Abby’s school celebrated the first 100 days of school with a party. Each student had to get a shirt and glue 100 items to it and wear it to school. It was a perfect opportunity to fire up the ghetto studio and get a few pics of Abby wearing her creation.
Abby had her first spelling test and, as you can see, she aced it. We hope this is a good omen.
Due to some technical camera issues, my photos of the various family Christmas events didn’t turn out very well. (I think my all-around lens has some focus issues.) However, when we went to my parents’ place in Kansas, I was able to get out on Christmas Night and shoot this star trails photo. The elder Daileys live out in the country well away from any serious city lights so the nights are quite dark. This barn sits less than a half-mile from my parents’ house. I tried this shot unsuccessfully once before. This time the idea was to take about 20 consecutive exposures of 4 minutes and combine them all in Photoshop. During the first exposure I used my little SB600 flash to pop some light on the barn. I set the pop at half-power, which turned out to be way too weak. I should’ve popped at full power two times, at least. And I should’ve popped on the little shed and tree directly in front of the camera. I had to bring the exposure on the barn way up in Photoshop to get it to show at all. I guess I’ll be going back to this spot with a more elaborate plan.
So it’s the Christmas season and we made our annual trek to Motley’s Christmas Tree Farm and Seasonal Extravaganza. Abby always wants to ride the cow train until she actually gets seated in one of the cows.
Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. This one was pretty much like the last several. We cooked the turkey per Alton Brown’s instructions and it turned out great again. I didn’t produce much in the way of great photos. The actual meal was a little fragmented because we didn’t get the food on the table until just before the Hogs started playing. We served buffet style and so didn’t load down the table with bowls and serving dishes filled with feastables, which would have made the pictures better.
The fall foliage in Arkansas was spectacular this year. My efforts to get a great fall shot were marked by ineptitude. This was the best I came up with. This is the canyon through which Cedar Creek flows on Petit Jean Mountain.
Gramps had a big time with his Frankenstein mask.
Abby making her jack-o-lantern face.
I headed up to the Buffalo National River on Sunday to shoot some fall foliage. Gina elected to stay home and I couldn’t find anyone else who wanted to spend the day doing outdoorsy stuff with me. So I took off alone. The weather forecast earlier in the week called for cloudy with some rain maybe, which would be perfect for viewing and shooting the colorful leaves. It rained Saturday night and was still raining in Little Rock when I left the house at 6 a.m. but by the time I got to Conway the sky was clearing. When I hit Russellville the sky was clear and I knew that I was going to miss all the good light. By the time I got to the Buffalo, the sun was high and harsh. I had originally planned to do the Hawksbill Crag hike, but I bailed on that and decided to just climb to the top of Roark Bluff across from the Steele Creek campground. My photo suffers from the harsh light. You really need a cloudy day after a rain to really get the great colors that nature has painted across the bluff. This was the first time I’d hiked Roark Bluff. It’s dangerous up there. The photo-taking spot is on a little spit of rock that juts out from the main bluffline. It’s a sheer drop on either side. If you fall, you’re going to die.
On Saturday we caught part of the classic William Shatner movie “Kingdom Of The Spiders,” which features a horde of tarantulas devouring a town. On Sunday we went on a ramble and found a large tarantula sneaking across a parking lot just off of Arkansas 7 north of Hot Springs.
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