Colorado 2023

Having lived in Florida for most of my life, the start of October in 2023 was a welcome change in scenery. A few of my cousins planned to meet up in Colorado Springs, Colorado to explore the Rocky Mountain State.

Garden of the Gods

We started our adventure at the Garden of the Gods, National Natural Landmark and public park known for its dramatic vertical rock formations.

The formations here are millions of years old, but even the surrounding nature seems aged. The colors and patterns in the bark of this tree are just one example of the remarkable history found here.

We tried to do a jump shot, but my lens wasn’t wide enough, and our timing was just a bit off, also I’m not sure whose hat that is.

Neela and my cousins did a quick pose at this junction in the walking trails at Garden of the Gods.

Many selfies were taken while we walked through the awesome towers of rock.

Dramatic clouds moved in as we continued on towards Balanced Rock. Colorado’s skyline was always a show, with its many mountain peaks cutting through the rolling cloudscape.

Balanced Rock and Steamboat Rock are two impressive formations within the Garden of the Gods. Both used to be privately owned and tourists were even allowed to climb them. I stopped here to take a quick panorama. I didn’t have the patience to wait for the area to clear out, and that gave me a flimsy reason to try the AI features recently added to Photoshop. The last two photos in the gallery above are quick and incomplete attempts with the new tools. The second photo was a more selective attempt, while the third photo completely changes the environment.

We continued our walk up Rampart Range road until we got to the Garden of the Gods look-out. Another immense rock formation that provides a beautiful vantage point down the mountainous terrain. The entrance to the rock formation provided a great spot for a family photo.

Of course before the nice, organized family photo we have a litany of random poses and general tom foolery.

There were tons of amazing photo ops here, Neela and I didn’t waste an opportunity getting these shots. We even got to try our own ‘sitting on the cliff’ shot.

At the top of this rock formation I tested out the 360 camera. Obviously, I had no idea what I was doing here, I apologize for what you’ll see once you tilt down in the viewer.

Breckenridge & Silverthorne

Breckenridge, a popular destination for winter vacationers is a little town with many wonders. Situated over nine thousand feet above sea level, it provides breathtaking views of Colorado.

We heard there was a troll somewhere nearby, and after a short walk we found it. Trollstigen Trail provided another great family photo spot.

I really liked the contrast between my cousin’s jacket and the background here, but also man-bun.

That evening we walked around Breckenridge, taking in the cool mountain air and peaking into the eclectic shops.

Sometimes I take photos just to hear the shutter click.

Other times my beautiful wife happens to be in front of the lens. Silverthorne had a dreamy feel that’s difficult to explain with words.

Pikes Peak Cog Railway

Next, we raced to The Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway, built in 1889 by Zalmon G. Simmons to provide ‘a more civilized’ method to reach Pikes Peak. We made it just in time to get on this amazing marvel of engineering that slowly crawls up the steep side of Pikes Peak, the highest point of the southern part of the Rocky Mountains.

The iconic bright red trainsets climbed up the peak with the gentle cadence of metal on metal as the drive gears locked into the toothed rack rail. The climb up took a little over an hour with the train only capable of a max speed of nine miles per hour.

We’re still not sure why, but my cousin looked really cool on the way up.

When we arrived at Pikes Peak, we were 14,115 feet above sea-level. We went from feeling like ants in the Garden of the Gods, to feeling like gods towering over the trailing Rockies.

We found out one of my cousins is obsessed with America and American life, she held on to the American Flag we got like gold.

Neela’s name is similar to the Tamil word for blue, ‘nilam’. I kept thinking that while editing this picture. Keep scrolling for more, definitely not AI generated, thoughts.

This was the perfect place to bring the 360 camera.

Of course we took a cute couple picture!

We spent the rest of the day exploring Manitou Springs. We saw all sorts of exciting things, unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of Batman keeping the streets safe.

Seven Falls

The Broadmoor Seven Falls is a series of seven waterfalls that flow through South Cheyenne Canyon. A 224-step staircase along the side provides an age affirming experience of the falls. Getting to the beginning of these steps requires its own trek, as no parking is allowed nearby.

After a shuttle ride up to the entrance, we hiked through paths flanked by mighty mountains, like titans cloaked in majestic trees, creating an atmosphere that was both secure and intimidating.

This seemed like a cool idea for a 360 photo.

Along the way we walked by a meandering creek, the only thing missing were the deer we saw in town. Another picturesque opportunity for family photos.

We arrived at the bottom of Seven Falls, where a small man-made waterfall greeted us with its modest yet appealing simplicity.

A quick selfie before we destroyed our knees 224 times.

The bottom most fall is called ‘Hill Falls’, named after Al Hill one of the owners of Seven Falls.

The fifth fall is ‘Hull Falls’. It was named after the seventh owner of Seven Falls, James Hull.

The third fall, ‘Bridal Veil Falls’ is visible from the first break spot in the steps. During the dry seasons it’s not as obvious why it’s named so, but it’s not hard to imagine.

The first, top most fall is called Ramona Falls. It is named after a novel, Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson.

The stairs going up the side of the falls are, in my opinion, the minimum viable product for what defines a ‘staircase’. I tried taking some photos the first few steps up, but not seeing where my feet were kept sending me into panic attacks. You can see what I mean in the video at the end of the post.

Eventually we got to ground, even up here things continued to be massive.

During a short break I decided to get close and do some creative photography. The small river that was currently feeding the Seven Falls provided a great spot to experiment with long exposures.

One of the previous pictures was heavy on blue, but this picture let me try warmer colors. Neela toughed it out all the way up 224 steps for this picture.

Here’s another more subtle photography trick, focus stacking. About 20 photos of different focus distances were blended together in software to create a single photo of great depth of field.

One of those rare times when I wanted to be in front of the camera. Even though I’m only cosplaying as a hiker, this is one of my favorite pictures. It might also be my favorite because Neela took this photo.

One last 360 photo to round off the trip.

Back Home

Just like that, our trip was over, and we were headed home. Colorado had one more beautiful sight left for us.

Denver International Airport is a majestic monument that calls to the iconic mountain ranges which define Colorado.

We had a few hours to wait before our flight departed. During that time I was able to get very clean photos of the planes moving about the airport.

I’m always thankful my Sony A65 doesn’t have a full mirror moving about and causing a huge racket in the airplane.

Video

I rented the “Insta360 RS One RS 1-Inch 360 Edition” on this trip. Yes, that is what it is actually called. The signature feature being dual ‘1-Inch’ sensors, which are about 4x the size of its contemporaries with 2/3" sensors.

The camera was impressive, but editing the footage was a year-long test in patience. Eventually, I fought through and exported my first render. Thirty-six renders later I decided I had spent enough time trying to fix every little thing. I learned a lot of new things though, especially about proxy workflows and 8-bit log color correction.