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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

the obstacle is the path


iPhone photograph
Saturday morning, September 14, 2013


I saw this proverb on a poster in Erin's doctor's office last Friday. The following morning as I took my morning walk around Crown Hill Lake, I noticed this flooded trail. On my second lap around the lake I stopped to capture it with my iPhone camera. I've been pondering these words ever since, toggling between life's micro and macro situations of late. I've recently blogged about some of the micro. As for the macro, read on...


***

After almost a week of non-stop, torrential rain here in Colorado, watery devastation on a massive, catastrophic scale has spread across over 4,000 square miles...from picturesque mountain canyons and valleys, to peaceful foothills dotted with quaint villages and small towns; and now the floodwaters are endangering towns and farmlands in northeastern Colorado - downstream in the great river basins flowing east of the Continental Divide.

Folks here are incredulous:
  • at least eight people dead, and still hundreds unaccounted for (mostly -  hopefully - due to communication difficulties in the mountains)
  • over 19,000 homes damaged or destroyed, and hundreds of businesses as well
  • dozens of roads and bridges washed away - many of them crucial links to mountain destinations
  • ongoing helicopter rescue operations that now dwarf those of Hurricane Katrina
  • the high plains east of the Front Range now resemble the Mississippi Delta, with flooding on a scale unheard of in these parts
 And keep this in mind: flooding in the mountains means flash flooding...which means seek higher ground ASAP. With steep, narrow terrain this means a 'wall of water' rushing down a narrow space:




Check out these links:
Fox News, (Sunday) for a national, breaking news perspective.
The Loveland Reporter-Herald, for a local columnist's perspective.


***

iPhone photograph
Monday morning, September 17, 2013

This view from Crown Hill - where I've been walking every morning recently - belies the tragic story: the worst of the flooding is less than 100 miles away, easily visible from here. You are looking north at the gorgeous mountain vista of the Front Range: the Flatirons near Boulder, and beyond that 14,259 ft Long's Peak, in Rocky Mountain National Park (which, for now, is reachable only via the muc farther, western slope entrance, due to washed out roads). 


Daily I watch and I pray: not far from our home in a suburb west of Denver - which was also not immune to flood damage - are people and places, homes, businesses, entire communities...devastated.  Favorite weekend destinations - we honeymooned in Estes Park...so did Kelly and Aaron last summer; I've picnicked, camped and hiked countless times, traveled those roads, visited those towns, loved those places since I was a little girl...


***

After a failed attempt to get the desired results with iPhone apps (I'm still pretty new to this, and at this point don't have much control within the process), I imported the top photo into Lightroom and then CS6 for further editing and texturizing:


I went back through the archives of Kim Klassen's 2012 Beyond Layers class and more or less followed one of her tutorials, incorporating a layer of kk_jessica (Soft Light blend mode 25%). Then I added one of Roxi Hardegree's Photo Textures (Multiply blend mode 28%). I'm still not quite satisfied, but it's time to 'fish or cut bait.' I did finally figure out the screen capture thing though. Small victories.

Linking up with Texture Tuesday and Tuesday Muse.


***

The obstacle is obvious.
The path to recovery seems insurmountable.
The two are inextricably linked.







6 comments:

  1. Oh my, this is so sad to see. I have family in Greeley and friends in Estes Park. Praying for all. Love your photo work! It turned out very nice.

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  2. Cindy, this is a heartbreaking video and I too pray for all these people who have been affected.....Your photographs are so lovely and I love the editing on them....

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  3. The flooding is so sad (and the vidoes are difficult to watch) - it's so hard to imagine what these poor people have been through and their continued struggle as they come back to the clean-up.
    Lovely photos and I like your editing too.

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  4. Love Estes Park, so devastating to see that beautiful land in such a sad state.

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  5. Powerful! I spent three summers in Colorado Spring and always traveled up north. It is so hard to visualize this grandeur under water. I did not realize you were so close. You and many are in my prayers. Gorgeous photo...and I think it is perfect!

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  6. So awful what you guys are going through over there, keep safe...

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