Mike Munhall

Rockies Rally, originally uploaded by mmunhall.

See more photos in the Rox Rally Flickr gallery.

After getting swept in the World Series, the the city held a congratulatory rally for the team. You would never think that a city would congratulate a team after getting swept in the championship, but this team really deserved the celebration after crawling back from the bottom of the division, winning 21 of 22 games going into the Series, and sweeping the first two rounds of the playoffs.

I usually wouldn’t even consider attending a rally like this, but it was just a couple blocks from office and at a convenient time to swing by just to take photos (the photo above was taken with my camera phone, the Flickr photos were taken with a real camera).

This was a particularly odd event because it took place on Halloween. Ton of people showed up wearing Halloween costumes. This made for some really fun photography, though.

You’ll notice that there were a ton of media folks covering this event. In fact, there may have been more news tools there than Rockies fans.

Poker Night, originally uploaded by mikemunhall.

You may be inclined to ask, “What the hell is this?” I will answer: This is many things.

First, it is a picture of Poop Ghost (Jason, background) and his brother Michael at a recent poker game. PG does have pants on, and they stayed on the entire night.

Second, it is an experiment with technology. The photo was taken with my camera phone, then sent via email to my Flickr account from my phone where it was then automatically posted to my blog. In summary, 1) Take picture with phone, 2) Post to blog. Technology is so freaking cool.

Finally, it is a successful test of how I can participate in NaBloPoMo without having to actually write every day.

Good stuff, huh? This is going to be fun.

My second journey through the Ender’s Game series continues with Ender’s Shadow. I’m still surprised at how much I enjoy reading these books. My ultimate goal is to re-read each book in the series so I can start the only book I haven’t read, Shadow of the Giant, with everything I need to know but just don’t remember. At the rate I’m reading, that should be some time in 2015. My unborn kid will probably finish the books before I do.

I particularly enjoyed this book because of its concept. It’s the same story as told in Ender’s Game, but from the perspective of another character. That’s unique. The book isn’t any less enjoyable because you know how it ends. It’s just as captivating because you learn why and how certain things happen in Ender’s Game, and because there are other stories happening with the main character of this book.

I had been working on a really long post of an analysis of why I haven’t been producing great photos the last few years. The post was centered around a few things that I picked out of this book, On Being a Photographer. I ended up trashing that post because it just wouldn’t come together. I think it was because, while I thought the book made some valid points, I enjoyed reading it more than I actually believed what was being said.

The book has two authors. One is a well-known Magnum photographer. The other isn’t so well-known (but still talented and accomplished). Who the authors are doesn’t matter so much for the purpose of this paragraph. What does matter is that they wrote the book in a style that was very fun to read. The entire book is a conversation between the two authors. They discuss their topics as if the reader is ultimately the audience, but they rarely mention their audience. I’m sure this method has been used before, but it was the first time I had read a book written this way and it helped me get through (very quickly) a book that was, at best, just good.

On Being a Photographer contains not a single photograph or illustration. It is not a technical manual on how to use a camera or how to process images. It is a discussion between the two authors on how to think and act like a photographer. For that reason it is a different kind of book on photography and it is that reason that made it worth reading. If you want to know more, you’ll have to read it. It’s only 160 pages. You’ll get more out of the actual read than you would from a summary from me.

I’m at my parents’ house in Dallas installing some updates on their computer. While I wait for the downloads to finish, I thought I’d write a couple quick lines.

Dallas

I lived in Dallas for nearly 20 years. The entire time I lived here I felt uncomfortable. It was as if I didn’t belong here or I didn’t have an identity. I was never able to pinpoint exactly what it was or how to describe it. Whenever I come back for a quick visit, I feel the same way. It’s very strange.

The people here make me uncomfortable. It seems that everyone is sizing everyone else up, waiting for an opportunity to hurt or cheat someone else if the result is that the cheater ends up a little bit ahead. The purpose of people’s lives here are to get the attention and admiration of others at any cost. It’s like a nasty high school popularity contest. I simply won’t play that game and I think that’s why I never felt like I had an identity while I lived in this city and why I feel out of place when I come back to visit. I understand that my comments and feelings about the people here are unreasonable and untrue (probably. mostly.) and it is my own paranoia that is the problem. Whatever. People in Dallas still creep me out.

