A Handful of Memories from Union Station

Union Station in Denver recently opened after a three-year renovation project costing $500 million.  The new transportation hub is designed not only to be a center for travelers, but a gathering place for the neighborhood, with shops, a hotel, and restaurants.  The hub currently serves about 15,000 users a day, with that total expected to rise to 200,000 by 2030.

The new facility is impressive, and much of the old facade was retained, keeping a piece of the tradition of the station that's been in place since 1881.  Congratulations are in order to the design and working team for being able to mix the old and new.  Here are a couple of samples of what it used to look like inside:

A Wall Sconce Keeps Watch over the Public Space.  All of these fixtures are gone now.

The Cavernous Public Space in Union Station (Now home to shops and a common area)

Inevitably though, many things had to go.  Not least among them was the underground tunnel system that train passengers had used for a hundred years to get to the various lines without having to cross over live tracks.  Here's a view of the tunnels that I have reproduced as a one-of-a-kind aluminum print for a collector in Castle Rock:

Union Station Tunnel, Showing Tracks 2 through 8

Here are a couple more views, looking in the opposite direction:

Tunnel, Looking Toward Street Level

Mural in Tunnel, Showing Snow Removal Train on Trestle

The subway tile, deco fixtures and hand-painted mural aren't really in the style that would have been in keeping with the modernization of the building, and there wasn't enough room anyway for the new bus concourse.  Here's how the concourse, in the same space as the train tunnels, looks just before opening:

Bus Concourse (Image courtesy CBS)

If you think this looks like the airport, you're not alone.  People demand space, maneuverability, and convenience.  They don't want to be too distracted by interesting details, or historical items they may have to read to understand.  The new concourse is wonderfully utilitarian, and will be useful for far more than the old tunnel system.

But something of value was still lost.

And more than that was lost as well.  The basement used to house two giant model train layouts, the more interesting of which was built on the site of the old jail underneath the station.  After thirty-plus years of adjustment, building and maintenance, the Platte Valley & Western Model Railroad club had to move out.  Here are two of several hundred pictures I took of the HO scale layout just before dismantling:

Train Layout Detail - Vista Car in Yard

Train Layout - Diesel Passes Under Trestle

I'll be contacting the current stewards of the layout, in hopes of working with them in their new space at White Fence Farms.  I'm hopeful that a collection of these photographs will be available for perusal at White Fence Farms.

Movement is inevitable.  It isn't always progress when that movement occurs, but if we can salvage some of the old in our ceaseless quest for the new, then we have to accept that we've made real progress.

All images copyright Craig Patterson, except where otherwise noted.  All rights reserved.  please contact me if you wish to use these photographs for any purpose whatsoever.

An Idea for a Christmas Present

You're in trouble!  You need to buy something!

I suggest you slow down for a minute, and do some real thinking about what that person wants.  They've probably told you in some subtle way, though maybe you weren't listening at the time.  Instead of coming up with another bauble to buy from Amazon, why not take a picture for them, and have it framed?

Slow down again.  This won't be a picture of you, or a picture of the other person.  Instead, find something to shoot that will actually mean something to them.  You'll need to go back over some things they've said, or places you've been together, in order to find the clues.  Let me give you an example of something that happened to me, so that you can start to recognize those clues.

The History
My father passed away about 25 years ago, and my mother's been living on her own every since.  (Don't worry, she wouldn't have it any other way!)  She lives in a mountain home with an absolutely wonderful view of the Colorado High Country, and it's the last home she'll ever live in.  I grew up in that home, so I'm quite familiar with the view, and I also know how important it is to her.

Additionally, she misses my dad.  She says she''s often dreamed of the two of them on airplanes, hers just behind his, off to find their next adventure.

