Throwback Thursday and More

Artificial Intelligence is great at pattern matching. But when I want to search my own photos, I can’t use an image as the basis for a search—yet!

From the HIGH SKY above, the confluence of Bear Creek and the South Platte River looks like the following image. The orange compass rose and personal-sized helipad is my visual marker for the “home point” when I’m flying (it appears as an orange dot to the left of the vertical estuary of Bear Creek, below the sand bar in the South Platte). At the top of the picture, seemingly where the creek points, are the remains of an encampment used by people experiencing homelessness, and living rough on the banks of the river.

When it’s very cold, the people who have either been separated from their belongings or forced to abandon them to get shelter, aren’t present. I can explore by myself the area closer to the water at River Run Trailhead in Sheridan, Colorado, a sleepy and small suburb near Englewood and Littleton. Yesterday, when the weather was warm, I stayed on the sidewalks near the empty parking lots, developed for future commerce but perfect for me as they are virtually unused (except by temporary visitors like me).

I don’t wish to disturb the people who might have spent the night on the banks of the streams, as they might already be suffering despite the regulations prohibiting camping that apply equally to rich and poor. There have even been disturbing reports of people being harassed by drones, which I have never seen or witnessed myself. Of course, in addition to not wanting to disturb any person, I fly at hundred of feet above ground level so that even the twitching geese, eager to flock and fly and perhaps feed, will not be disturbed. Any more than a goose is usually disturbed, that is.

Just like the morning when I was trying to photograph more than just the colors of the sunrise at River Run Trailhead in Sheridan, I want to use this edition of the Colorado HIGH SKY newsletter to make a few announcements before the regular publishing schedule returns next Monday. But first, some more of the spectacular sunrise colors!

I mentioned using AI as a search tool, and its capabilities in pattern matching are rapidly developing. Previously, I have used generative AI to create an illustration based on a photograph of myself, and used that in the promotion of my Patreon page. I had to edit the results, as the bushy eyebrows generated by AI were just not me, but also because unedited output from generative AI can’t be copyrighted, according to the Library of Congress and the Registrar of Copyrights. All of the images that appear here are the copyright of my publishing company, as assigned by me! There are ethical concerns about the sources used in the training of AI, so I will limit my use, but still experiment with it from time to time!

Also, I want to thank each and everyone reading, and I have more gratitude in store, as I want to share this newsletter with even more readers. Yes, that means advertising! I will share reciprocal links to other newsletters so that, in turn, Colorado HIGH SKY will also be shared. I will curate the links where I can, and I will never sell anyone’s personal information, which will only be used by me for tracking subscriptions, comments and other reactions to tailor my writing and photography to that info. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading all the way to the end!