More of the Same

Just another view of Helen Hunt Falls, maybe a little more arty farty than the one I posted yesterday.

Despite the Drought, Helen Hunt Falls Doesn't Look Too Pathetic

Since I was at the Broadmoor last week I popped over to Helen Hunt Falls for a peek. We're enduring a terrible drought this year and I had low expectations. I thought it would be a mere trickle of water, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the falls still look reasonably good, all things considered.

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A much tighter view of yesterday's subject matter, Helen Hunt Falls. Up close it's so dramatic.

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One of my favorite subjects, Helen Hunt Falls, captured on September 13th.

Well Hello There

I haven't been very consistent about blogging the last few months, mainly because I've been very stressed out and have also been dealing with seemingly one annoying health problem after another this year. I won't apologize since that's nothing to be sorry about; instead I'll thank you if you've been faithfully checking my blog for new content over the last week. I last left you with some skirmishing hummingbirds at Helen Hunt Falls nine days ago. Here's what was just a few yards beyond them.

Skirmish

I was trying to get a shot of a hummingbird up by Helen Hunt Falls this afternoon and serendipitously managed to capture two of them mid-skirmish. I wasn't even sure what it was that I had just taken a picture of, I just saw a flash of feathers and instinctively pushed the shutter button. I guess hummingbirds are quite a territorial lot. Below is the image I was actually attempting to get, taken moment or two after the dramatic conflict.

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Another one from the archives since I haven't got anything new to show you today: Helen Hunt Falls, taken on September 21, 2019.

An Alternate Take

Today was cold and windy, which didn't exactly inspire me to venture out with a camera in my hands, so here's a long exposure of Helen Hunt Falls from June 16 of 2022. I posted a color version (with a wider view showing the top of the falls) on that day, but I think I prefer this monochrome take on it even more.

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Helen Hunt Falls captured on July 11, 2009.

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Today was very hot, so we thought it might be nice to take a little spin through Cheyenne Cañon where it's a little cooler. There weren't many people about, since it was after the dinner hour. We brought a tripod make this long-ish exposure of Helen Hunt Falls.

The Usual

I haven't had time to work on any pictures I've taken recently for the blog, so for today's post here's a mundane shot of Helen Hunt Falls taken on September 21, 2019.

Family Outing

One of my favorite subjects, Helen Hunt Falls. I took this on September 21, 2019, clearly a beautiful day for a family outing. Of course it'll be months before it happens but I'm looking forward to seeing green trees again.

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A drive through Cheyenne Canon on the 13th revealed the Helen Hunt Falls is already partially covered in ice -- and not a tourist in sight.

Dunderhead

While doing some senior portraits at Helen Hunt Falls last week, my client and I needed to wait for the background to be free of people before I could take a shot of her. Even at this time of year, this place gets lots of visitors. There's a sign on the creek bank cautioning you to stay out of the water but no one does. If you're going to ignore the sign, the worst place to try for that Instagram-worthy photo is right where this man is. Those rocks are awkwardly shaped and slippery -- if you fall, you could end up with a bad concussion! As you can see, he was struggling to keep his balance. The best place to enter the water is near where I was standing to take this picture. For some reason the rocks become smaller and more manageable the farther you get from the falls.

On the Brink

A young couple getting their engagement portraits taken in front of Helen Hunt Falls on September 21st. I took a few pictures of the falls sans people, but thought it was more fun to get them into my shot too.

Sunday Style!

Late post -- I shot a wedding unassisted today, and when I got home I was both exhausted and starving, not to mention dehydrated, so Pat and I went out for a late dinner. Almost forgot to blog! Anyway, here's a lovely young woman that I found in Cheyenne Cañon several days ago, in the parking lot next to Helen Hunt Falls. She was there to get some professional maternity portraits taken (not by me!) in nature, and I think her wardrobe choice was simply stunning! I'm sure the pictures are gorgeous!

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Well, my best intentions to go out and find an interesting subject for you today failed (in other words, I was chained to my desk until dark), so today I'll be entertaining you with a really boring test shot I took on a portrait session yesterday. In case you're curious, we were at Helen Hunt Falls. Below is a pull-back shot showing a bunch of badly behaved tourists ignoring the "keep out of the water" sign. Ha ha.

Semi-frozen Helen Hunt Falls

We took a little drive up Cheyenne Cañon yesterday. Helen Hunt Falls was looking quite beautiful with her veil of water and ice.

