I spotted this Kingfisher in the Baytown Nature Center this weekend. I would of preferred it resting on a old tree in the water or somewhere else that hid the "hand of man", but he just wouldn't cooperate!
A relatively new Christmas tradition for our family is getting together to make up a batch of Armadillo Eggs for the holidays. Armadillo Eggs are cheese stuffed jalapeno peppers covered in a sausage and Shake-N-Bake and baked until golden brown. This usually takes us about four hours to make up about 120 "eggs" most of which are passed out among Friends.
Something about this scene at the local grocery store last week caught my eye. One factor for sure was watching the "whatever" attitude of complacency that these "parking lot crows" develop to the proximity of people and clutter.
Another shot from a foggy Baytown Nature Center this past weekend. Converted to B&W using a conversion layer in PS3 and the "infrared" preset.
Since we had lousy weather this weekend I thought I would take a drive through the Baytown Nature Center and see if I could shoot some images I would normally miss. Speaking of misses, the shot that got away was an Osprey flying two feet above a foggy mirror slick bay inlet with a fish in it's talons! Yikes, well you just can't get them all..
Keeping with yesterday's industrial theme, I shot this headache ball and block on a mobile crane that was doing some work in Baytown a while back. I don't know why but I like the subject as a still life study.
Well here's the BEFORE and AFTER. Besides the obvious difference in quality between the MRI [top] and the X-RAY [bottom] there are other obvious differences. Chiefest among them is the addition of brand new shiny titanium plate and screws. Also visible, but less obvious, is the substitution of cadaver bones for the three included disc. In the X-RAY you can see that the fusion of old bone and new [so to speak] bone is underway. As of yesterday I am officially out of my cervical collar and back behind the wheel! It's all good....
Since my doctor says I'm not supposed to drive a car, I didn't think it would be a good idea to drive a mower either. Fortunately my lovely and talented wife is a quick study and took to the dead-man steering on my commercial mower like a politician to other peoples money! Did she like it? I may never get to mow again.
OK, if you follow this blog you've seen the orange Daisy and the orange dog Sadie before. But you haven't seen them both in the same shot utilizing the strobist method of lighting. This was really just an exercise for me to utilize some equipment I purchased months ago but hadn't gotten around to using. In this shot I used a Paul C. Buff transmitter on my Oly E-3 to trigger my Oly FL50R off -camera flash. I used a small knock-off soft box on the flash which my wife held high and photo right. Room for improvement here for sure but at least I broke some gear out of it's box!
Also from this past weekend at the Baytown Nature Center, this is the Egret in Monday's post.
Like most flowers I photograph, I don't know what this one is. I do know it's at the Baytown Nature Center and was shot last weekend.
This is the same Osprey in the same tree at the Baytown Nature Center that I posted on my October 9 blog entry. Yesterday morning I was able to get a few paces closer and, I think, improve the shot. This would have been a better shot had I had a "Better Beamer" flash extender in play to add a little fill light to the body.
This shot is of the Lajitas Cemetery between Big Bend State and National Parks at Lajitas Texas. This should be my last archive shot, hopefully I be able to post some new stuff next week.
This shot was taken in a courtyard at a resort in Lajitas Texas in the summer of '08. As usual I don't know the variety but the flowers on this plant hung down from an overhead trellis and were absolutely beautiful.
A different take on a cactus shot, again from Big Bend National Park last year.
Also from last years trip to Big Bend this cactus flower macro was taken on near the top of the national park's "Lost Mine Trail."
Just found some shots from our summer of '08 trip to Big Bend I hadn't processed and thought this would be a good time to work on them. This one was taken near Lajita's between the State and National parks.
This is an older shot from the archives [best I can do for now!] taken on a trip downtown with my brother Barry [ http://barrysphotoblog.blogspot.com/]. I was riding shotgun and just liked the scene we were given at this intersection. Hope you enjoy it.
