Holy Cow I cannot believe it has been over a year since I have been on here.  Truthfully I haven't been taking many photos lately, well I have been but I haven't made an effort to shoot anything creative or unique.

One of the things I love to shoot, besides my AR-15, are fire works and I am lucky enough to have a buddy who is a Pryo who puts on local shows for Independence day celebrations and get to shoot right up where they set up.  Here is one from the finale of the show at the Gaines County Park.

There was also a fireworks show at a Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary Celebration for a wonderful couple and I took a a few there trying a couple different techniques.  This one I shot hand held and moving the camera around during the long exposure, I like the abstract look it creates.

Another technique i tried was taking the exposure out of focus to get a more flower bouquet look I am not sure what I think of this i need to try it a little more.

Let me know what you think.

Hopefully I will be a little better at updating my blog.  So see you soon, or maybe next year.

I haven't given up....

Wow sometimes it seems that life sure gets in the way of the sheer joy of wasting a little time and writing a little on this conundrum of thoughts and pics I call my blog. (BTW Camus Conundrum is an amazing white wine, it is the first wine that I actually enjoyed). But back on point I haven't stopped taking pics I have just fallen extremely behind on editing and blogging about them, but I will be back and hopefully soon.

Here is a small tease on what my next blog will be about.

See you soon!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Day 16: Some Letters (Not Mail)

I have had several people ask me if i was finished with my Photography Challenge and posting new pics.  First off i am deeply humbled that people have followed my blog and have enjoyed it enough to take the time to ask me about it.  Next I am not done and even when the 30 Day list i am doing now is completed I have another way I am going to use to keep my creativity, photography and blogging going.  I am not going to give you a bunch of excuses why I haven't posted in a bit but I am sure if you can use your imagination or just your lives at this time of year and you can kinda figure out what has thrown a wrench in the mechanism.  I thoroughly enjoy this and will keep it going as long as I am having fun.

Back to the ranch, the next challenge facing my lens is Letters (not Mail).  This was a case of not seeing the forest for the trees, there are plenty of chances to photograph letters but for the life of me I had a hard time finding a subject that struck my artistic bulls-eye, being  relatively immature in my artistic endeavors  my bulls-eye is still rather large and undefined.  (My artistry is not the only immature thing about me just ask Wende how I love a good improper joke.)

I was feeling guilty that I haven't updated the blog in a timely manner so today I made myself go find some letters to capture.  As i was getting my camera together to go grab my shots it came to me that I own a few letters, well at least a few of the lettered series of John Deere Tractors.  My little collection of antique Deere's started with the G that belonged to Wende's granddad Edo.  I brought this tractor home from the Hobbs farm and did a little work to it to make it a decent lugger for antique tractor pulling.  One thing I haven't done to it is any body work or paint. (Just not my thing, to meticulous and clean I like getting greasy working on a tractor)

So here it is a photo of one of my letters, Edo's G.

Oh I almost forgot!  I used my 50mm/1.8 on this because i wanted a very shallow depth of field so that just part of the screen printed G was in focus. 

Come back next time for:  Day 17 A Clock

Day 15: Water

Day 15: Water

Baby it's cold outside, Let it Snow, Joy to the World, Winter Wonderland, pick you favorite but all of those and many others explain the beautiful wintery day we had today.  Out here in the desert wonderland we call home we get so excited on the rare occasions we get snow, kinda like a cop at a doughnut convention, but if we had it every day like our wind we would hate it as well i bet.

What better thing to do than to go outside and start taking pictures of the snow and beautiful winterscapes.  Well how about staying inside where it is warm like a sane person.  I admit I was too cold to get out and shoot much today, but when I got home and Zoee was outside playing in the snow I figured I had procrastinated long enough and it was time to find something to shoot.

Today's challenge was water. It is so amazing that something as simple 2 Hydrogen and 1 Oxygen atoms bound with a Polar Covalent bond (Thank You Wikipedia I could not remember the bond I didn't have a very good chem teacher in High School and avoided Chemistry like the Plague at A&M it is a washout course) is the most essential molecule for life and makes our planet so special.   And today we were blessed with a blanket of water in its solid phase in the form of snow.  Some of this snow went through multiple phase changes and melted and re solidified while dripping off the roof and created the icicles that were the subject of my camera today.

So here are the icicle lights that we have on the house today.

Up next Day 16: Some Letters (Not Mail)

Day 14: Looking Down from Something

Day 14: Looking Down from Something

I am not a fan of heights so it should be at least a little bit understandable why i am a little slow getting this post up, plus it has been cold and wet so that hasn't made me any more excited about climbing something tall.  But the real reason is my muse must be on break or something, I just could not get the creativity flowing for this one.  I could not think of anywhere I could go to shoot anything interesting from above.