Starr Kempf

The fascinating kinetic sculptures by acclaimed artist Starr Kempf are much beloved by the citizens of Colorado Springs. In all the years that I've been blogging, I've barely mentioned these graceful pieces that are so much a part of the fabric of our city. That's because after Mr. Kempf's suicide in 1995 at the age of 77, his legacy resulted in a great deal of rancor between his heirs (specifically his daughter Lottie) and his former neighbors and friends. There was a lot of bad blood. I don't know if the situation has been completely resolved to everyone's satisfaction, or if it's more like just an uneasy truce. I do know that after quite a lot of litigation, the Kempf family was forced to take down some of his beautiful works. What a pity that was for all of us! Several are still left standing though, and we adore and enjoy them. One piece made its way downtown after the lawsuit was settled. It's located on Colorado between Nevada and Tejon, next to the Plaza of the Rockies (I featured it on my blog long ago, HERE -- the only time I've so much as mentioned Mr. Kempf). I don't know where the other dismantled mobiles ended up.

Kempf's home sits at the entrance to Cheyenne Canon, in a neighborhood that's secluded, exclusive and beautiful. Most of the houses in this particular spot sit on large, treed lots. There is always a bit of tourist traffic during the daytime, with people either headed for Helen Hunt Falls or Seven Falls, so it's nice that the homes are set back from the road a bit. The Kempf house sits more or less on a corner, a nice spot to display his 40-50 foot tall works of art. There is a tiny parking spot across the road, where all day long you'll see cars pulling in and out, their occupants dashing across the street to snap a few quick pictures. I think it's a constant, niggling invasion that to some degree still bothers the neighbors, and that's part of why I have put off blogging about Kempf. They've lived with it for a very long time, though. It's hard for me to remember the details of the dispute after all these years, but I believe it originated with Lottie, who wanted to capitalize on her father's legacy by doing tours. Big buses dropping off loads of tourists to the house understandably did not sit well with the neighbors, nor did it go over with some of her family members. There was a protracted legal battle that involved the City of Colorado Springs. It got uglier and uglier, largely because of Lottie's stubbornness and legal shenanigans, including claiming that zoning laws did not apply to her. She was, in short, a lousy neighbor. But public opinion was on her side, believe it or not, probably because we simply didn't understand exactly what the neighbors were going through! And how obnoxiously she was behaving. There is an article HERE that explains the whole ugly mess. I don't know when it was written, but I'm guessing around 2000 or 2001.

At the beginning of all that nonsense, in 1996, I had the unique experience of shooting a magazine cover and editorial with several models at the Kempf estate (and also at the Broadmoor Hotel, where TV news crews and a Gazette photographer followed us around and got in the way). I had heard that things had started to get weird between the Kempfs and the neighbors at that point, but it was well before the situation had come to a head. It was an incredible day. I never thought in a million years that I'd find myself behind those gates! The family and a very nice intern (or possibly a grandson or nephew of Starr's) also invited us inside the house, where they gave us a private tour of the basement and workshop. Starr's sculptures were still in place, including some older, bronze works that he had done long before the large mobiles. I remember seeing an unfinished wind sculpture and it made me sad. But it made me very, very happy to be outside, shooting fashion models in this fantastical setting, with giant cranes, windmills and the like whirling and swinging silently above us in the breeze. Magical! I still have those pictures around here somewhere -- I'll have to dig them out and show you sometime.

That said, the photos in today's post really don't do justice to these beautiful pieces. It's so much better when we have that blue Colorado sky! They are gorgeous. I will someday go back and take better pictures, so you can see exactly how magical it all is.

In this photo, you can see one of the sculptures lying on the ground in the foreground at far right. I don't know if it blew over or it's one of the pieces that the Kempfs were forced to dismantle. Probably the latter, since it doesn't look damaged. If that's the case, it's probably been lying there for years. This is the first time I've noticed it, however.

Curiouser and curiouser

Yesterday I posted a beautiful picture of Helen Hunt Falls, but I left this part out. It's an urn, sitting on a rock several yards from the base of the falls, right in the middle of Cheyenne Creek. I am assuming that it contains the cremated remains of a person. Hmmm. Well, I had two thoughts about this. My first thought was that this beautiful spot must have been very important to the person inside that urn, and that his or her loved ones understood that and brought the urn here for that reason. Which is very sweet. My second thought was that Cheyenne Creek is part of our city's water supply, and that if the urn were to be knocked over, someone's remains would become one with our drinking water. This does not sound terribly appetizing. It did occur to me that the urn may be well sealed, and I do understand that it's not uncommon for people to scatter the ashes of their loved ones over bodies of water (in some municipalities it's become illegal to do that, however). But this still gave me pause! Perhaps the person who put the urn there planned to come back after a few hours to retrieve it. What do you think?

On a side note, click HERE to read about Helen Hunt Jackson. The falls are named after her, not the actress, though their names are very similar.