Richard Flynn

Colorado, August 2009

No photos from Denver itself, but instead from my time with Elizabeth at Manitou Springs and the Garden of the Gods to the south, and at Camp St Malo and the Rocky Mountain National Park to the north.

Elizabeth at the Manitou Cave Dwellings.
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At the Manitou Cave Dwellings.
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A wet day in central Colorado: you can see rain falling in the distance beyond the car park for the Manitou Cave Dwellings.
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Elizabeth at the Garden of the gods. This is the soon-to-be-infamous (among Elizabeth and her community) $10 hoodie from Walgreens which she had bought that afternoon at Manitou Springs when we realized how cold a day it was turning out to be.
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Elizabeth at the Garden of the gods. My flimsy little umbrella, which I bought in Manor in Geneva, has little going for it other than its compact size. And the fact that it’s good for posing in photographs.
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The Garden of the gods.
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Looking at the Garden of the gods as we drive away.
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Elizabeth trying to beat each of my high scores in Paper Toss.
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On a trail from the St Malo Retreat Center, which is just to the south of the Rocky Mountain National Park. The first section of this trail was covered by John Paul II when he stopped at St Malo in preparation for the World Youth Day in Denver in 1993. Therefore, the trail is known as ‘the JP II trail’.
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On the JP II trail among the Rocky Mountains.
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A stream along the JP II trail.
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Elizabeth on the JP II trail.
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Stars pass over the Chapel on the Rock—dedicated to St Catherine of Siena—at Camp St Malo in Colorado. Some technical notes: this is a composite of 80 exposures for the stars, plus another photo properly exposed for the chapel and other foreground detail. My camera produces 21MP images: when stacking the 80 layers in Photoshop, I was dealing with a file of 4.5GB. This of course slowed my computer to a crawl, and meant that every single edit I made on the image took minutes—in some cases, hours—to complete. During the forty-five minutes I was shooting the photos a car came and went in the car park, which had to be removed from the foreground of the relevant frames. There were some light clouds which were moving quickly: they are the cause of the light coloured smearing in the sky on the lower left-hand side. I was facing south-south-east, more or less. It’s still not very spectacular, but I’m pleased with this compared to my previous effort at producing star-trails. In retrospect, I wish I’d had the patience to stand out longer to capture more frames—my battery was still three-quarters full when I finished—which would have meant that the trails here would have been much longer, but would also have increased the editing time and stress exponentially. Plus, it was already late, and I was very tired: my bed was calling to me!
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Panorama among the Rockies.
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Bear Lake, in the Rocky Mountain National Park.
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Nymph Lake, in the Rocky Mountain National Park.
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Nymph Lake, in the Rocky Mountain National Park.
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Elizabeth in the Rocky Mountain National Park.
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The Rocky Mountains.
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A stream in the Rocky Mountain National Park.
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A stream in the Rocky Mountain National Park.
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Dream Lake, in the Rocky Mountain National Park. This photo was taken by Elizabeth, as I’d had to sit down after just spraining my ankle when my foot slipped on a tree root.
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Having just sprained my ankle.
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Dream Lake, in the Rocky Mountain National Park. This photo was taken by Elizabeth.
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Coming slowly down the path back to the car, using my tripod for support as I walk sideways on my sprained left ankle.
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