Those two observations didn't at first seem to be related.  But in pondering her views of her life and situation, I put together something in my head that I knew I had to shoot.  You can do the same thing.  Go back over some history you have with this person you want to create something for, and distill that history into a couple of important points.  Don't worry, you don't have to ignore the rest of who they are!  You'll have opportunities later to come up with other meaningful remembrances.  For now, just use two, and then come up with a way incorporate them into a single photograph.  It can be literal, but in my case, I constructed my desired photograph from three pictures, creating something that has never existed in real life.  But you don't need to do that!  You can use ONE picture, either somewhere outdoors, or constructed in a little free space in your apartment.  The setting doesn't matter.  What matters is the sentiment and content.

The first picture I used was a view from her house of the mountains.  The second and third were of contrails I saw as as I stood on the deck of her home.  The contrails weren't in the right place in the sky, so I needed to do some postproduction work.

Combining the three gave me this image:

Contrails in Evergreen, Colorado, with Mt. Evans in the background

It shows her and my dad, off on their next adventure as the sun sets, her just a bit behind him.  Believe me, I know this picture doesn't mean much to you, my loyal reader.  It's not supposed to.  It needs to mean something that is specific to its recipient, and I promise you, she cries every time she looks at it on her wall.  At that gave me a Merry Christmas.

Now go out there and start shooting!

Finding Care for Inpatient Rehab

I should first mention that no organization can ever pay me to be featured in my blog or newsletter, nor can they give me any kind of incentive.  I mention people and companies because I think they deserve the mention, and that's the only criteria, period.

Having a loved one experience health concerns is always troubling, and it doesn't help that the choices for assistance are so varied and overwhelming.  How do you know who will do a good job, and which facilities should be avoided?  In general, we have to trust the medical professionals that are supposed to know who's good and who's not for your local area.

Based on such a recommendation from the wonderful staff at University Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, my wife and I recently accepted, on my mother's behalf, the services of an organization called Advanced Health Care.  They have many facilities around the U.S., and two in Colorado.

My mother had an injury that occurred several months ago, but was never diagnosed.  It was suddenly made much worse about a month ago, when she was staying at our house to recuperate from an unrelated hospital stay.  She's 84 as of this writing, and those of you who are in a similar position will understand that when it comes to pain management, there's nothing worse than seeing someone in horrible pain that you can do nothing about.  And with no time to spare, it's also difficult to find someone who's trustworthy, as you don't have much time to research, and if you had researched previously, many of those providers are no longer available!  Add to that the fact that there are many types of services, and you don't know which will need to be utilized at any given time, and you can get quickly overwhelmed.

After a stay to diagnose, University decided that she needed inpatient rehab, and suggested Advanced Health Care, who, as stated above, actually have many facilities around the nation.  Although I can't be certain about the rest of their facilities, it seems quite probable that they're all of the same same high quality as their Aurora location.  They specialize in inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, and short-term nursing.  All of their patients anticipate being able to leave, to a specific situation.

My mother was there for 20 days, and was consistently (and constantly) treated with respect, care, and friendship.  Staff was never upset or impatient with her, and she grew to know them by name.  The provided meals were dependably nutritious, but still fun to eat, and how much she ate was closely monitored without getting in her way.  (It's often difficult to get the elderly to eat enough, so they were more concerned with getting her to eat more, than to restrict what she had.)  All meals are served in the dining room (not a cafeteria, but more of a restaurant), so people do not get stuck forgotten in their rooms for days on end, as happens in some other facilities.

Rehab exercises were done in two sessions per day, with illustrated instructions given to her so she could continue her regimen after leaving the facility.  The entire time, the focus was on getting her back home and independent, not on shoving her out the door for some other facility to deal with.

A social activity of some sort was planned every day, but attendance was not required.  Anyone who felt up to it was welcome.  Instructions on what she was allowed to do alone and what required assistance were very clear, and staff never ignored her when she needed some help.

And finally, no matter what facility you choose, you should look for one that accepts Medicare, because Medicare demands periodic inspections.  The State does do some inspections, but they don't have enough money or trained staff to really do as thorough and demanding a job as Medicare does.  Facilities that are not required to be inspected may be just fine, but with no one looking at them before you arrive, my personal belief is that you're asking for trouble.  You are completely within your rights asking for the results of the latest Medicare inspection. If the facility has an excuse for not showing them to you, turn around and go anywhere else.

