Morning photo: Happy Birthday Ansel Adams

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

Seeing in black and white

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Lone tree on Ute Pass.

FRISCO — As always, to honor Ansel Adams’ birthday, I tried to find a few shots in the archives that say something in black and white in homage to a man who not only made beautiful pictures, he also gave photography a social and environmental context.

It’s easy to get caught up in flashy colors, but a little harder for me to create an image by seeing lines, textures, balance, and most of all just pure light, and that’s what processing into black and white makes me do. It also helps me understand if an image was exposed properly to begin with.

For example, the top shot in this series was very early in the morning and the overall light was a bit washed out. I’m not completely happy with the shot, but the striking tree silhouette was strong enough to overcome some of the other weaknesses in the frame (for my taste). But the next shot (the seascape image below) has that full range of tonalities that I want when I render an image in black and white, including the almost luminous foam.

Feel free to share some of your own favorite black and white shots on the Summit Voice Facebook page. I’d love to feature some of them in a guest post.

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The golden hour is the golden hour for black and white, too. This image was taken just a minute before the sun set at Pt. Montara, California.

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Poster for Breck stage of 2012 cycling race unveiled

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

The official poster for the Breckenridge stage of the 2012 USA Pro Cycling Challenge, designed by Nikki Arcieri.

Local artist Nikki Arcieri makes it two in row

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Racers in the 2012 USA Pro Cycling Challenge will face a big climb to start the day when they leave Breckenridge for the start of Stage 5 this summer. They’ll climb to 11,542 feet at Hoosier Pass before accelerating down into South Park, and local artist Nikki Arcieri captured the feeling of the pass in her design for the official Breckenridge stage race poster.

Arcieri won the friendly design competition for the second year in a row, this year with bold colors depicting  a cyclist against the backdrop of the alpine peaks surrounding Hoosier Pass.

The race rolls through Colorado Aug. 20-26 with the Stage 5 Start in Breckenridge, Colo. on Friday, Aug. 24, heading for a finish in Colorado Springs. (more…)

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Denver: Art installation confronts airport ‘security theater’

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

"Guarded" opens March 30 at the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art.

An exhibition starting March 30 highlights TSA’s prohibited objects

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY —Savvy flyers have long speculated that airport searches and safety checks are a form of security theater, at once meant to reassure travelers and to let terrorists know that they can’t just walk on to a plane without being challenged.

Starting March 30, the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art will explore ideas of threat and security in American society with an exhibit by Type A. The two-man artist collective — Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin —have assembled a collection of about 30 objects deemed potentially dangerous by the Transportation Security Administration.

To highlight the theatrical nature of security procedures, the prohibited objects will be guarded by an armed security officer and only be visible to museum visitors on a series of closed-circuit security monitors. (more…)

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Breckenridge: Canadians take home the gold

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Great Expectations. PHOTO BY JENNEY COBERLY.

Sculptures on display through Feb, 5, weather permitting

By Summit Voice

Team Canada-Quebec secured first prize in the 22nd annual International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge, Colo. with “Great Expectations,” a complex and cohesive piece depicting the “ice houses” once used to preserve meat, poultry and fish on the Saint Anne River in central Quebec.

Photos of all the completed sculptures are online here. Along with 15 other teams and artists from 11 other countries, Team Canada-Quebec worked across five days, for a total of 65 hours, to create an enormous work of art from a 20-ton block of snow. (more…)

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Breckenridge: Ready, set, sculpt!

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Jenney Coberly

Day one of the Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championships

Snow sculpting began Tuesday in the Riverwalk Center parking lot

Story and photos by Jenney Coberly

BRECKENRIDGE — At 11 a.m. on a snow showery Tuesday, the Riverwalk Center erupted into a flurry of activity as sculptors started work on the 20-ton monoliths of snow that had been brooding silently in the parking lot since the end of snow stomping last Thursday.

As the artists took axes and saws to the snow blocks to begin the rough work, chunks flew and littered the ground, where the growing piles were whisked away by a busy Bobcat loader. Sculpting will continue all day Wednesday, Thursday, and then through the night on Friday. Judging is at 10 a.m. on Saturday, January 28.

The first cut is the deepest ...

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Morning photo: Celebrating World Photography Day

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

The ‘birthday’ of photographic imaging

This image started out as a grainly, low-light mistake but I never had the heart to delete it from the camera or from my hard drive. In honor of World Photography Day, I did a little post-processing of the image to try and make it look like a painting. If you're wondering, you're looking at the old ramparts of a castle in Corfu, Greece, with the hills of Albania across the water.

SUMMIT COUNTY — Photographers worldwide picked Aug. 19 as the day to celebrate the birth of their chosen art form. The date is significant because in 1839, the French government made public the methodology used in creating  daguerreotypes, the first permanent photographic print.

