they see you they pull up tight into the shells and hide out. Then the first thing that pokes out are just the two eyes to see if the coast is clear, before resuming their little crab walk.

Here is a big armored beetle that was found in the yard.  He’s big and slow and not dangerous in any way.

But it seems that he is on his last legs, so to speak.  He isn’t moving around very well.

All I’ve got is another tropical la-la-land photo for you today. So I tweaked it out in Lightroom for some variety.

Well, I finally made it out surfing today. I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn’t know it was going to be so painful on the stomach. I’m a softie, need a rash guard.  The sunrise was nice!  Big holiday dinner party tonight. Merry Christmas!

There is a place on Playa La Ropa where a natural river meets the sea. They have the area fenced off, so that the crocs have to stay in the river, and cannot exit to the ocean. There is a restaurant right along the river, where there is no fence. It’s a strange feeling to be eating your meal, and then having a croc looking at you 10 feet away.

Yup.  Here it is.

I enjoyed my first day in Zihuatanejo. In your head, imagine the most perfectly awesome first day you could possibly have. It was just like that. In order to honor and breathe in the initial sensory overload, I left the camera back at Casa La Ropa.

I rose before dawn this morning and took the 5 minute walk from the case down to the beach for my first Mexican Sunrise.

Here is another outtake from a portrait shoot.  I was wrapping up an engagement shoot at Boulder’s Red Rocks Park, when this random guy flashed me a peace sign.  I really like how the composition turned out.

Well there hasn’t been too much blogging around here lately! I’ve been busy shooting a lot of fall and holiday portraits, and generally wrapping up 2009.  I’m looking forward to a big trip down to Mexico in two weeks.  So while the main goal will be rest and relaxation, you know I’ll have some pictures to post here as well.  In the meantime here is a setup shot from a portrait shoot that I did this weekend.  We’ve had such gorgeously warm fall weather, without much snow lately.  I’m hoping that all the best snow at the ski resorts will be waiting for me when I return in January.

The snow was supposed to have let up by now, but it is still snowing in Boulder.  We got a ton of moisture, but the temps were warm enough that a lot of the snow has melted as it has come down.  Some of the last leaves of fall are still hanging on.

Even more pics from my evening in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 lens FTW!

Here are some more images from my Estes Park adventure.  We ventured up to the top of Trail Ridge Road near sunset.  Here are a couple landscape photos of the bare, rocky peaks covered with a light dusting of snow.  The square topped peak is Longs Peak.

No, not shooting to kill, shooting to blog! I can’t believe it has already been two weeks since I shot these pictures. Time is just flyin’ on by.  I usually don’t like taking touristy pictures, but these beasts are just so big and cool I couldn’t help myself.

This first shot is in Moraine Park. There was a herd quite a distance away with a big buck elk watching over his ladies.

Down by sheep lakes there was a giant crowd. There was this big boy only meters from the road. It was a full on nature photography scrum! Here he is bugling!

The evening light streaming into the valley was spectacular.

I love aspen groves. We have a lot of pine forests in the Front Range, and they just aren’t as pretty. If an aspen tree and a pine tree got in a fight, the pine tree would probably win. Aspen trees are lovers, not fighters. In a Miss Perennial Woody Plant competition, the aspen would take the flowers for sure. In this meadow up in Lost Antler Ranch in Estes Park, the aspens and the pines are living in harmony as far as I can tell.

I found this skeleton hanging on the fence at Lost Antler Ranch. I’m not sure what animal it is . . . I’m guessing that it’s an elk?