If your or your loved one's situation requires short-term assistance, I would strongly suggest that you call Advanced. 

Something to Think About When Traveling by Car

I just returned from the 2015 SEMA show in Vegas, the world's largest gathering of automotive professionals.  Most people who come from around the country choose to fly, but I usually drive, as there are so many wonderful photographic opportunities along the way.  Driving as much as I do increases the possibility of unfortunate happenings, but they can actually happen at any time, even for those who drive very little.

I had checked conditions on Vail pass, typically the most treacherous portion of the drive through Colorado on Interstate 70.  The forecast was clear, as were the live webcams, so I figured I'd be just fine in my front wheel drive Elantra.  I didn't bother to check the approaches to and from The Eisenhower Tunnel.

That was a mistake, though to be fair, many people would have taken that route anyway, rather than going North through Wyoming, or South through New Mexico.

A great deal of sand had been laid on the approach to the tunnel, so traffic was still going about 50mph even though it was snowing, and there was some snow on the road.  Often, conditions will be different on the other side of the tunnel, as it's on the other side of the Continental Divide, but tonight that was not the case this fine evening.  It was still snowing when I came out of the tunnel, and a great deal of sand had been put down here too, so everyone was still going about 50.

The unexpected part came as I was alongside another car.  I heard a sudden, loud sound, much like a gunshot, followed by the sound of glass ricocheting around the passenger compartment.  Immediately after, I felt a 50mph, 20 degree wind, and the unique crinkling sound of more glass, as it fell from the window over the plastic interior.

It took me a few seconds to realize that I hadn't been shot, that it was just a rock thrown up by the car next to me.  It was very fortunate no one was with me, as we would surely have had to head to the closest emergency room.  I was hit by some glass, but didn't get cut too badly.  It wasn't long after that, that I realized I was in trouble, as I still had seven hundred miles to go, under potentially highly variable conditions.  And that's where the preparation came in.

I pulled over as soon as I could reasonably do so, put on my coat and gloves, and started the process of sealing the former window with gaffer's tape.  While certainly inconvenient, it certainly beat the alternative of driving in freezing cold temperatures with no jacket or gloves.  Even without the tape, I still would have had a coat and gloves to wear, because I was prepared.

You should be prepared too, and with Winter coming, it's even more important.  You should have a survival kit in your car at all times, because so many things can happen.  Just one slip of the wheel, and you could be in a ravine overnight, or worse, for several days.  It doesn't need to take up much space, either.  Here's what I have in my kit:

• Small backpack - everything should be able to fit in this backpack, so it's easy to keep everything together.  And you can take it with you easily if you have to walk.
• Jacket or coat
• Plastic poncho
• Hand warmers
• Flashlight
• Socks
• Toilet paper
• Whistle
• Quarters
• Small mirror
• Matches
• Gloves
• Blanket 
• Sunblock
• Folding knife, as long as it's legal in your state
• Non-perishable food - several thousand calories, such as emergency protein bars, fruit rolls, tootsie rolls, beef jerky, and raisins.  Replace it every year.
• Tape - Gaffer's tape, which is like duct tape but doesn't leave a residue.  It's expensive, so you can use duct tape instead, or even hose tape, but have something.
• Compass - this one won't do you any good unless you know how to use it, so learn.
• Band-Aids
• Neosporin

Anything that can leak or melt should be in its own Ziploc baggie.  And if you come up with other items you think you'll need, by all means put them in the backpack.

So why do you need all this if you have a cell phone?  It's continually amazing to me how many back roads in the US, and even some stretches of Interstate, have literally NO cell service, despite what those ridiculous maps tell you.  So you may not be able to use your phone if you get stuck, and even if you do, what about when it runs out?  You need to be able to depend on yourself to get out of a jam on the road.  If you're the kind of person who calls 911 if you get a flat tire, then you should really engage in some self-reflection.

