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Rock

@rjrock.bsky.social

1.2K followers 1.3K following 1.3K posts

I’m an Army veteran, tech exec, and East Coast Kin member. Photography is presence--a way for me to connect with this amazing world and the wonderful people in it. I enjoy shooting landscape, street, and architecture, but love exploring all milieus.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · Aug 8

"Primal Light"

Before names, before paths, before forests—there was just earth, fire, ice, and water becoming the world. Iceland is still that beginning. It was like nothing I'd felt before.

#Scape #Photography #LandscapePhotography #EastCoastKin #Iceland #Fujifilm

A wide panoramic view of Iceland’s highlands at dusk, evoking the feeling of a primordial Earth. In the foreground, a dark crater rim surrounds a deep blue lake. A steep volcanic cone rises just beyond, its green and ochre slopes illuminated by the warm light of sunset. Black lava plains stretch across the middle distance, cut with braided meltwater streams and dotted with patches of snow. Soft bands of pink and orange color the horizon, while the sky above deepens into twilight blue. The scene feels untouched—elemental, ancient, and yet alive with the sense that the world is still forming.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 6h

“Guanella Pass Meadow”

My hiking partner and photography assistant Tinkerbell, standing in a mountain meadow off Guanella Pass. Early fall color on the aspens, calm weather, clear light.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #Scape #ForestFriday #PetsofBlueSky #LandscapePhotography #Fujifilm

A color photograph of a high-country meadow off Guanella Pass in Colorado. The scene shows a wide open field with dry grass and low shrubs bordered by aspen and pine trees. The aspen leaves are turning yellow and gold, signaling early fall. In the foreground at right stands a large white Great Pyrenees dog named Tinkerbell, facing the camera with her tail slightly curled. Behind her, a mountain ridge rises under a blue sky with thin white clouds. The lighting is even and crisp, showing clear detail in both the foreground vegetation and distant slopes. The composition captures the scale of the landscape and the companionship of a trail partner within it.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 6h

“Parachute Evening”

A wide panorama from the edge of a pond in Parachute, Colorado. The last light catches the peak while the water holds a calm reflection.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #LandscapePhotography #Scape #Fujifilm

A panoramic color photograph taken near Parachute, Colorado at dusk. A calm pond fills the foreground, its surface reflecting a mountain and the soft colors of the evening sky. The mountain rises steeply with exposed rock and muted vegetation, its summit catching a patch of orange light from the setting sun. A line of trees and dense shrubs borders the water’s edge, and reeds appear in the lower right foreground. The sky transitions from pale peach near the horizon to deep blue above. The overall composition emphasizes horizontal balance, natural color gradients, and stillness in both water and air.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 6h

“Aspen Canopy”

Looking straight up into a stand of aspens at peak color.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #ForestFriday #LandscapePhotography #Fujifilm

A color photograph taken from the forest floor looking straight up into tall aspen trees during autumn. The leaves form a dense canopy of gold and orange, with occasional greens remaining near the edges. Pale trunks rise and angle inward toward the center of the frame, converging against a patch of deep blue sky scattered with white clouds. Light filters through the leaves, creating subtle variations in brightness and hue. The image emphasizes symmetry, upward perspective, and the texture of the branches—a study in color, structure, and the season’s fleeting clarity.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 7h

Elk and deer for sure. Haven’t caught a moose or bear yet. But the views will be spectacular. Have fun!!

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 10h

Thanks. Realized I could just go to the top of the parking garage. Nice views from there.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 10h

Thank you Alina. I love shooting street on wet nights. The atmosphere has a hint of magic.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 12h

“Civic Geometry”

Denver’s judicial and office towers after dark—two architectures of order, one stone, one glass. Light trails mark the night shift. At the corner, a man sits alone, holding a sign toward passing cars.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #HumansofBlueSky #ClassicMono #Fujifilm