For the record, I have friends here that aren’t out to get me and don’t creep me out. But I never had a lot of friends here that I truly trusted. The ones I’ve kept are legitimately good people.

Photography

I intended to shoot photos the entire time I was here, and for the most part I did. But I don’t think I have any photos that are worth keeping and that disappoints me terribly. Dallas has some of the most photogenic architecture that I’ve ever seen and I should have been able to leave here with something to show, but I just didn’t get it done. I think it was combination of lack of planning and lack of time to plan that is going to have me leaving here empty handed. What a f***ing waste to shoot photos for an entire weekend and have no good shots. Loser.

Rockies

Nobody here knows that the Colorado Rockies are in the World Series. Some people don’t know that the Colorado Rockies are a Major League baseball team. That is working out to Colorado’s favor though, considering that they are about to be swept in the championship. And, this after sweeping the first two teams they faced in the playoffs. Dorrie and I have tickets to game five tomorrow night. I almost hope that the Rox lose tonight so we don’t have to drag this out any longer and watch them get their asses handed to them with Beckett on the mound.

I’m heading to Dallas for the weekend to visit the parental units.  I have two photography assignments that are overdue, so I plan on spending most of my time in Big D photographing architecture and, perhaps, finding someone for some outdoor portraits.  Dad has an event to photograph Saturday morning, so I’ll be shooting with him then, as well.  It’s going to be a photography-filled weekend.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently.  I haven’t felt like writing.  Actually, that’s not true.  I have felt like writing, but haven’t been able to get my head into it.  I had actually been working on a post for almost four weeks before I realized that it just wasn’t coming together.  So, I trashed it.

I’ve got nothing.

Dorrie and I are excited, of course.  So far, everything is moving along without problems.

I get tired of themes pretty quickly.  Let’s see how long this one lasts.

The previous theme was nice, but unless you (the user) were familiar with how the navigation works, you (the user) usually had a hard time finding it.  Also, Ellebee couldn’t stand the black background and grey text and I’m pretty sure she’s been badmouthing me about it.  I need her to pantronize my blog, so the change is partly for her.

I’ll be changing out the image at the top and replacing it with one my own.  I don’t know which, though.

Dorrie and I recently (two weekends ago) spent a long weekend at a guest ranch at Steamboat Lake. We brought along our greyhound, Cash, for his first trip away from his new home and his beloved crate. Cash was fantastic, as was our long weekend. Here’s the scoop on the trip:

Vacation Photos

I’ll cut to the chase and give you the photos first. Notice the snazzy Flash gallery. I’m using some snazzy photo processing software to do all of my image processing and managing of my photo library. It makes it really easy to create galleries like this. I like it a lot. Also note that these are all family vacation snapshots, not photos that I would post on my photoblog. I’ve posted processed images on the photoblog that you should check out.

http://www.mikemunhall.com/Galleries/SteamboatLake2007

Dutch Creek Ranch

Dutch Creek Guest Ranch (http://www.dutchcreek.net/) was great. It’s a small ranch with a nice lodge right near the entrance to Steamboat Lake State Park. Obviously, there are horses. Lots of horses. We didn’t ride or have anything to do with the horses, though (other than photographing them). We mainly hung out in our cabin and read.

The cabins are great. Ours had two bedrooms, a full kitchen, a dining area, a living room, two full baths and a nice deck with a swing. It was basically a small house. The view from our cabin was fantastic. The only complaint is that the water comes from a well and contains a lot of sulfur. Sulfur is harmless, but it gave the water a murky yellow tint and it smelled bad. The toilets had that permanent look like someone had peed and not flushed. It was fine for showering though, and there was a water cooler in the cabin so we had plenty of clear water for cooking and drinking.

The lodge served breakfast in morning and dinner in the evenings. For being so small, you would be surprised at how good the food was. It wasn’t fine dining, but it was good enough to look forward to. Dorrie and I ate in the lodge only a few times in our three full days there. We prepared most of our meals ourselves in our cabin.