Then again, the kind of person who thinks their cell phone will always save them is not the kind of person I'm trying to talk to.  I doubt I'll  be able to reach you.

The Tamron 150-600mm - Why I'm Not Buying it, But You Might

 Intro

I'm not going to be buying the Tamron 150-600mm superzoom.  Since my reasons are my own alone, I'm going to give you the pluses and minuses, and let you decide for yourself.  And I'm actually hopeful that my condemnation of the lens might actually cause you to buy it, since we're all looking for different things.

I read reviews of camera gear just like any other photographer, and some of them can be quite helpful.  Others not so much.  Sometimes I want to see specs, sometimes not, sometimes a user experience, sometimes I don't care, you get the idea.  My interests are varied, depending on the gear and why I'm looking at it.

A quick note for ALL reviewers of ALL camera bodies and lenses, though:  Stop including tiny sample images in your posts and reviews!  They're absolutely worthless.  It does no one any good to see a 35 Meg image shrunk to 1000 pixels wide, thinking that it tells us something about the camera or lens.  If you're going to include images, then either crop them to 100% view, or include the full-resolution images behind a click.  And even then, you MUST include a comparison image of something else in order for the image to mean anything at all.

Why Do This?

Since I don't really do gear reviews, one might wonder why I'm "reviewing" this lens in the first place.  I've mentioned previously, and in almost every conversation I have with fellow photographers, that your gear doesn't really matter, so why bother caring now?  The answer is that I will attempt to prove my assertion by looking at a piece of gear much more expensive than what I currently use.  I approached the Tamron with an open mind; I was fully prepared to buy it to replace an aging lens I depend on every day.

The Baseline Lens

Nikon 100-300mm f/5.6 (Image courtesy Leicashop.com)

For landscapes, macro work, and even some automotive shoots, I currently use the Nikkor 100-300mm f/5.6 lens.  It's completely manual in every way.  It has no autofocus, no auto aperture, no image stabilization, no nothing.  It's a piece of glass with two adjustment rings on it, one of which has two functions.  Since you can't use the camera to help you control the way the lens works (and because it's an f/5.6 - very slow), it's practically impossible to use it for wildlife photography, and almost as difficult for motorsports.  There is no lens profile in LightRoom or Adobe RAW, and Adobe will never make one.  I bought it for $65 off of EBay about six years ago, and it had minor pitting internally, though it wasn't noticeable in the final image.  Fast forward to today, and the pitting has gotten worse.  Anything shot with an aperture smaller than f/8 (meaning higher numbers, up to f/32), has hundreds of dark blotches everywhere in the shot, making the lens useless except for f/8 and f/5.6.  That makes the lens, in today's market, worth exactly nothing.  And sometime in the near future, the pitting will increase to the point that I'll have to just throw it away.

But the shots it does take look extremely nice.  The focus is good, the vignetting is controllable, and the distortion is smooth enough that I almost never even correct for it because it doesn't bother me, particularly when I combine 300 shots to make a panoramic image.

The Contender 

Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 (Image courtesy Tamron)

This is Tamron's SuperZoom, the 150-600mm.  Its f-stop capability varies between f/5 and f/6.3, depending on the zoom level.  It has everything the Nikkor above doesn't have:  camera-adjustable focus and aperture, a really good image stabilization system, and a tripod ring, so that it can sit on the tripod head with a heavy camera on the back and still be balanced.  You can read plenty of other details about it everywhere else on the web if you want to, but that should really be enough talk about specs.

Lens-to-Lens Shot Comparison

Both of these shots were taken at 300mm, using the same f/8, 1/800, ISO 100 settings.

 

Nikkor 100-300mm, 100% crop from center of frame.  f/8, 1/800, ISO100

Tamron 150-600mm, 100% crop from center of frame.  f/8, 1/800, ISO100

For me, this is the most crucial test.  Sometimes it's important to look for chromatic aberration, pincushioning, or any of  a couple of dozen other behaviors, but these two lenses are fairly comparable in all those areas - not amazing, but actually quite good.  So let's not waste time with that.

