Alex & Dan's House

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Photo taken at: Alex & Dan’s House

Alex and Dan just moved in!!!

Alex & Dan's House

The National Park Poster Project

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The National Park Poster Project

Kickstarter Campaign Is Live!

Greetings all! I’ve just launched my Kickstarter Campaign: The National Park Poster Project! Hope you can check it out!

The National Park Poster Project on Kickstarter

Kickstarter Campaign Is Live!

Nederland, Colorado

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Photo taken at: Nederland, Colorado

It had to happen! Got a dusting of snow this morning…32degrees…but the sun is coming out!

Nederland, Colorado

Great Sand Dunes National Park WPA-Style Poster

The Tale of Two Sand Dunes

I first visited Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve in 2010, but when I started this project in 2013, and looked through those shots, I hadn't really captured that single iconic shot I was looking for. One day, while on the Great Sand Dunes NPS site, there was an image in the gallery that was exactly what I had in mind!

To my surprise, there was a link to get more information about a high resolution version of the file.

When I called the visitor center, not only did I find someone to talk to about it, I was talking to Patrick Myers, the National Park Ranger who took the photo! I told him about my project, and he offered to put the large digital file onto a CD and mail it to me. So, although I really wanted to use my own photography in the posters, who better than someone who literally lives and breathes Great Sand Dunes every single day!

Armed with the digital content, as well as Patrick Myers consent, I started work on the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve poster. The photograph featured the sand dunes in the foreground and the Sangre de Christo mountain range in the back. The shot was taken late in the afternoon, so that the dunes cast long shadows.

After completing the photo-graphic process, I added the other graphic elements -- headlines, text, logos, etc. And the poster was ready to go.

In July of 2014, I visited Great Sand Dunes again, and although I had my cameras, I was there to show Patrick Myers, as well as bookstore staff, the poster I had created. Of course, Murphy's Law came into play, as my large format printer died the day before...and I wasn't able to get a good print to show them, and had to resort to an on-screen version on my laptop.

Well the good news was that they loved it! But they did have a couple of suggestions. The first was to add in the foreground, Medano Creek, which has a seasonal flow, mostly from the spring runoff. The second suggestion was to make the dunes themselves a little more orange color. That was actually the easy part.

Again, I went back to the well (no pun intended), and looked at my earlier Sand Dunes photos to see if I had any shots featuring the water in Medano Creek. And I hit the jackpot. I had a great shot of the water with the sand dunes in the background in a pretty similar perspective. Decades of work in Photoshop prepared me for the next step, where I had to integrate the water into the existing photo...which did not have any to begin with. I also needed to get the water to mimic the same time of day as the original photo...and ultimately ended up brightening the whole scene...allowing for a little more daylight to light up the dunes and reflect off the water.

I had a very short run of the new poster printed up at Colt Printing in Boulder, and when they were done, mailed off a couple of copies for the staff at Great Sand Dunes to enjoy. When they arrived, Patrick Myers sent me an email:

Rob,

We got them, and they look perfect!  You have nailed it.  

Thanks again!

Patrick Myers

Park Ranger - Interpretation, Visitor Services, Publications and Web

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

So now I have the dilemma of what to do with two versions? The original, darker version is actually quite striking -- and has been one of my best sellers, despite the fact that Great Sand Dunes, only gets about 275,000 visitors each year.

So, let's put it to a vote and see what we all think collectively!

OLD vs NEW

Alex & Dan's House

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Photo taken at: Alex & Dan’s House

Alex and Dan just moved in!!!

Alex & Dan's House

Yosemite Firefall

Did you know the Yosemite Firefall was a summer time event that began in 1872 and continued for almost a century? Burning hot embers were pushed over the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park to the valley floor 3,000 feet below. From a distance it appeared as a burning waterfall. The Firefall was orchestrated by the Glacier Point Hotel owners. Each night, as a signal to start pushing the embers over, David Curry, founder of Curry Village, would yell across the valley: “Let the fire fall.”

The National Park Service ordered the Firefall to stop in January 1968. The NPS was trying to preserve the Valley, and protect it from the overwhelming number of visitors who trampled meadows in order to see something that was not a natural event was. Ironically, the Glacier Point Hotel was destroyed by fire in 1969 and was never rebuilt.

Yosemite Firefall

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde is a spectacular place and Cliff Palace is a remarkable site that’s well worth the visit.

I am working on series of WPA-style posters and will be including a poster for Mesa Verde in the next release. It will be part of the Colorado Collection, which also includes Great Sand Dunes, Black Canyon of the Gunisson, and Rocky Mountain National Parks.

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde