2012 was a Great Year for Photography 

Kathleen and I had a very memorable year in our personal lives and in the area of photography. Kathleen Started the year with a blood clot in her leg and was laid up and home bound for most of the first half of the year.  Thanks to some good medical care and a lot of TLC at home she is much better and back to being my photography partner.  We made several trips this year, including a trip to Los Angeles for my mother's birthday in May, a trip to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park in August, a trip to Buena Vista for our anniversary in September and an eleven day road trip to California and back over Thanksgiving.


Kathleen started using a digital camera at the end of last year and is really starting to like it.  She is shooting a Sigma SD15  and I am shooting a Sigma SD1M.  I think I will post a baker's dozen sample of the photos taken this year, comprising a few of our favorites.  I hope you enjoy viewing these as much as we enjoyed taking them!

This is a photo of ice covered Echo Lake in January with mountains in the background.  It seems like a appropriate shot to start the blog since we are in mid-January and it has been very cold in Denver this past week.

Here is a spring shot of beautiful thunder head clouds heading into Denver  from the west in the early afternoon.  Rain was soon to follow. 

I went to the Denver Zoo in February and captured a few nice shots.  This giraffe was very cooperative and gave me several nice poses.  In the shot below the Gray Crowned African Crane might be saying are you kidding me!

This flamingo really gave me a nice pose.  I really appreciated her (his) effort and beautiful colors.

Kathleen and I went over Kenosha Pass in the fall and stopped to grab a few shot of the Colorado Gold that was in full bloom.  Kathleen capture these two shots in the woods

From Kenosha Pass we ventured to Buena Vista (a perfect name for the gem of a town) at the gateway to the Collegiate Peaks;  A line of 14000 ft peaks that seem to grow up from the valley floor in front of Buena Vista.  We stayed at a bed a breakfast in Buena Vista.  While there we drove up to Cottonwood Lake where I grabbed this shot.

I went up to Red Rocks Park just outside Denver to test a new lens and ran across this prime mule Deer buck.  He was kind enough to pose for a few seconds before he bounded off and jumped a 6 ft fence and scurried in the woods.  Some days you just get lucky!

We drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park and luckily ran into several groups of bull elk.  This guy was lunching on green next to a cabin and did not notice or chose to ignore me and my long lens.

As we were coming down Trail Ridge road this single bull elk just followed us walking parallel to the road for about half a mile.  This provided Kathleen with a series of photos in which the mountain backdrop and position of the elk kept changing and causing Kathleen to repeatedly give me stop and start instructions.  This was a very cooperative elk.

Kathleen and I were at Hudson Gardens shooting flowers when this butterfly kept fluttering around the group of flowers I was trying to shoot.  He finally stopped long enough for me to get a few shots, this one was the best of the group.

This is all for today.  I will continue in a couple of days, mainly with shots for the California road trip we took over Thanksgiving.  Stay tuned!