A black-and-white photograph taken from the top level of a downtown Denver parking garage at night. The view looks across the intersection toward the Ralph Carr Judicial Center, its stone façade brightly lit, and a tall glass office tower to the right reflecting lines of light. Headlights and taillights streak through the crossroads below in long, smooth trails. In the bottom corner of the intersection, a solitary man sits on the sidewalk with his back to the camera, holding up a small sign to the flow of cars. The night is clear, the stars faint, and the city’s grid appears both orderly and impersonal under electric light. The composition emphasizes precision, exposure control, and the quiet human presence within an otherwise formal urban scene.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 18h

“Crosswalk Study”

Light, shape, and movement in a quiet downtown grid.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #HumansofBlueSky #ClassicMono #StreetPhotography
#Fujifilm
#Colorado

A black-and-white photograph of a city intersection. Wide white crosswalk stripes angle across the dark street, clean and uniform. A cyclist rides through the middle distance while two pedestrians walk near the corner. The morning light is clear and directional, brightening the street markings and the upper floors of the old brick building behind them. Above it, glass and concrete towers rise, their façades patterned with reflections and lines. No cars are moving; the frame is still except for the faint motion of people.

The image is about arrangement—parallel lines, repeating windows, measured light. Nothing performs. The stripes remain stripes, the buildings remain buildings, and together they hold a brief balance between order and calm.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 21h

“Cultural Constellation”

In Denver’s museum district, light becomes the language connecting stone, glass, and skyline.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #ClassicMono #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky #PhotographersUnited #Denver

A black-and-white cityscape of Denver’s cultural core: the museum’s angular planes, the round pavilion’s glass walls, and the library’s stone forms align beneath a starless night. The contrast between soft glow and hard geometry creates visual cadence—an urban nocturne of texture and tone. Trees in shadow ground the scene, while the distant skyline glimmers faintly beyond.
It reads like a quiet conversation between institutions—each building a note in the larger architecture of civic imagination.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 21h

“Public Forum”

Lines of light and stone converge this elevated view of the Denver Public Library.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #ClassicMono #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky #PhotographersUnited

The Denver Public Library rises in symmetry, its curved central façade flanked by angular wings of stone. Rows of illuminated windows form a soft grid against the night. Above, the triangular steel canopy hovers like a crown, lit from within. Every surface glows with restrained confidence, textures rendered in tones of graphite and marble gray.
The photograph transforms civic architecture into an emblem of equilibrium—order made luminous, permanence meeting night’s still air.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

Thank so much!

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

“Vertical Silence”

A grid of glass and steel climbs into emptiness—geometry becoming quiet, space becoming thought.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #ClassicMono #Fujifilm #Minimalism

The photograph looks straight up along the façade of a modern high-rise, its mirrored windows forming clean, parallel lines that narrow toward the vanishing point. The composition is stark and minimalist: a play of rectangles and reflections, of light glancing across metal and glass. The sky is pale and featureless, amplifying the building’s ascent and the photograph’s graphic tension. There are no people, no clouds, no distractions—just the rhythm of form reaching toward infinity.
This image turns architecture into abstraction, where structure becomes meditation. It captures that quiet moment when the urban world sheds its noise, leaving only line, pattern, and the weightless pull of open air.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

“Star Treatment”

A car wash built like a stage set—bold reds, spotlights, and the promise of transformation. All it’s missing is the applause.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky

The image centers on the entrance of a car wash framed by a large circular arch painted in black, gray, and red. Above the opening, a cheerful slogan reads, “You’ll look like a star in your clean car!” Two large red spheres rest on either side of the concrete entryway, echoing the theme of theatrical spectacle. Inside, red bristle curtains and rollers glow under fluorescent and LED lighting, creating a tunnel that feels more like a sci-fi set than a service bay. Reflections of light ripple across the wet floor, amplifying the saturated color palette.
Visually, the photo transforms a mundane commercial site into a surreal stage—where cleanliness meets performance, and consumer ritual takes on cinematic flair. The composition invites the viewer to question what kind of “star” we become when even our cars are cast for the spotlight.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

“After the Rain”

