Steve-Z.com

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.

Last weekend I was paid to go to all four sessions of the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. How cool is that? Way cool, if you ask me. Draft Magazine hired me to shoot photos of drunken attendees as part of their marketing promotion to get people to log on to their website to view and download their photos.  The backdrop simulates the cover of a magazine, with all of it’s vinyl reflective glory.  I made a slideshow of some the the more, um . . . animated attendees. Enjoy!

To view the 2008 Great American Beer Festival Slideshow on its own page, CLICK HERE.

I’ve noticed that Google ranks YouTube videos quite highly. So I think I’m going to start uploading my slideshows there and see if it drums up any hype.

This is a general wedding slideshow that I made a while back for client meetings but I have not posted it yet.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc3KtTqLblA[/video]

I’ve been shooting some nature photos interspersed within and between my mountain biking adventures. It has been nice to get away from the routine and to spend some time wandering around in the woods. The mountain bike trails are out in the Hillsborough County Park System of Morris Bridge, Flatwoods, and Trout Creek.

The trails border on the cypress swamps. The main obstacles are roots, spiders, roots, and the occasional alligator, as I mentioned yesterday.

Check out the sweet pentagonal lens flare from my fisheye lens!

Lettuce Lake park has a tower where you can check out the view from above.

I don’t have a big enough lens to take serious close up nature photos of birds and critters from a distance. Fortunately these white ibis were pretty tame. The funny part about these birds is that their neck muscles are a primary means of propulsion. When they want to walk faster they start bobbing their heads forward more furiously to speed up!

This year’s ACA Colorado State Cyclocross Championship was held at a brand new venue in Lyons, Colorado, which is about 20 minutes north of Boulder. All the local cross freaks were undoubtedly excited to see piles of snow falling from the heavens on Saturday. The cross gods were smiling on Colorado, and ensuring that a ‘real’ cross race would go down, and not one of Colorado’s famous sunny and dry events.

The temperatures were extremely cold on Sunday, which made sure that the course stayed frozen and icy. I was a little disappointed; I was hoping for an energy sucking slop-fest. But you can’t have everything, and I’ll take any sort of adverse conditions that I can get. What we did get at our new Lyons event was sponsorship by local brewery Oskar Blues. There were generous amounts of free Dale’s Pale Ale and Old Chub Scottish Ale available, which ensured that the fans would be rowdy.

And that’s the beard of Dave from Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey. He’s a classic eccentric distiller type, who took the bus from Denver to Boulder, then rode his fixed gear bike to Lyons, then raced, then hung out and gave out samples of his awesome whiskey. I’m a whiskey on the rocks man, and Stranahan’s is some of the best that I’ve ever had. With all of these fine local beverages and a fire pit present, the fans kept warm and happy. Here is a shot of Greg from Mud and Cowbells Blogspot having about the most fun he’s ever had. He did a good job, but I could have used a little more cowbell!

And there was some racing going on too, although I had a hard time focusing. The pro men’s race was an awesome throw-down dogfight between Brandon Dwight, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski, Danny Summerhill and Matt Pacocha.

JHK was trying to obtain a frozen beard as good as Dave’s, but I don’t think he quite did it.

And in the end it was young blood Danny S. taking the win over the veterans!

I’ve put together a slideshow of all my photos. You can view the slideshow on it’s own page by clicking HERE. Or watch it in the video window below, and enjoy the generous helping of cowbell right here in the comfort of the home page. There will be a gallery at the end where you can view individual photos, just in case I’ve captured you in all your frozen glory.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.steve-z.com/slideshows/state_cross07_blog/showit.swf?showit_path=http://www.steve-z.com/slideshows/state_cross07_blog/" height="480" width="680" BGCOLOR="ffffff" PLAY="false"/]

The weekend before last I shot Dave and Erin Fleck’s wedding; yes the now infamous Winter Park Bachelor Party Crew was in attendance as well. The ceremony and the reception were held at the Colorado Historical Society building above the Colorado History Museum near the capitol building in Denver. It was scorching hot and blazing sun during the ceremony, which may have contributed to it’s whopping 8 minute length. I think everyone was thankful to retreat to the shade with some cold beverages. But soon as the sun went down we were treated to a beautiful view from our fourth floor terrace. The sunset over Colorado’s Continental Divide was divine, and the Denver skylight provided a unique backdrop for some portraiture.

I find the captured moment in the ceremony image below really funny. It is one of those pictures that makes you wonder: What was she thinking? Am I really marrying a man who shaves his legs? Can I really afford to be second to mountain bike trips for the rest of my life? Is Chris Sharma still single, he looked pretty hot in Steve Z’s climbing slideshow … ? Ha! Just kidding, guys, congratulations and I wish you the best. So without further ado, click on the image below to start the slideshow check out some fun pictures.

The photo adventure from this past weekend involved riding two sections of the Colorado Trail. Since the Feds are threatening to close the Colorado Trail to mountain biking, I figured this was the year to ride two of the best rides in the world. Let me tell you, they didn’t disappoint. I could have taken a lot more photos, but frankly I was having way too much fun to stop. Check out the slideshow and music by clicking on the slideshow picture below.

Jose sent me a link to a slideshow he put together of shots that he has taken in Moab over the years. I enjoyed it a lot, we hope you will too.