This oak tree stands in the middle of the western end of Texas Avenue in Baytown, TX. The street, which was the central thoroughfare of Baytown's business district for many years, runs on both sides of the old tree. No one know how old it is but one written account from 1909 reports it to have been over 100 years old and already a local landmark back them.
I don't know what type of flower this is, even though it's in my own backyard, but I think it's a variety of a Daisy. I'm not sure I did it justice here but the thing that drew me to this flower was the vivid orange color. It's a pure orange that's so bright you can hardly look directly at it.
I thought these two characters where the creepiest at the festival. Not just because of their elaborate costumes, but also because they seemed to be just a little bit too much into characters.
I caught these fairies gathered on a hill at the Texas Renaissance Festival this past Saturday.
I wanted to try and take away some shots from the Renaissance Festival other than portraits of the characters there. I thought that this 25' waterwheel feature was a nice addition to the landscape and might make an interesting shot.
This weekend the Bay Area Photo Club held our October field trip at the Texas Renaissance Festival at Plantersville, TX. We had a good turn out of about 10 photographers roaming over the 54 acre event taking a variety of shots. I would imagine that 95 percent of the shots were portraits of the different participants in a variety of costumes. Originally the fair was strictly limited to costumes and themes relating to the Renaissance period, but over the years it has loosened it's restrictions to now include the fantasy realm of witches, fairies, elves and just about anything else. I would put this guy in the "anything else" category.
Well, I did say no more Spoonbills right - not no more birds! This one is also from the Baytown Nature Center this weekend.
This will be the last Spoonbill shot in this series. I promise to move on to something new to close out the week with tomorrow.
This shot was taken at the Baytown Nature Center this past Sunday. While I was scouting this shot I approached a different pond in the park and saw another photographer there already. He was set up with a tripod and what looked like at least a 600mm lens and looked prepared to do some serious bird work. It looked like there was plenty of room on the other end of the pond so I turned my little car off the road to set up. After I turned I saw there wasn't really enough room to get my car completely off the road. With camera and telephoto in hand I attempted to back up to reposition the car. As I attempted this maneuver my camera strap snagged the shifter causing me to inadvertently lay on the horn! When this happened the pond emptied completely of birds as if it where dynamite instead of a car horn. I'm sure the first photographer was impressed with my professionalism as I drove off to find a new [quieter] place to shoot - someplace that actually had birds...
My last shot from the rainbow chasing experiment couldn't include the SJ Monument because the Baytown Nature Center is on the opposite side of the Houston Ship Channel from where the rainbow was visible. Nonetheless the sky was still interesting to the south and I like the way this shot came out.
I had taken a shot of this vignette at the Baytown Nature Center a week or so ago because I like the mix of fall colors in the foliage and the texture of the trees. Because I had this shot on file already it was one of the first places I thought of shooting again while the rainbow was in the shot. Hope you like it.
While I was at the Baytown Nature Center Monday afternoon my intention was to try and isolate and photograph as many subjects as I could before the rainbow I was most interested in dissipated. In my mind the ideal shot I could capture was the one I ended up getting above. A rainbow, a stormy sky, a craggy branch and a sunning Osprey - man could it get any better than that? 
Yesterday afternoon as I left work headed East on I-10 from Houston towards Baytown I noticed that my direction put me chasing a thunderstorm. I spotted a rainbow in the sky along the way and decided to take a detour by the Baytown Nature Center to see if I could time it where I could frame a few shots with the rainbow in the background. My luck, and atmospheric conditions, held long enough for me to frame two or three shots in the park that I like. This hill top gazebo always seemed to me to be a potential subject but just isn't interesting enough under normal conditions. I think with the combination of the rainbow and accompanying light it came out fairly well. More tomorrow.....
This weekend was the first field trip of the newly founded Baytown Photography Club. Participants met on historic Texas Avenue at the Baytown Art League facility and spit into groups to see what we could find. I caught this young man [one of the participants] in a contemplative moment during a break. Hope you enjoy it.
