PHOTOGRAPHY TODAY

Looking nothing like anything seen before in Denver are the vivid computer-generated photographic prints by E.L. Helland that make up E'Scapes, in the main space at Pirate. With these new works, Helland has literally "drawn" photos of imaginary landscapes, using two different rendering programs and a Macintosh computer. "These 3-D programs allow the realization of dreams," he says. "I create the lighting and the atmosphere. So there's no real subject." The resulting dreamscapes, all of which are untitled, feature natural coloring, but, notes Helland, "not too natural." And the color isn't the only clue we're given that what we're seeing exists nowhere else: In one photo, several different mountain ranges share the same sky.

Like Sharpe and Havelock-Bailie, Helland brings home the point that Denver has achieved "critical mass" in the realm of cutting-edge photography. And that's not to mention Shaun Gothwaite's Polaroids and Diana prints also at Zip 37 or the abstract color photos by Barbara Carpenter now on view at Core New Art Space. The fall season is just under way, but already it's crowded with fine work by both photographers and artists who put a new twist on photographic techniques.