A student jogs by in the rain-slicked night at DU.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #HumansofBlueSky #Fujifilm #Denver #Colorado #StreetPhotography #PhotographersofBlueSky

The photograph shows a wet brick walkway glistening beneath streetlights after a rainstorm. A single person walks away into the distance toward a tall, illuminated tower with a steep, golden spire that pierces the night sky. Damp grass and ornamental grasses frame the scene on the left, while trees and a building wall darken the right edge. The streetlight glow creates a soft rhythm of reflections across the ground, leading the viewer’s eye toward the tower’s light.
This image captures a moment of solitude and transition—between wet and dry, shadow and illumination, departure and arrival. The walker becomes a symbol of quiet persistence, moving toward warmth through the lingering shimmer of rain.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

“Window with a Green Vase”

A quiet story framed in glass—plastic flowers, a pixel-pink dog, and ferns guarding a stranger’s sill.
#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #WindowsonWednesday #Fujifilm

A single window is set into a pale cream metal wall with vertical ridges. Its wooden trim is painted a deep brown-violet, cracked and weathered at the corners. The window’s lower sash holds a sheer, bluish curtain that softens the light and partly reflects the greenery outside. A bright green glass vase stands centered on the sill, containing two artificial flowers—one yellow and red, one white—secured with a purple ribbon. Beside it, two small white cups flank the scene. A tiny pink pixel-art poodle clings to the upper left pane, and a red sticker sits opposite on the right. In the foreground, lush green ferns rise toward the frame, their fronds sharp against the smooth siding. A still life of domestic quiet and private whimsy: a home’s small attempt to face the world with color, humor, and care.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks!

Reposted by Rock

Fred Bergman Photography @fbergmanphoto.bsky.social · 1d

Cumberland Falls water fall in Tennessee

#WaterfallWednesday

#landscape #landscapephotography #travel #travelphotography #nature #naturephotography #photography #photos #photoart #EastCoastKin

Water fall at Cumberland Falls with the water appearing silky smooth due to long exposure with ND filter

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks JBC! It was a crazy day.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

“Panes of Performance”

Two windows on yellow walls, two minds with different calls—one restless, one ordered—each revealing the same longing: the need to speak, to be known, to leave something of oneself facing the world.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #WindowsonWednesday #StreetPhotography #Fujifilm

A yellow stucco wall holds a single window with cracked, paint-smudged glass. The windowpane is covered in overlapping graffiti: crude faces, looping signatures, arrows, and scattered words half-erased by weather. A metal streetlamp leans in from the left edge, its pole slightly rusted, echoing the lines of spray paint on the wall. The sill below is chipped, and the paint around the frame has begun to peel. No light comes from inside; the glass reflects only a dull gray sky. The surface feels layered and chaotic, as if every passerby left a trace of thought or emotion on the glass.
This window reads like a visual diary written over itself—a public performance of frustration and presence. Each mark competes for attention, a chorus of small rebellions against silence. You can imagine the hand that made them: hurried, restless, moving before dawn. The graffiti becomes both noise and confession, a reminder that the desire to be seen often begins with the impulse to make a mark on what’s near.

Another yellow wall, but this one is neater and framed in dark red trim. Behind the clear glass sit small figurines: a porcelain sailor in a blue cap and a pair of dolphins leaping beside him. Lace curtains fall in soft pleats, casting delicate shadows across the sill. Two intersecting blue street signs—Vilastígur and Njálsgata—mark the corner of the building outside. The light is muted but even, revealing careful dusting and quiet upkeep; nothing is out of place.
This window feels like an interior monologue made visible—a life ordered by routine and care. It suggests someone who tends their surroundings as a form of meaning-making, curating what faces the street. Where the graffiti window shouts, this one whispers; both speak of the same need to connect. The sailor and dolphins become stand-ins for travel, memory, and continuity, held still in the gentle theater of domestic order.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

“Gravity in Rebellion”

Wind so fierce it sent the waterfalls back skyward on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula

#EastCoastKin #Photography #LandscapePhotography #WaterfallWednesday #Iceland #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky #PhotographersUnited