Photography has changed since then, but most of the changes involve technology and tools used to create photographic art. The essence remains the same — painting with light and capturing the image in a permanent form that can be shared or displayed. As I read about world photography day, it made me want to scroll through the archives and find a few old and new favorites and look at them in a new way. (more…)

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Summit County: Wildflowers need wild lands

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

Unique interactive art show benefits land preservation, features painting demos, wildflower walks, sidewalk chalk art for kids and a gala art show

Wildflowers at Pass Lake, Summit County, Colorado.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Sixteen artists from around the country will gather in Summit County July 7 to July 10 to celebrate the high country wildflower season with art in an event that benefits the land conservation efforts of the Continental Divide Land Trust.

The Art & Wildflower Celebration is aimed at promoting greater awareness and understanding of the importance of preserving Colorado’s natural lands — because wildflowers need wild lands.

The public can watch the artists paint on guided wildflower hikes with alpine wildflower authorities or participate in guided mountain bike rides. Along with mountain biking and hiking, kids can participate in art workshops and sidewalk wildflower chalk painting while parents participate in photography workshops,  a paint-along with a professional plein air artist or wildflower gardening  classes with a local landscaping firm. (more…)

Filed under: Breckenridge, Colorado, Environment, seasons, Summit County Colorado, Summit County news | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Breckenridge: Godspeed Collective showing art at Clint’s

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

Mountain culture portrayed in multimedia at local coffee shop

Painted snowboards and skate decks share the wall with paintings and multimedia art at the Godspeed Collective exhibition.

By Jennifer Brancaccio

BRECKENRIDGE — Along with the usual espressos, tasty muffins and bagels, Clint’s Bakery and Coffee these days is dishing up a healthy serving of alternative art by featuring an exhibition of work by the local Godspeed Collective.

Godspeed Tattoo in Breckenridge has been open on Main Street for almost four years. Artwork displayed in the tattoo shop, as well as prints for sale ,attest to the popularity of each artist’s side projects. The show at Clint’s opened May 1 and runs through July.

The art is a refreshing change from the sometimes trite and cliché paintings and baubles often seen in resort town shopping districts — a man is painted, his mouth wide, with a tree sprouting from it and a woman sits pristinely amidst butterflies with a gun in her hand. Polished frames and taut  canvas works are interspersed with snowboard and skateboard decks spray painted in bright hues.

“Clint’s wants to support local artists,” said barista and manager, Heidi Ruckriegle. “We don’t charge a commission on any art sold, every penny goes to the artist.” She added that the coffee house and Godspeed are close-knit and that one tattooist, Piotr Kopytek, has shown his artwork there before. (more…)

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Perpetual Motion in Breckenridge snow

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

Stan Wagon looks back at 13 years of snow sculpting

(Left) Eva Hild, her model, and the completed work. (Right) A view at night, showing the effects of the new LED lighting system at the 2011 Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championships. Click on the photo to read how this year's sculpture emerged from the snow. The sculptures, well-preserved by this week's chilly weather, are on display for a few more days. PHOTOS BY RICH SEELEY.

Editor’s note: Stan Wagon is a professor of mathematics and computer science at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and a backcountry explorer and mountaineer.  He lives in Silverthorne for part of the year. Click here to visit his website. And click here to visit Seeley’s website.

By Stan Wagon

Perhaps some of you have looked at the snow sculptures on display in Breckenridge and thought: “That doesn’t look so hard and would be fun to do.”

That is what I thought back in 1998 when I talked a sculpting friend, Helaman Ferguson, into joining me and some others in submitting an entry for 1999. We were accepted and sculpted our intended piece, but we were really beginners as far as tools went. (more…)

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Morning photo: Snow sculpting in Breckenridge

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

Art emerges

A brilliant 3D rendering of an Alaskan grizzly bear at the 2010 International snow sculpture contest in Breckenridge, Colorado.

SUMMIT COUNTY — In Breckenridge, snow isn’t just for skiing. Each winter, teams of artists from all over the world converge on the Colorado mountain town to shape massive blocks of snow into ephemeral works of art outside the Breckenridge Riverwalk Center.

The 2011 Budweiser International Snow Sculpture Championships began January 17 with a technical week, as local volunteers helped create the blocks of snow. The sculpting begins Jan. 25 with a shotgun start and continues through Jan. 29 at 10 a.m.

Often, the teams work through the chilly, wee hours of the morning on the last night of the competition to put the finishing touches on their sculptures. The award ceremony is Jan. 30 at 3:30 p.m.

Get more information at the Town of Breckenridge snow sculpture website and enjoy the photos from last year’s event in the daily photoblog. (more…)

Filed under: Breckenridge, Colorado, daily photoblog, Morning photo, photography, snow sculpting, Summit County Colorado | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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