It started sleeting/snowing about dark on Christmas Day. Once it got deep enough on the driveway I forced Abby to make a snow angel so I could get a photo.
We thought the fall colors were pretty magnificent up in the Buffalo River country two weeks earlier, but by the first weekend in November, the Ouachita Mountains were putting on a crazy color show. We visited one of our favorite spots, Flatside Pinnacle, a mountain peak in the Flatside Wilderness, which is about an hour west of our house. It’s a very popular place for central Arkansas photographers. It’s a good spot for family outings because the trail to the top is pretty short and easy and the view is pretty spectacular. Abby is starting to show a fondness for rambling around these steep places. She gets that from me, I guess. It makes Gina really nervous. Thunderstorms boomed over Little Rock while we had mostly clear skies overhead. It made for a dramatic photo.
Then I turned around and caught a pretty dramatic sunset.
Every fall I intend to go out and shoot some epic fall foliage and every year I seem to miss the great color. So the third week in October we planned to take Daisy up in the Ozarks and do the classic-fall-foliage-gawking thing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find an RV park with hookups that had any vacancies for that weekend. We had to settle for a hotel room in Harrison.
I went out to Knoop Park to try and get some pics of the highly touted super moon. I was half expecting to be disappointed, but the moon was pretty spectacular rising over the modest Little Rock skyline. I got a couple so-so photos of it.
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.
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.
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.
This copse stands right along the path where I do my running in Two Rivers Park. It’s always pretty with the late afternoon sun and for three years I’ve been meaning to go out and shoot a photo. I finally got around to it over the weekend.
It’s Abby Monday. She’s about to lose a top tooth and starting to look a little snaggley, kinda like Jewel.