March 2009 Theme – Hidden Treasures

This month’s topic is “Hidden Treasures”, which could include things uncovered, unexpected finds, and places off the beaten path.

Extra credit for those who actually photograph a hidden treasure.

Here's a slot canyon I stumbled upon while lost and looking for something else. The rock is milky white and chalk-like. And, no, I won't reveal the location, not even to my family .

And here's a couple shots from my "Colorado's Hidden Wonders" book. This one reminded me of the stone statues on Easter Island. I have seen a couple other photographers who've photographed at this location.

Here's an arch in Colorado I first learned about because my great-great-grandfather took a picture of it. It was apparently better known then than it is now.

This magical area of many unique hoodoos was so far off of the beaten path in NE Arizona,
that I almost didn't find my way back!

Here's a little canyon near Moab I like to call Tumble Creek Canyon.

"Navajo Doodles" found in a remote area of Bisti.
It was a thrill finding such an unexpected "treasure".

Cretaceous petrified wood was used to create the circle and spokes.

What a great find, Bill!

Bill - that is really cool find!!!

Bill that is awesome! I wonder how long that has been there?

This is my kind of hidden treasure! One of our "secret" powder stashes in the San Juan backcountry.

Jack, it's definitely post-Cretaceous.

One of these days I'll have to show a print to the staff at Chaco and see if there are characteristics which could suggest a date range. The Navajo entered NM around 1550.

Fortunately, the location should protect this from vandalizm, and it does not appear to be vulnerable to flash flooding.
It's great having places like Bisti to explore. I'll never get tired of wandering in the Colorado Plateau.

Bill, that is insanely nice!

That's pretty cool, Bill. Is this in some sort of alcove or something that is protected from the wind? If not, I'd think this is pretty recent, as I've experienced some pretty big wind storms in the southwest.

I took this a couple of years ago in mid-October in RMNP. Had been shooting the aspens and hubby and I decided to go up to Trail ridge road. It was nearly fully dark by the time I took this shot. I pointed the camera somewhere in the direction of Longs peak and used a manual exposure and my 70-200mm f2.8L IS lens. I was amazed at the color that remained in the scene even though it was almost 8pm with little discernable light left in the sky. Truely turned out to be a hidden treasure for me

10D, 100 ISO, f13, 16 secs, 115mm, focus set to infinity

This little waterfall is located well off the beaten track, even though it is in RMNP. There are a lot of places like this that have never been photographed as far as I am aware. It was a long hike in followed by a marsh crossing, rock hopping, over and under trees, through streams, climbing up steep cliffs and following bear fresh bear tracks to finally get there. (Ugh, I must have done something wrong as this looks terrible compared to my LR version )

I like this little cascade...I stumbled across it outside Crested Butte near Lake Irwin. Not hard to find, but easy to miss when you're focused on the wild flowers....

This photo contains two hidden treasures, actually! Wading through grass and willows on a deer trail along a local creek, I happened to spy the nest--well hidden and protected among the thorns of the rose bush. A second pass, with much patient waiting, yielded the Yellow Warbler with a piece of pretty white 'fuzz' to add to her nest. She's arranging it in this picture and will soon sit on the nest to try out the new piece of lining

This treasure, called the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness Area, is hidden in plain sight. Most people drive right past it on their way to somewhere else. Yet it's not without its charms.

Last fall the colors were the most intense I've seen there and E100VS did them justice. I spent the night with aspen gold fluttering down from the trees while being serenaded by bugling elk and howling coyotes. Unforgettable.

This is about 3/4 of a 4x5 shot as a horizontal and cropped to vertical. Sorry, but I don't recall the lens or settings. My monitor is adjusted and calibrated for print matching. I hope this web presentation isn't too gnarly, it does make a lovely 18x24 print.

Mark, your monitor and mine would get along well. It doesn't look gnarly at all; it looks great! I bet the print is a stunner!

Long live film!

