Photography – Page 10

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

By Don on Tuesday, November 11, 2008

I was shooting some pics of Abby in the light from the living room window when she picked up these black shoes and worked real hard at putting them on. She got finished and looked down at them and I asked her, “How do they look?” She said, “They look wrong.” I replied, “That’s because they’re on the wrong feet.” So she took them off and ran into the other room to see what her mom was doing.

I can’t get her to ham it up for the camera. This is the look she generally gives me when she notices I’m taking pictures.

Another Wasted Saturday

By Don on Sunday, November 9, 2008

I set out Saturday for the third weekend in a row looking for some fabulous fall foliage. I failed. In the hope that the leaves down south were still in peak form, I headed down to the Cossatot Falls State Park. As I headed down I-540, I could see the leaves in Northwest Arkansas were about done. I was hoping the foliage would get better the farther south I traveled on Highway 71. I was disappointed. Plus, the area I went to might not be the best for fall color anyway. The area is mostly timber company land planted in pine trees. The little swirly parts in the photo become raging whitewater holes when the river comes blasting through after heavy rains. The river is typically low in the fall. On Saturday, you could have easily waded across without a problem. Cossatot is supposedly an Indian word that means skull crusher. They say this is the most challenging whitewater in Arkansas.

Arkansas Buffalo National River Hiking Landscape Photography

Fallen Fall

By Don on Tuesday, November 4, 2008

We had planned to go for a drive in the Buffalo River area Sunday to see the leaves, but Abby got sick and Gina felt a 103 degree fever was not conducive to viewing fall foliage. Gina cut me loose for the afternoon and I headed out by myself.

I drove to Ponca and bought a map of the hiking trails in the western part of the national river park. Parking at the Ponca access to the river, I took off east on the Old River Road Trail, which I had never been on before. The scenery in he Buffalo River bottom is always nice, but the fall foliage seemed to be past peak down there. I bet the trees along the river in the top photo were afire in red and yellow a week ago. That would have made a better picture, of course.

Arkansas fall foliage Hiking Kings River Landscape Photography Photoshop sunrise

Kings River Sunrise

By Don on Saturday, November 1, 2008

A couple months ago when I went to check out Eagles Nest Falls in the Madison County Wildlife Management Area I found this magnificent view of the Kings River valley. I made a mental note to try to get back there to see the fall foliage at sunrise. I figured this Saturday would be perfect because the switch back to standard time on Sunday would make sunrise come earlier and make it less likely I would be able to get there early enough. (I realize that sunrise happens when it happens and we humans are the ones who put a time to it. But these are mental gymnastics I used to convince myself that rising at 5 a.m. was a good idea.) My dad was in town and he’s always up way too early and he enjoys a good hike, so he was game to go along with my idea.

Abby Adventures in Strobistry Family Fun Halloween Photography

All Hallows Eve

By Don on Thursday, October 30, 2008

What with it being Halloween and all, we embarked on some punkin’ carvin’. Abby helped scoop out the innards.

Abby Adventures in Strobistry Photography

Abby Wednesday

By Don on Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Abby was looking pretty cute right after her bath today, so I dragged out my Strobist gear to try some on-axis fill flash. I set up my 45 inch Westcott reflective silver umbrella with the SB-26 on 1/2 power and for the on-axis fill used my SB-400 covered with a plastic Country Time Lemonade container over it as a diffuser. (The lemonade now resides in a Zip-Loc bag in a kitchen cabinet.) The point is to throw some light to soften the shadows created by the main light. Now, David Hobby uses a ring light as his on-axis flash. I don’t have a ring light. I’m not even sure I know what a ring light is. I had to make do with my DIY rig.

Kansas Landscape Photography star trails

Hay, Look At Those Stars

By Don on Sunday, October 26, 2008

Since I was at my parents’ house in the middle of nowhere Kansas this weekend, I thought it prudent to try a star trails shot with the new camera. Star trails by themselves are pretty cool, but it’s the foreground that usually makes such shots really cool. The best thing I could find nearby were some hay bales.

Though I was really pretty far out in the country, the house has a big street light in the yard and there’s a church about 300 yards from the house with its own big street light. In addition, the small town of Parsons is about five miles away. It was actually hard to find a suitably dark piece of sky without a big street light in the way. Straight up was nice with a ton of stars, but I couldn’t get anything in the foreground with the camera pointed straight up.

What I ended up with was the hay bales with the lights of town behind them and the big light from the church shining on their fronts. That’s why they are that green color. I guess the light was florescent or sodium vapor or something. I shot on daylight white balance in raw and I tweaked it a little in CS3. Exposure was f/10 for about 30 minutes.

Abby Family Fun Little Rock Zoo Photography

Zootastic

By Don on Tuesday, October 21, 2008

To round out our family weekend in Little Rock, we went to the zoo on Sunday. I’m not a big fan of zoos. I’m not generally a big believer in animal rights or that animals should be treated the same as people. Zoos just seem to be against the natural order of things. Take this chimp for instance. He’s got about a half acre of brambles and general Arkansas underbrush in which to roam and that telephone-pole jungle gym apparatus to swing on. Zoo workers throw a bunch of bananas out for him to eat each day on a concrete slab. Pretty boring compared to a real jungle. He probably sits up there every day staring over the fence wondering what the jungle south of I-630 is like. I’d rather watch a TV show about chimps filmed in the Congo than watch this poor guy sitting atop a recycled power pole.

Abby Arkansas State Fair Family Fun Photography

State Fair!

By Don on Tuesday, October 21, 2008

We worked in a road trip to Little Rock over the weekend and hit the Arkansas State Fair on its last night. Gina rode the merry-go-round with Abby and Brayden, who is the son of our good friend Jim. Jim is also known as Tater for his well-publicized love of, well, taters. Abby laughed maniacally as she went round and round. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a very good shot of them as they came around. The thing was going about a hundred miles an hour and the horses jumping up and down like they do.

Abby Bikes Blues & BBQ Family Fun Photography

Wild Weekend

By Don on Sunday, September 28, 2008

A woodchuck or groundhog, if you prefer, has moved in under the shed. He comes out into the yard often, but he’s very shy. The slightest movement or noise sends him dashing back to his hole. He dug under the fence so now he’s roaming the neighbor’s yard, too. I don’t know what to. I’m thinking that if he decides to hibernate under the shed we can hold our own Groundhog Day ceremony in February. We’ll just have to find someone willing to crawl under the shed and force the animal out to check for the shadow.