Curacao

On our cruise we visited this little island not far from Venezuela called Curacao.
Interesting place, signficant european influence. It is part of the Kingdom of Netherlands. Something I found unique was the large amount of cactus on the island in the Carribbean.

We had an excursion planned for this island, a fairly short excursion, consisting of a visit to a cave, which gave us the opportunity for a bit of a tour of the island, and ending up at the city center and a veiwing of the floating market. This was someting I was really excited about. I love real authentic markets, with the colors, the smells and everything that is local about it.

Curacao does not have agriculture and most of their produce is shipped from Venezuela. The market consists primarly of sailors and ships from Venezuela.

My attempt at HDR

Been gone a long time. Busy with work, busy with life in general. Trying to find time to be creative but its in short supply. We've had a couple of vacations and I have some shots that maybe I can post but recently I tried to do an HDR or High Dynamic Range shot. Basically combine multiple shots of varying exposure to bring out additional detail and consistent tonality.

Not sure if it worked, but for a first one its not too bad given the originals. This was only three shots, maybe 5 exposures would have been better. Also did in Photoshop Elements 10 with no specific plugins. Enjoy.

This is an old abandoned railway bridge in Allen, TX.

Dallas Stars

Went to the opening game with Ryan a couple of weeks ago. He's got great seats so i took my Camera. It was also the TX-OU weekend, so this was a pretty big deal for Dallas. We won, great game and we had a lot of fun. Thanks Ryan!

Brave Combo

What's an Octoberfest without the little Grammy winning Polka band from Denton, Brave Combo. Always a crowd pleasing favorite and sure to detract from the usual musical fare at any Texas based German beer drinking festival in late September....

Actually I really like these guys, they are a heck of a lot of fun and even for the smaller Mckinney venue they just like to have fun and get folks partying.

I took a few handheld shots checking out my camera. This one is at ISO 6400, F5.6, 1/80 second. This was on my 28-135 so pretty much wide open at telephoto. It turned out ok. Couple more stops would have been great. Most of the other shots were too soft. So here you go.

street shots

Well the 365/52 experiment sure didn't work.

We went to the Mckinney Octoberfest a couple of weeks ago. I went early in the morning then we went back later in the day. This is my favorite shot of the day, some kid walking through the labyrinth they created with cleaning products. I took a few more shots throughout the day, including some of the band Brave Combo. I may try to convert some to B&W to see how they look.

104?

Ok, there is no way I can do a 365. I took some shots this weekend, I think I can do a weekly shoot, maybe even 2x (both weekend days) but I cannot fathom a 365. So, have some shots from this weekend. I am going to hold on to them a bit, to see how the week goes, but I know already what is going to happen, and if I know, then for sure.....

Stay tuned.

365?

Thinking about doing a 365 project but I don't know that I have the discipline, or the time. I am currently trying to take photos weekly, not sure I can do it daily, in fact I am very doubtful. But, maybe I will have to try it, this weekend may be a good time to start. I don't have to use my slr all the time, I always have a camera phone, albeit totally sucky resolution, its still at camera......

Summer Heat

Recording setting summer this year, we are well into the 2nd most consecutive 100+ days on record, currently at 37, and rapidly approaching the record of 42. The weather report said there is a cold front approaching this weekend, but that is still a long ways away and in my opinion, unlikely to crack the high pressure cap we have had all summer.

Back to our little back yard menagerie. The baby birds continued to eat and grow, with the parents being fairly protective in that the were not too afraid of us or the cats in the backyard, especially if we gave them a bit of space. Saturday we had a few folks over and the birds had more than a few observers. Sunday afternoon, the nest was vacated! That was barely over a week. Unfortunately as often happens in the wild, these little birds were not the most fortunate, as they were birds and not ducks. We watched them try to fly a bit Sunday but by the end of they day, they were not able to avoid the pool.




This past Saturday I wanted to get out early and try to get some insect shots. I went to a good sized pond up the road and there were lots of dragon and damsel flies. I got a few shots, but it was a bit breeze, at least just enough to have slight movement in the reeds and grasses, so my shots weren't as sharp as I would have liked. I have a few that turned out well, here are a few of my favorites.

Backyard inhabitants

Its 105F today, but backyard wildlife continues to flourish. We have had some small birds, finches perhaps, fluttering around the plum tree while we have been outside, and even while the cats have been outside. These birds seem oblivious to any danger in the backyard. I am watching one bird periodically flying into a hanging planter but I think nothing of it. Later, while watering some plants, I see some slight movement in the hanging planter. I thought maybe it was the bird, but upon closer inspection there is a nest with at least 3 very tiny baby birds in it. I tried to get some photos without disturbing them too much but they are quite sensitive and think I am bringing food every time I try to get close to take a picture.

Later there were lots of bees around our "butterfly" bush, and a small green lizard decides to make his presence known.

Albuquerque, NM

Spent the last couple of weeks in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Was there about 12-14 years ago so had some good memories. Was there on business, but was still able to take advantage of the location. We did the Sandia Peak Tramway, we took a dinner trip to Santa Fe, taking the back road back through Madrid, and took a couple of trips to the Petroglyph National Monument. It was very dry this year, with extreme forest fire danger and in fact many of the public lands were closed. There was an extremely dangerous fire encroaching on the Los Alamos National Laboratory which resulted in a fairly large scale evacuation.

Here are a few shots that capture some of the sights. The jackrabbits were running around the petroglyphs. It was so dry there was very little wildlife. I think I saw a total of 4 lizards. We also took a trip around the backside of the Petroglyph NM where there are a series of very old volcanoes.

Saturday night at the races

Saturday night we went to TMS for the Indy Car races. It was a new format, two distict short (275 mile) races, with potentially 2 seperate winners. The first race position was determined by pole, the second race position was determined by a draw, in reverse order of the finishers in the first race, so it was total luck of the draw. Danica Patrick was racing, as well as most of the well known Indy racers, even Paul Tracey who hasn't raced here recently.

As usual, taking photos at the race is difficult, with the protective cage on the barrier. I did get a couple of shots though. Here is one from a pit stop that I think captures some of the action.

By the way, the high speed FPS on the 7D is scary fast. I turned it back to regular after my first burst!

Mckinney Farmer's Market

Darlene and I went to the Farmer's Market in Chestnut Square in Mckinney. We've been a couple of times before as well. Today we bought some fresh vegetables and made a hodgepodge for supper.

Door Hardware

At one of the Missions in San Antonio. Sorry, forget which one...

Minneapolis St-Paul

Spent the last two weeks in MSP for business. The first week saw some sights that made me want to bring my camera. In particular the Fort Snelling National Cemetery. There are over 172,000 internments there and they are still accept funerals. It was quite the sight. Hopefully my photos do it justice.








After this, I went into downtown St Paul, which is the Capital of Minnesota and took a couple of shots of some interesting buildings.

This is the Capitol Building



These are some shots of Cathedral of St Paul.

Backyard Lily

We have some Cala Lilies in our backyard. This morning there some sort of drop on one of the lilies that I thought looked pretty cool. Had my Tamron 90mm macro lens on for these shots. Unfortunately there was a bit of a breeze so these may not be quite as sharp as I would have liked as I was using a fairly slow shutter speed and the flowers were in the shade.