The Tamron took in a little more light (and thus, color intensity) at the same setting, which could be attributed to a number of things, not the least of which could be that the light changed during the minute I took to change lenses.  So I'm not concerned with that either.  What matters to me is sharpness.  I've been looking for a newer lens that will give me more sharpness overall, so that my panoramas can be blown up even bigger.  My current high score for a pano is twelve feet by forty-eight feet at a full 300 dpi.

It's clear that the Nikkor is sharper, discounting the portions of the Tamron image where there's motion blur.

The Good and The Bad

Here's what the Tamron has going for it:

1.  Works much better with the camera, taking some responsibility away from me.
2.  Much greater reach.  I used all 600mm of it when shooting from a mile away, and was very pleased with the results.
3.  Adobe has a lens profile for it, making it easy to correct in post.
4.  A truly great Image Stabilization system, increasing the lens's usefulness and ease of focus even on a tripod.  Getting stability at 600mm is no joke, no matter what kind of tripod you have.

Now on the Nikkor's side:

1.  Better sharpness.
2.  I already own it.

You can read everyone else's blog, where they will all say that lens sharpness isn't important, but technique is.  Let's say that's completely true (and I do believe that the technique argument is completely true).  If so, then why ever buy a new lens to replace one with the same zoom range you already own?  After all, whatever my technique level, it would be the same level with both lenses.  The only possible answers would be convenience and features.

The Tamron has wonderful new features that would make it more convenient for me to shoot.  But that's going to have to be a tremendous amount of convenience to make me part with that kind of money.  For me, the money can only be spent if the final product is better, which in this case, for what I shoot, it will not be.

If you shoot wildlife, motorsports, or celebrities, your shots will end up better with the Tamron.  In my case, my shots will suffer.  I'll just need to learn to live without the 600mm reach, and build my own lens profile for Photoshop.  When the Nikkor finally fails, I'll just get another one from EBay.

Carnage on Larimer - 2015

Carnage on Larimer is put on every year by Evil Souls Car Club of Colorado.  The art portion, Graffiti on Larimer, is put on by Raul DeLaTorre, owner of Raquelitas Tortillas, Colorado's premier manufacturer of tortilla chips.  Every day they produce over 25,000 POUNDS of tortillas!  And as of fairly recently, their 24,000-square foot plant became 100% wind-powered!  Raul has been very generous with me over the years, and I truly appreciate his kindness and excitement.  His wife Mari shows tremendous patience as she cooks an enormous amount of food, provided absolutely free, for the show participants.  And it's really tremendous food too.  I'm surprised Raul doesn't weigh 500 pounds having such a wonderful cook around the house.  She deserves much of the credit for the success of the show in general, and doesn't get enough recognition.

I've mentioned in a previous post why you should be going to this show, and this year's event was the perfect example.  There is quite simply no other show where you'd be able to see a Chevy pickup with tractor seats welded to the bumper, sitting right next to a Ferrari 250 GTO.  Bear witness, ye heathens, and rejoice:

That GTO's no trailer queen, either,  It had a transponder on the windshield for E-470, our local toll road/speedway, and there were obvious signs it had been driven quite a bit. Hey, are there any fun people who go to this show?  Why yes.  Yes, there are:

As is always the case here, there are all kinds of people.  All races, nationalities, cultures and ages appear alongside each other, just to have fun and be a big family.  I suppose it seems odd that I picked the white people as an example of that, but I took their picture because they were quirky and obviously having fun.

But wait, you say, were there any Rat Rods?  Um, yes.  A ton.  Here are a few:

  

 

Rat rods are reflections of the habits and predilections of their owners, most often with a wry sense of humor.  That humor is evident here in the fan shroud made of license plates, as well as the grille made to look like teeth.  That grille is what all owners of cars and trucks with that style of grille think of anyway, so why not just go for the gusto and make it obvious?