Today the weather was beautiful, I finished my book (I highly recommend 11/22/63 by Stephen King it is a lengthy tome but he keeps you into it and keeps you guessing) so I grabbed the camera put on the 10.5 mm 2.8 fish-eye and headed outside to see what i could come up with.  The fish-eye always seems to help me find my groove.  (Wende is not a fan of the fish-eye, but that is not the reason i like it.)

While shooting Smokey I realized I really didn't have to be extremely high to shoot something from above, and the fish-eye exaggerates the height even more.  I climbed up on Zoee's play-set, gazed through the view finder to see what i could find, not much ugh what now.

Yep you got it time to call for my underpaid model.  Zoee come out and swing for a little while you have seen Ratatouille like a hundred times it is too pretty to be inside. (And I need you so I can get this days photograph done.)  Keep swinging Zoee as I move from perch to perch shooting away.  (It was a challenge balancing on those plastic climbing rock holds and holding a camera)  I didn't fall and I got some decent shots.

I came in and was ready to edit them, but I didn't bring my computer home from the office and my laptop at home is just enough to surf. Zoee's computer has the brains and speed to do it but it is kinda fruity and iPhoto just doesn't do what I had in mind.  Ugh what to do,  well I broke down and downloaded a trial of Lightroom for mac so I could do a little work when I didn't bring a real computer home. (Don't get mad Apple folk I love my iPhone but just cannot seem to get used to a Mac I love My PC and Windows.)

Well enough blabbery here is Zoee just a swingin'.

Next up Day 15: Water

Day 13: A Building

Day 13: Your FAvorite Building

As the artist behind the camera, and every English teachers worst nightmare doing the blogging, I feel a need to take a few liberties with the assignment.  Today i did that and removed some annoying letters and made "Your Favorite Building" into "A Building",  I could have taken it further and made it "A window in a Building" but that would just be manipulating the assignment too much to fit my subject.

Living in the architectural wonderland of Seminole i had such a plethora (Who ever said you couldn't learn anything from "The Three Amigos" movie) of amazing buildings to take a photo of, that I just couldn't decide which one would get the honor of becoming the star of my blog today.  If i were somewhere else say College Station I would most likely venture to the Dixie Chicken and take a few shots there. (Pictures come on guys, everyone knows you have to go to the Dry Bean Saloon for a shot.)  If I were in New York I would try to find a place to capture the Art Deco beauty of the Chrysler Building, but I am not so you gets what ya's gets.  My favorite all time building is any building where my girls are. (WOW that is sappy enough to make a years worth of syrup from, but true.)

I snapped this one on Thanksgiving day while I was out taking a few others and enjoying the outside and stretching out the gut so I could go back for round two on the turkey later.  This is just a window in an old adobe house on the farm in Hobbs, I liked the weathered look of it and I enhanced it in Lightroom for a more rugged look.

Come back for Day 14: Looking Down From Something

Day 12: An Animal

I really want to post the photo of the burrowing owl I took a couple months ago. (Getting fancy aren't I, making words click-able to take you somewhere else.)  But it really wouldn't be much of a challenge and educational experience if i just regurgitated photos i had already taken.  So alas another picture i shall take.

But what Smokey Zoee's dog, Tiger Zoee's cat or Thunder Zoee's rabbit.  Dog is too hyper, cat skiddish unless you are Zoee, rabbit has gotten a little wild and it is a rabbit so it is fast and I am not! Zoee's menagerie is out.  Just saw on TV that barbers were prohibited from practicing surgery in 1745 now if they will just ban Doctors from giving haircuts.  Back on topic I shot the owl today (No not like that don't call the game warden) but he was too far away and the light wasn't right and no dice on replicating my lucky shot of that little guy.  I think my little ground squirrel buddy has gone south for the winter or whatever those little guys do.

You guessed it I took the easy way out and too a pic of a cow.  I made it a little different at least it isn't your everyday cow chewing her cud looking looking at the camera.  I was headed home after a day of trying to stay awake at the office (not much going on this time of year being able to stay awake all day is a major accomplishment) and i saw the sunset and the heard munching away and headed to the waterin' hole. So i said to myself "Self why don't you get a nice sunset silhouette of a cow for your animal assignment." Here it is Day 12: An Animal.

 

Come back tomorrow or the next day or whenever i get to day 13 for Day 13: Your Favorite Building.