Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
17 Mile House is part of a 70-acre open space that’s located in Arapahoe County, Colorado and includes an 1860’s “mile house,” barn and silo and is along the historic Smoky Hill/Cherokee Trail route to Denver. It was originally a log cabin and some portions of it can still be seen.
During the 1859-1860 during a period of gold rush and settlement of Colorado, six way stations were established along the Cherry Creek to accommodate travelers. These houses were named based on their distances to downtown Denver. In these places—think Minnie’s Haberdashery in The Hateful Eight— travelers could get meals, spend the night, and rest their animals. Of all of the original mile houses, only 17 Mile House and 4 Mile House exist today.
17 Mile House is located at 8181 S. Parker Rd. on the southern edge of Arapahoe County where three adjoining open space properties serve as a regional wildlife corridor and biking/walking trail. In 2001, nine different entities joined together in an attempt to preserve this historic site and work has been ongoing there for the past several years. It’s worth a visit, especially when the house is available to tour. Although be aware that the docents frown on photography inside the house.
How I Made this Shot: This image was shot with a Panasonic Lumix G6 that have been converted for infrared capture by LifePixel using their Enhanced IR (665nm) filter. For more about nanometers of infrared light, please read my post Welcome to the Word of Invisible Light, when you have the time. The lens used was a Lumix G Vario 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens at 12mm. Exposure was 1/640 sec at f/11 and ISO 400. The RAW file was converted to monochrome using Silver Efex with a little toning assist from PhotoKit 2.
Life Pixel does a great job with IR conversions and they have done most of the conversions for my Canon DSLRs and all of my Panasonic Lumix G-series cameras. This is not a paid or sponsored endorsement, just my experience.
My book, The Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography is available from Amazon for with new copies selling for $27.50 with used copies starting around five bucks, as I write this. Creative Digital Monochrome Effects has a chapter on IR photography and is available from Amazon with new copies at $8.45 with used copies starting at a little more than two bucks, as I write this. There’s no Kindle version available for either book, sorry.