Steve-Z.com

When I’m done slidin’, and I’m feelin’ cold and tired, it’s good to warm my bones beside the fire.

A large chunk of the crew recently moved into a big house out in East Boulder. At the housewarming party my friends at Green Guru brought out a big stash of their vinyl supply to make a giant slip and slide! I lent my photo skills to capture some of the water sprayin’ body flingin’ action! We started things off with some races: kinda like slip-n-slidercross.

While it was possible to go down just on bare skin, random bumps and rocks in the field led to many bumps and bruises, as you can see me finding out right here.

Thermarests offered a much smoother ride.

Justin doing his crazy action redneck impression.

I had a 4 strobe setup that I was able to ride out to the farm with in a small backpack.  I never was really sure how the photo was going to come out, based upon how far down the run the sliders were.  Love how Billy is blacked out with water spray illuminated in his face in this shot.

Unfortunately, no ladies lost their bikini tops in the making of this photo.

Awesomeness^3

The giant tube was brought out near the end, but it didn’t offer quite the speed that we were looking for.

FACEPLANT!

Not to be outdone, I made a few attempts at surfing the Thermarest. This is the look of me being psyched that I’m actually staying up for 5 seconds.

As you can see, this was a pretty rockin’ way to spend a summer evening.  I’m sure we’ll be setting this up bigger and better in the future.  I think that a first slip n slide descent of the First Flatiron should be next on the list.

Here we are with my final Telluride post. I’m going to have to find some local fun to keep this blog going over the next month!

River and I took a little drive out of town to the micro-town of Ophir. I was quite excited to find some trashed out buildings to play in. The first building with the wildflowers growing in it is SO COOL!

Telluride is full of all sorts of marvlicious randomness. And you know how I love to take photos of randomness! About a block from the gondola in town is a house, with a fence made of skis, and a pile of random junk lying in the yard. And amongst the random junk is a mid 90s vintage Klein mountain bike, which was The Shizzle back in the day. I also found Herbert, my new frog statue with a tongue that has been chewed off. I meant to do a portrait of him along the road on the way back, but sadly, I forgot. Next time.

I didn’t really take any tourist pics in Telluride. This is it. I tilted it to make sure it wasn’t too boring. Well, maybe it’s boring to you. To me its awesomesauce the way you can see all the way down the end of the street. Maybe I’ll get bored of this effect someday. Today is not that day.

At La Cocina De Luz you can eat your Mexican food in the safety of an old bank vault. How about that door?!

I got hooked up with some luxury accommodations in Telluride at the Camel’s Garden Hotel by virtue of River’s friendship with the owner. A fine art aficionado, Michael has some cool art in and around the premises. The post started with my fixation on the hotel lamp.  The below shot I call, The Flux Capacitor.

Then I happened to notice the optical anomaly of the mirrors in the elevator. I’m not exactly sure which mirror is causing the curve, but I tilted the focus to hook it all together!

What kind of Camel’s Garden would be complete without pyramids? Not this one. Stay tuned for the Camel’s Toe pictures coming soon at SteveZAfterHours.com

After my wedding on Wednesday I got out for a quick hike from the town of Telluride. The weather was unbelievably schizophrenic, and it would change from sun to rain about every 3 minutes. I walked with only my 45mm Tilt Shift Lens, always looking to tie together compositional elements. Steve-Z.com = perspective misalignment!

On the drive to Telluride, we passed through the town of Delta, Colorado. Just another ambiguous small town on the Western Slope, there are only three reasons for a passer-though to stop: Food, gas, or possibly some crystal meth. When I saw this lot full of rusted out vintage cars, I realized that there is an unsung fourth reason to stop. A tilt shift madness photos shoot!

After leaving Seattle and the coast, we headed up to Mt. Rainier National Park.  George needed to get out of the car and stretch his legs at a rest stop, and agreed to pose for a quick photo.

When camping, I’m captivated by the primal power of fire. I can spend hours collecting, building, tending, arranging, contemplating, and generally zoning out in peaceful zen.

Somewhere along the way through Washington State, Mel and I found ourselves at the little town of Northport. We stayed at a little Grandma and Grandpa bed and breakfast, which I believe was called the Matheson House, although I can’t seem to find any trace of it on the internet. We received the warmest hospitality, and they really took care of us like we were family. Mel even got to try out some stylish pajamas while she did laundry, although if I posted the picture then it would probably be my last. That evening we kicked back with a few summertime beverages in our ship-themed room.

The great thing about summertime beverages is that they can motivate you to celebrate the local flavor. The house was filled with a lifetimes worth of knick-knacks!

What year do you think this Royal pie filling is from?

There was not a shortage of creepy doll babies!

There was also a selection of trophy animals that were bagged by a relative. Nice kitty kitty.

This mountain lion had been behaving badly, and was hunted down. All 140 pounds of him.

And the scariest photo of all, is we had a competition as to who could most closely mimic this doll’s pose. I won. Want to see the comparison? You can’t, due to the aforementioned PJ’s!

All joking aside, we had a really great stay!