Nipple Peak

On the drive up, there was one particular mountain that caught my eye. This was the transaction that occurred between me and Dorrie regarding that mountain:

Mike: Hey, see that mountain? That’s Nipple Peak.
Dorrie: No way. Really? I don’t believe you. Stop being gross.
Mike: Sorry.
[A few minutes pass.]
Mike: Check the map. How much further is Steamboat Lake?
Dorrie: We’re about 20 minutes away.
[Slight pause.]
Dorrie: OMIGOD. It is called Nipple Peak.

It really is. No kidding.

Steamboat Lake?

Hmmm… Steamboat Lake. We saw it. That is, we could see it from the ranch and I’m sure it’s really nice. But we never bothered to go to it. You see, we were too busy not doing things. It was rare for us to get more than a couple hundred yards from our cabin. We made an adventure of nearby Pearl Lake one afternoon, though.

Pearl Lake

This is a beautiful lake. It’s small. You could probably hike around the entire perimeter in about 90 minutes. The lake is nestled between several small mountains. This is the place to be during camping season. Motorized vehicles are prohibited both in the park and on the lake. It looked like some guys were catching lots of fish, too. We spent a couple hours here scouting out things to photograph when the light was better. I could have stayed there all day and night, but Dorrie had to pee. We didn’t make it back to shoot photos, but we will one day.

Reading

There was a lot of reading going on between me and Dorrie. We must have brought about 20 pounds of reading material between the two of us. I actually finished an entire book (Speaker for the Dead) while I was there. For me that’s remarkable since I’m such a slow reader.

Mountain Pine Beetle

I knew that the pine forests of the Rockies were in serious trouble because of the pine beetle. I had no idea how bad it was until I saw it. It’s truly unbelievable the devastation that has already occurred. There were maybe a half dozen stretches on our trip from Denver to Steamboat Lake where there weren’t patches of brown, dead trees pines. There isn’t really a practical solution to stop the devastation. We can only hope for a very deep freeze in early fall (right now) to help slow the spread of the beetle. It’s hard to believe that our pine forests may be gone in a matter of a decade or so.

If you haven’t already, take a look a the slideshow. All those brown trees are pine beetle vicitims.

Emma, the Mountain Lion

I was heading over to the pond to photograph in the golden hour of sunlight when a neighboring vacationer asked me how good my lens was. I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at, being that he was just standing on the dirt path drinking a Budweiser while staring off into the distance. He let me in on the secret that there was a mountain lion cub laying down in the grass near where I was headed. It was a good thing he told me before I stepped on its tail and was attacked. Dorrie, Cash and I spent the next half hour on this neighbors cabin deck photographing the mountain lion hunt (and catch) mice. I didn’t have the right gear to get any great shots, but I got good enough shots to post here.

Photographing in the Rain

Thank the dear Bejeezus for rain. We love rain. And we got our wish of getting a nice steady rain for an entire day so we would have a good excuse to not go anywhere (as if we really needed one). I did actually suit up to see what kind of moody pictures I could make in the weather. Before I ventured out of the cabin, I set up my camera on the tripod, attached my shutter release and got the entire thing ready as if I were going to photograph inside the cabin. Then, I unpacked the handy, 50-cent rain poncho that my dad sent to me a couple years ago. I had it stowed away in my camera bag for an occasion like this. I used the poncho as a raincoat for my camera equipment. I just wrapped the camera and the attached accessories in the poncho, pulled the rain slip of my camera backpack over the backpack, put on my own raincoat and hiked around the ranch. I didn’t get any spectacular photos, but it felt nice walking around in the rain and picking out moody scenes to shoot.

The Ride Home/First Snow

It was still raining on our last morning at Dutch Creek Ranch. On our way back, on Rabbit Ears Pass, we broke the low clouds and had some spectacular views of the valleys along the pass. It would have made for great photography but I was too anxious to get home and, when we did stop to shoot, I didn’t feel like taking the necessary time to photograph correctly. The remarkable thing about our trip home over Rabbit Ears and Berthoud Passes was that there was a light dusting of snow on the mountains and a little slush along the sides of the roads. Winter is right around the corner, and I can’t wait for it to get here.

Check it out. Dorrie has repurposed the RRC website into a personal blog about restaurants and cooking.  Visit http://www.denver-rrc.com/.