And there were Model A's, 30's, 40's and 50's classics as well.  Like these:

 

This is really just another view of two of the rat rods, since I feel like they belong in both categories.

Mercs are a mainstay of every type of car show, sometimes mild, often wild, and always with a healthy dose of style.

How about 70's and 80's rides?  Any of those?  Well, yes.

 

You don't see too many early-70's Mustang convertibles anymore, much less with a flame job that obviously took a great deal of time to complete.

Even a kit car!

But with all that, surely there couldn't have been bikes too, could there?

Yes, there could.

And this is only about a third of the bikes that showed up.  Here's a view of one portion of one block of the show as a whole:

 

So where was I in this show?  I was in the Art section.  Here's my booth:

I met a lot of new friends, and I can't wait to shoot their cars and bikes.

And here are a couple of booths of friends of mine, like Old School Alex:

Alex uses woodcutting as a base for his portraits, allowing him to make multiple identical copies of a completely analog process.  he even uses the subtractive technique to allow for color printing from one block.

Also showing was Steve Haugen from Victory Illustration:

I've known Steve for several years, and he's the go-to guy for poster art for almost every event in Colorado.  While his talent is well-known, it's worth noting that he's very unassuming, and is not impressed with himself, as so many artists are.  A wonderful guy to hang around.

I'm very pleased to report that this was my most successful show EVER, and that includes art shows and every car show I've ever done.  What a tremendous thrill, and a huge THANK YOU to Raul for inviting me back this year.

I hope to see YOU there in 2016!

Denver County Fair Post-Show Wrapup

A HUGE Thank You to all of my new friends who dropped by my booth at last weekend's Denver County Fair at the National Western Complex!

I've never shown at the Denver County Fair previously, and it's still a young show, with 2015 being its 5-year anniversary.  I admit I felt some trepidation when I started hearing about things like the Kitten Pavilion and Davey B. Gravey's Tiny Cinema.  I'm used to art fairs, gallery showings, and other affairs where everything's quiet and subdued.

This was not that.

Thunder and cacophony abounded throughout the entire Complex, with contests, classes, dancers, bands and poetry readings coming from every available stage, and those stages were everywhere.  There was a huge kid's area, the biggest model train setup I've ever seen outside of a permanent installation, food and diorama contests (sometimes in the same contest, with Peeps dioramas), an art gallery as big or bigger than any retail location, cosplay characters roaming the aisles, and none of that even touches on the vendor booths that were present.

Every imaginable type of booth was there, and then a bunch more you never dreamed could exist.  Not only clothing, food, souvenirs and storm windows, but also fortune tellers, booths hawking other conventions, knives, sculpture, travel, and I don't even know what else.  Local Legend Kenny Be had a booth too, offering giant prints of his utterly fantastic new Colorado Map.

My Booth at the Denver County Fair!

Other than meeting new people, the biggest highlight of the whole Fair for me was seeing the poetry reading contest, when one of the guys from Poetry on Demand was delivering a particularly dramatic reading during one of the contests on a nearby stage.  His mic had some feedback, but instead of standing there waiting for someone to do something, he instead used that opportunity to put the mic in the stand, walk out to the front of the stage, and quite forcefully address his audience one-on-one, intimately and aggressively.  It was so effective, he got the most rousing, cheering response of any reader that day, and it was very well-deserved.  I don't know his name, but if anyone does, let me know and I'll update this entry.  It was truly unforgettable.

In the end, it was far from ordinary.  One might even say it was off-center.  But it was a larger gathering than any of these individual groups would probably experience in Colorado.  And despite (perhaps because of) the disparate nature of all the groups, everyone got along just great.  There was no rivalry or territorialism, only fun, and people who came only for their specific interest still got to experience other cultural phenomena, and interact with people they would otherwise never see.

I had a great time, and if you did too, I invite you to go again next year.

See you then!