MY STORY

On January 20th 2010 I departed for my Colorado adventure. Final destination is Telluride, CO. My previous employer closed our Boston office on October 31, 2009 and this seemed to be the most opportune time to do something different. My inspirations are two things really. They are both movies. First is "Into the Wild", a movie about a person who leaves his life behind to pursue a life in the Alaskan wilderness and along the way he meets people that shape his life. The second movie is "The Bucket List", a movie about two terminally ill men who escape a cancer ward with a wish list of to-do's before they die. The #1 item on the wish list is "Witness something truly majestic". My adventures are not exactly similar to these movies, but underlying themes and life changing perspectives are. As far as the location, I thank my sister for that. She lived in the beautiful & remote town of Telluride for five years and met Paul there. Their 1997 wedding was in Telluride (Trout Lake). Telluride is nestled in the dramatic Rocky Mountains of Southwest Colorado.

BLOG 101

If you are new to blogs so am I. Here is an intro. The home page http://mycoloradoadventure.blogspot.com/ has all the posts (the write ups) in order and they work so that most recent is at top of the order. i.e. Day 1, my first post/write-up, is on the bottom page of all the posts/write-ups. On the left side of the blog site there is a "Blog Archive" section where you can navigate to pick and choose year, month and then specific daily posts/write-ups. I wanted to share this in the event you are new to blogs.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Day 39 - 2/27/10 - Avalanche
















"A few harmless flakes working together can unleash and avalanche of destruction" - Larry Kersten

Today is Saturday February 27, 2010.

Look closely a the two pictures above. It's of the same mountain, Ajax, located on east end of Telluride. Both pictures are taken from the same spot, one on right is with a 250mm EFS zoom lens. You should be able to click on the middle of the picture and have them enlarged. Do you see what I see? It's a pretty incredible shot of what nature can do in a town like this. The quote of the day sums it up best and from the picture on the right I can tell you that this was no small avalanche. It's actually a HUGE avalanche slide and whatever was in the path was likely taken out. Trees were cleared out and overheard today that a photographer snapped a shot from town (like my pic on the left) that captured a huge snow cloud that rose from the ground as the avalanche slid to its end. If I had caught that on film I would have been very pleased. But my shots above are same day, well after it happened. Pretty amazing. It's the largest visible slide I have seen since my arrival here. Quite a few mountain peaks have them....just on a smaller scale. Since I have been here, there have been several (less than ten) articles about skiers caught in avalanches. No known fatalities, but like some of my videos show the mountains, including the ski mountains, have the danger and risk.

Before I snapped those pictures I worked most of the day on the mountain. I took about 10 familty, couple, etc. still shots. By 'shots' I mean a photo shoot....different poses with breakdowns, from group, to kids, to couples, to singles. In each photo shoot I average about 10-20 individual pictures of those various breakdowns. The more variety you give the more options they have to buy. Simple concept and you would be amazed how 1) edgy and pushy they are about NOT having different poses and breakdowns and 2) after the day is over and they stop in shop to see the pictures, how happy they are you took so many! It's hilarious. Fact of the matter is that when you are on the mountain, you want to be skiing. So I understand why people do not want the photographers taking too much of their time. But in the end, we take great photos and we give them lifetime memories to cherish and hold onto. I'm enjoying the work, meeting people and probably the most amazing thing about it.....it's work so different then my office jobs as an accountant. That's a whole different conversation.

Tonight I was fortunate. I was invited to the Telluride Aids Benefit (TAB) fashion show and auction. Never been to anything like this, but it was pretty incredible. Here are some words on their organization www.aidsbenefit.org/about. The fashion show this year was produced by an individual who has produced some big name events such as Miss USA pagaents. It was impressive and for stumbling on a last second ticket, I was lucky. People say that it is one of two events per year that is the hardest ticket to get in Telluride. Lucky me.
Thanks for checking in and good night from Telluride.

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