And speaking of film, my hidden treasure is the wealth of data hidden in the shadows of color negative film. Only within the last 6 months have I learned how to properly scan negative film, and it has been a joy and revelation to find many new "nuggets" among the "tailings"... images I had previously regarded as unsalvageable. For example this one from Moki Canyon, Utah.

I was digging through a huge case full of concert negatives over the weekend and found quite a few hidden treasures. In honor of all the current buzz surrounding U2's new album, here's a shot of the boys from Ireland that I took almost 26 years ago at the Us Festival. This gig was just a few days before U2's legendary performance in the fog and drizzle at Red Rocks for the "Under a Blood Red Sky" album and video. And here's a little known fact: The photographer who was hired to shoot the Red Rocks show hired me to shoot images at the front of the stage while he shot farther back to get more of an overall scene. So, when you look at the photographs from that gig on album/CD covers or video/DVD art, all the shots taken close in are mine, regardless of the fact that the photo credit carries someone else's name.

Going back a few years further, here's 2/3rds of Canadian power trio Rush. This was taken prior to any legitimate press access for me, back when my m.o. was to camp out at May D&F to be near the front of the line when tickets went on sale, which usually netted seats in the first five rows. On concert day I'd sneak my Canon AE-1 body and 135mm f2.8 lens into the concert (one in each sock, hidden by the flared jeans so popular back then). Ah, the good ol' days, when the bouncers wouldn't even look twice at somebody with a camera once they were inside, as long as they stayed in their seats.

As long as we're on the rock & roll theme, I thought I'd post this treasure. This image had been hidden away for 20 years and was destined for obscurity before it emerged at the RMNP shindig this year. I was fortunate enough to end up with it. For those of you who weren't at the shindig, this image is of one of RMNP's very own photographers! He has done a complete 180, going from a rock star to quite possibly the biggest computer nerd on here!

DUDE! Warn us before you do something like that. I spat my soda all over the computer monitor!

Grant! You sly SOB... I figured something like this was imminent when I learned you ended up with that print.

Ultimately, though, it's Jim Talaric who is to credit/blame. A few weeks prior to the RMNP shindig, he conned me out of the print with this story: "My family and I are going to Steamboat for the weekend and we are playing a game. We each bring a picture and say 'you know this person' and everyone has to guess who it is."

In hindsight, a pretty weak con and an I can't believe I fell for it! Kudos to Jim, though, for a great prank.

Anyway, I'm not embarrassed of this (believe it or not)... this was a really fun period in my life. (I still wonder why all the girls were so attracted to a guy who looked, well, like a girl!)

And yes, that was my real hair. Not long after that photo was taken, it started breaking off due to the heavy bleaching.

Anyway, glad you could have a good laugh!

Now about the computer nerd comment

Todd - great action shots! It's not easy to get good photos of performers on stage.

On that note, here's one more of my rocker years (obviously not taken by me); this is a few years after the blond stage, when my hair grew back out.

This photo is from my days playing the club scene in in Hollywood in the early 90's.

Yes, I know...totally off topic... I will dig around for some "hidden treasures" from nature!

So Nat, why don't you fill us in a little on that period of your life. What was the band's name? Any recordings, or just Roxy gigs? Inquiring minds...

Hey Nat, nice Randy Rhoads technique but the wristwatch is outta place! You should have lived on Long Island where the real metal action was
Back on topic...my latest ESS post qualifies as a hidden treasure since it was hidden in a crevasse under a frozen waterfall. (ice covered pebbles)

Yea Stan, I don't know why I always wore a watch back then. I don't now!! And probably should...

I love your ice/pebbles shot. There are a couple of places I can see your reflection and I think it adds nice depth. And great colors!

Todd - the first glam rock shot was me at age 17 here in Denver, the band was called Cherry Pirate and we sounded like Poison, Motley Crue etc. The second one, in LA was Twist of Fate. We sounded like Skid Row (probably too much). We did lots of gigs at Gazzari's, the Roxy, some places I can't remember in the Valley, etc. We also did a lot of recording [demos] but never landed a contract... our peak was headlining (and selling out) the Whiskey on a Saturday night, to three encores... we thought we had it made. Less than two months later the band broke up and I started working on plans to come back to Denver. Fortunately I'd developed my career in graphics during that time... my dad always told me I had to have something to fall back on!!

The band scene in LA at that time was truly brutal. If I recall we paid the promoter $1,000 up front to get that Whisky gig. We were just lucky enough to sell all the tickets.

I think talented musicians/songwriters have it much better these days with electronic recording/distribution and the Internet and I think it's great. A lot of the bands that I like now never would have survived before the web, either.

I remember hearing about that whole "pay-to-play" scam all the clubs were doing. I've got a few friends still out there in the music biz, although one is selling drums more often than playing them, I think. But I do remember going to see him play at the Roxy once, with some band called Sahara fronted by a girl singer. Pretty good, but pretty forgettable (except for their awesome drummer, of course).

Wow, this thread took an unexpected turn

I'm still digging through my flies but I don't think anything can top Nat. And BTW, if I lived in LA at the time I might have been your biggest fan

Can't compete in the hair department :)

Braided waterfall?

Thanks Alex - maybe now that you live in Denver I can be your biggest fan

So this may not be "nature" but I don't have any hidden treasures from around here yet and I think this thread has gone way off the nature theme so maybe I can still sneak this in.

This is an image I found recently in my slide and negatives binder. I used to live about 2 blocks from the spot where this image was captured. It's back from my college years of shooting Tri-X and knowing nothing about good lighting. So yeah, it's pretty noisy and not really great but I am pretty thrilled to have fund it, brings back some memories. I believe this was shot either in 98 or 99 and at the time I hated shooting the cliche NYC scenes so this is one of the small handful of images I have from there after living for 16 years with this view in front of me... what do they say about hind sight?

And Nat, I haven't done anything to deserve a fan base, but thanks anyway

When I stop smiling at the previous posts, I'll try something a little more serious. I ran across this little fellow carefully placed in a little rivulet two or three miles back along the trail to the Fryingpan Lakes last year.

Nat, Gazzari's, the Whiskey and the Rox... you are dredgeing up some long dead memories dude! Mabe before your time though... 1977 and early eighties I used to hang at those places.

I stumbled upon this little canyon a few years ago near Independence Pass. Because of the nice patches of columbines, I'd hoped to return for photos and was able to relocate it. I'd still like to return for a little better light.

A very eclectic mix this month!

Great Horned Owl Fledgling in Picture Canyon, Comanche National Grassland, CO

This is a hidden treasure on a few levels, first the "off-the-beaten-path", then rounding a corner and finding the amazing glow on the yellow sandstone. Who knew golden hour was at noon that day? Then I seem to have downloaded the photos, filed them in the wrong location, and found them last week after 2.5 years. I posted a horizontal version of this in ESS on 3/19

Ok, I found one that's nature related. This is the the strand of red Aspens along Kebler Pass Road. I know anyone who ever shot along the road knows exactly what I'm talking about, however I don't know how many tried to find the actual trees. It's not as easy as it looks so I consider it a "hidden treasure". And it was really awesome to just lay there under the red canopy and listen to the wind.

There are some great shots of hair and other things in this thread!
I took my 14 year old grandson with me on Wednesday to shoot the sunrise. We went to an accessible and often visited place. As I finished taking one shot I turned and saw this. My first reaction was, "Aww, how cute." Then as I looked closer, I realized it was an angel figurine and a candle. It occurred to me that someone was seeking divine intervention. I further surmised it was probably someone young like my grandson, who is 6 years leukemia free and has a 95% chance of it never re-occurring, who set these items here. My thoughts and prayers are with whoever put them there.

Here's a relatively unknown 50-foot, natural tunnel through sandstone that I photographed a couple of months ago...

Here's a shot from yesterday from Arches National Park. This large sandstone rock outcrop looks rather nondescript from below, but once you climb on top, there's lots of interesting things to see. I'll have to go back and explore more.

Really cool tunnel Grant!