The image shows a windswept Icelandic mountainside on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. Sheets of water spill from the cliffs but are violently whipped upward by 70-mph gusts, dissolving into mist that streaks sideways across the sky. The grass glows a saturated green beneath a brooding gray cloud deck, where low light and rain blur the ridges into atmospheric haze. At the base of the slope, a small white farmhouse and a dark patch of trees provide scale and stillness — the only signs of shelter in an otherwise untamed landscape. The scene feels both magnificent and precarious, capturing nature in open defiance of its own rules.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks for taking the time to share feedback! Totally appreciate it.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

"Fault Line"

Quietest place I've ever been.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #LandscapePhotography #RockinTuesday #Fujifilm #Iceland #PhotographersofBlueSky #ColorADay #BlueTue

A high volcanic ridge in Iceland stretches diagonally across the frame beneath a clear blue sky streaked with wispy clouds. The near slope is composed of dark, reddish-brown lava rock, scattered with patches of pale green moss. To the left, a deep blue crater lake curves tightly against the hillside, its shoreline lined with a thin strip of bright green grass and sulfur-stained rock. Beyond the ridge, the landscape opens into a vast plateau of rolling volcanic hills, punctuated by smaller lakes shimmering in the distance. The scene is bright and wind-swept, the textures of rock and moss alternating like woven fabric.
The image captures a tension between stillness and movement—ancient rock holding memory of fire, water collecting where the earth once split. It feels like the world paused mid-creation.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

"Veins of Stone"

Where lava flowed, water wanders — slow, opaque, and ancient.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #LandscapePhotography #RockinTuesday #Fujifilm #Iceland #PhotographersofBlueSky #PhotographersUnited

$A rugged Icelandic gorge filled with pale turquoise glacial water winding through massive, dark volcanic rock formations. The rocks are coated in vivid green moss and scattered lichens, their surfaces rough and fractured. The water, opaque and milky from glacial silt, forms quiet pools and narrow channels that curve between the stone walls. Low green hills frame the horizon under a canopy of heavy gray clouds that hint at distant rain. Small wildflowers and tufts of grass soften the rocky foreground, marking a narrow path that leads toward the central bend in the water. This landscape feels like a slow exhale of the earth—ancient lava reshaped by meltwater, time turning violence into calm. The muted light deepens the sense of reverence, as if the land itself remembers its making.$

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 3d

“Have a Seat”

An empty bench between light and shadow—waiting for company that never comes.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #StreetPhotography #ClassicMono #31DaysofHalloween #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky

A darkened storefront porch illuminated by two soft light sources—a window and a doorway—frames an empty bench at center. The bench’s slats catch a narrow band of light, casting striped shadows that stretch across the porch floorboards. Pumpkins rest on the step below, one leaning slightly, their faint sheen the only warmth in an otherwise cool scene. Wreaths and garlands hang overhead, but their details fade into black, suggesting the season without declaring it. Inside the windows, faint glimmers of light trace outlines of festive decorations, almost ghostlike through the glass.
This is an image of pause and presence—an invitation and an absence at once. The title’s simplicity carries a double edge: “Have a Seat” as comfort, but also as reckoning, the moment one stops moving and the night finally catches up.

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Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 3d

“Happy Meal”

I swatted a fly and this jumping spider took the opportunity to grab some take out—hunger meeting color.

#MacroMonday #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky #EastCoastKin #Photography #NaturePhotography

A close-up photograph of a jumping spider holding a metallic green fly on a white windowsill. The spider’s body is covered in dense, iridescent hairs ranging from golden brown to black, with faint blue highlights along its legs. Its front legs are wrapped around the fly, which glimmers with vivid green and blue hues under soft window light. The background fades into dark gray glass streaked with faint smudges and cobweb threads, suggesting a domestic setting. The shallow depth of field isolates the two creatures against the muted surface, emphasizing the tension between motion and stillness.
The image documents a small drama of life and death with precision and restraint, capturing beauty in an act that is both violent and necessary.

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