We were in Seattle for a brief visit last weekend. I decided to climb to the top of a parking garage, hoping to get a view of Pike’s Market and the waterfront. Well, the building wasn’t quite high enough! So I took this shot of 1st Avenue. One of the cool effects of the tilt shift lens is the ability to make everything look like miniature toys. This effect is amplified if you get much higher than your subjects. For this shot I used both the tilt and shift features of the lens. The “shift” feature was used to straighten the vertical lines of the skyscrapers, making it appear that I’m higher than I really am. Then I angled the “tilt” feature to align down the street, so that the two men walking, the PARK sign, and the buildings all the way down at the end of the street are all in focus.

Hi. Steve here. I have a ton of new photos and posts to publish from my latest adventures. But first things first. I gotta change the name of this website! This is a blog of personal photos and adventures, and as a result it is a steadily morphing entity. As I evolve as a human and as a photographer, the look and feel of the site needs to change with me.

“The Dark Side” was a name that I impulsively came up with a couple years ago one late night when I was changing both of my blogs to my new ProPhoto WordPress blog template (great template, there is a discount coupon at the bottom of the page!).  My professional websites took over an all-white theme, and I thought it would be fun to have my personal site reflect the opposite of that. So I just started calling the two, the Light Side, and the Dark Side. It was never really a well thought out plan, I will admit. One was white, one was black. One was professional work, one was personal work. It was really supposed to be temporary, but, I’m pretty busy with all the tons of things to do with this photo biz, so I just never got around to changing it, mostly because I never really thought of anything else to call it.

What is the purpose of this site anyway? Do I really need it? Does it really matter?

To me, it does. I love photography. I’m passionate about it, and addicted to it. I love taking photos when I’m on my adventures. Sometimes the photos are just travel snaps. But once in a while I get a really cool shot, the kind that I’d like to hang on the wall of my house. So I feel the need to put them out there and share them with the world, rather than have them live a cold and lonely life on a computer hard drive. I want them to see the light of day. I’d like to set up a cart where they could be purchased . . . but that’s a whole nutha project.

I need a new title that is more representative to the photography work that I publish here. In all reality, there isn’t much that is Dark about my photography. I’m more interested in beauty than sadness. I do have a quirky sense of humor, no doubt. I love what I do and I do have some pretty cool adventures where I have a lot of fun. The Dark Side had some people thinking that they were going to see horror movie stuff or something! So I need a title that is smart and clever, and possibly hints that this is a photo blog featuring photos from my travel, biking and snowboarding, and other random photos I take in my free time. There is also occasionally some technical and educational info for photographers, although I don’t seem to manage to find the time to publish a quarter of the articles that I think of in my mind. How do I sum all of that up in a title? How do I sum up 39 years of me in a couple words?

Until I come up with a cool new title . . . I’m just going to have a clean white sheet of paper.  The Great Title-less Blog! I just couldn’t stand the old look any more and had to change it immediately! I made a Facebook comment about changing the name; in a dream world someone will come up with a clever name for me! I’m not counting on that though. My best ideas usually come from an unexpected moment of clarity, and will just pop into my head when the time is right. As for now, I’m going to throw out the idea that I’m ready for the new name to come to me.

As for the photo . . . It’s just a funny self portrait that I took on my recent trip to Washington State. My chin is all distorted and enormous due to the distortion of my Nikon 14-24mm lens. I love to take beautiful pictures. But I also like taking funny and somewhat distorted pictures as well!

If you actually read all of this, thanks. I hope you keep coming back for years to come, as this blog will still be around, although the format may completely different. Evolution is like that.  Cheers, Steve Z.

OK, I really need to post some shots from my trip down to the Great Sand Dunes that now seems like about forever ago! First picture of me taken by Melissa Welsh.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Boulder County needs more burned down derelict buildings so that I can have more locations for photo entertainment!

Also remember, there is nothing more entertaining than an afro. OK, maybe a mullet.

“I love it when a plan comes together” – John “Hannibal” Smith

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving” – Albert Einstein

Prior to getting into photography, I didn’t really appreciate junk. But now, oh now; things are different. There is nothing that I love more than the burned out, rusted in, toppled over, crumbling down, peeling onto, smashed under feel good scratch and sniff goodness of a desolate pile of junk. I wish Westerners weren’t so damn territorial about their junk. I won’t sue you if I impale my foot with a rusty nail, I promise. It isn’t your fault that your junk is so damn beautiful. But alas, sometimes I just have to admire your junk at 65mph.

I set out on a good old fashioned road trip last week. It was part of a staycation that was the result of a visit from an out of the country friend. We headed down to the Great Sand Dunes in southern Colorado. The dunes are one of those places that I’ve been meaning to visit for years but never quite made it. Since my friend is a pro photographer as well, we took way too many pictures, and it’s resulted in way too much editing! But wacky fun images of me trying to snowboard on the sand as well as some nature shots are on the way.

So I’m going to kick things off with one of those nostalgia inducing images. You know that you are experiencing the freedom of summer and killing time on the open road when you’re hangin’ your feet out the window. I wonder how many people have had their feet stung by bees while doing this?

I should have posted this on this site earlier, but just in case you missed it, I’m having an Open House for my new studio in North Boulder. Come take self portraits in the Crazy Booth and take home a photo! Check out my Fine Art Wall Prints and Albums! Eat, Drink, and be Fabulous! View the Full Invite Here! http://mim.io/6be73

Not much time for the Dark Side these days as I’m too busy getting ready for the studio opening and the busy season.  My mom joined a tomato forum. She needs an avatar. Here it is.