For Christmas this year, we decided to take a small trip instead of exchanging gifts. Over the Christmas Holiday, we went on a Local Safari about 100 miles southwest, at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose, TX.
It was well worth the 3 hour, 9 mile drive through the 1800 acre park. We saw lots of deer like horned animals, an Ostrich, a Sandhill Crane, and Emu. The Rhino’s, Cheetahs, and Giraffes were contained in protected fencing. The center said there were Zebras out there as well, but we didn’t see any.
They have several different tours of the center. The behind the scenes tour was on my list, but Mother nature decided it was a good day for 35 degrees and misting rain. With a 93 year old in the car we decided the self guided drive through would be best.
I did find it a little more difficult taking photos from inside the car than I originally thought, especially with my long zoom. Here are some of the better shots.
Scimitar-Horned OryxThis guy came right up to the car and stuck his head in!Sandhill CraneSandhill CraneBlackbuck
Fallow Deer
Look close and you can see Adolf’s JeepIt was too cold for these guys to be roaming
European Red DeerAoudad Cheetah
White Tail
White RhinoDo you have any food left?Wildebeest and calf below
It was a fun trip. Many of these animals will come eat right out of your hand.
I am considering a photography workshop tour later in the year the center puts on. Some lens manufacturers send Professional photographers and lenses to try.
At the first of the year, I purchased a new lens from a guy on Craig’s List. I wanted to shoot the Dallas skyline with this new lens and Juanita was with some of her friends so I decided to go to Dallas.
Driving around the Margaret Hunt-Hill bridge, I found a wall of “Art” and thought I was in some place I shouldn’t be. I didn’t hang around too long.
It turns out these buildings are owned by the City of Dallas and designated as a Graffiti Wall called the “Fabrication Yard”. There are some very good artists that come here to express their feelings with spray paint.
This is an ever changing art display. As you can see from the first few photos above, the content has changed. I spoke to a gentleman that was there letting his speakers air out and he said “come back next week and you’ll see something different”.
This time we went inside to see more.
This is another building where one of my friends practices with his rock band.
The above is from February. Below are the same buildings in November.
I have shot a few trains as well, but will add them to a different blog at some point.
Our next adventure is Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. We decided to take a trip this year for Christmas instead of exchanging gifts. Even though it’s only an overnight stay, I can’t wait!
I have been thinking about doing this for a while now especially since I rented the Canon Macro lens a few weeks ago.
This type of photography is a little harder than you would think. I need a REAL white background instead of poster board. I used cheap reflectors and garage lamps with LED, and curly CFL bulbs for lighting. Sometimes I used flash as a fill and flood. The problem is too many shadows. Some turned out nice and I may print a few.
These are from our flower beds.
I bought a single yellow rose to play with as well
Juanita got these in a vase for Halloween with a little scare crow. They are about on their last leg but make a pretty good photo.
A neighbor has these Mexican Sunflowers in her flower beds at an apartment down the street. Yes, I asked before I cut them.
While we were in Kansas, getting ready to shoot The Great American Eclipse of 2017, I decided to try shooting the Milky Way and some other stars. The sky was a little overcast and not knowing where the heck I am, I stopped on a hill after driving a mile or so down a dirt road about 10 miles west of Salina, Kansas.
When I first got there, the sun had just gone down and it was not quite dark yet.
If you look close, this is the Big Dipper just after Dusk
It’s hard to see but a little better picture of the Big Dipper and an Airplane, top rightI had some visitors as well. They are not really ghost cows
I have photographed the moon before, but this was my first chance to be away from the light pollution of the city. Well, almost. Turns out there was a little town a few miles over the next hill.
Still not quite dark enoughMilky WayYou can see a small plane right in front of the Milky WayYou can make out part of the Milky Way
I’ll try again at some point if I can get far enough away from lights. Maybe McDonald Observatory in West Texas. Hmmm…. Can you say our next adventure?
August 19, 2017 We made the trip to Salina, Kansas. Salina had the closest available hotel I could find on the web. I will say in the 575 miles we drove to get to Fairmont, there is not much to see besides the great farmers and land across America. We got up early Monday morning for the rest of the two hour drive to Fairmont, Nebraska for the 2017 Great American Solar Eclipse to be in the path of Totality.
The eclipse was an AWESOME site to see and recommend anyone to make the, for some, once in a lifetime adventure as we did at some point in your life.
I took several practice shots here in Plano with my new (to me) Canon 100-400 lens as well as my trusty Tamron 70-300. I purchased a universal solar filter online. We had mostly bright sunny days except for one to test.
I have wanted a longer lens and found one on Craig’s List for a good price in really good condition. It made the pictures better and bigger. If you click on the picture on the lower left, you can see sunspots.
Fairmont Nebraska, population 560 easily quadrupled in size the day of the eclipse. They did things right by adding rides, multiple designated viewing sites and extras. The Volunteer Fire Department was great at everything from answering questions, directing traffic and cooking burgers.
Everyone was ready to have 2 minutes and 36 seconds of a good time. The whole eclipse lasts about 4 hours start to finish. We met some really great people as well.
I need a lens like this!
We took Juanita’s Mother as well. She reminisced about the 40’s when they came to Nebraska to harvest crops.
The set up was a little tricky because of the overcast sky’s. I could not locate the sun in my viewfinder, But finally a little break.
Then as the day progressed, a little more break in the clouds!
I was getting a little nervous having driven all that way to see a cloudy day, but then God said, here is a little hole in the clouds, See what I can do?
You can see a little sunspot towards the bottom left of the sun.
It happened on mostly clear sky, very few high clouds, but completely visible.
This is the Diamond Ring
Completely awesome! You only have less than 7 seconds to capture the diamond ring on either side of the eclipse. I got really close, but missed the other one. This was the craziest thing I have ever attempted to photograph, and NO do-overs!
Totality a few seconds after the Diamond RingTotal Eclipse last 2:36I even got a little sun flare when cropped way in!
2 minutes 36 seconds later, it was almost over and the clouds moved back in.
Note the little half sun circles!
Eclipses happen about once ever 18 months or so. The next U.S. eclipse will be a lot closer to home in April 8th, 2024 and will almost go directly over our house. After that it will be in places I’ll likely never see.
And now the 10.5 hour drive back to Plano! Thanks to the Sheriffs department, traffic moved really well.
I have more pictures from the trip but still editing. I attempted for the first time to photograph the Milky Way while we were away from the city light pollution!
I have been shooting birds and bees just about everywhere we go. Most of these are shot in a setup I have in our backyard. I found a Crepe Myrtle someone cut down and hung several types of feeders with different seeds and suet. When the squirrels are not eating, I can get some pretty good shots of various birds from under our pergola.
Most of these are from around the house and creek behind our house. Some were taken near the Pawhuska, Oklahoma, home of the Pioneer Woman Mercantile.
Last weekend Juanita and I decided to make a quick trip to East Texas to a Blueberry farm in Quitman Texas. It’s just a mere 2 hours away and off we go.
I picked my half gallon of blueberries, and grabbed my camera. There were cardinals flying all over the place, but as luck would have it, every time I would hear one, it would be behind me. I stopped for a while and waited but never got a male cardinal or the yellow birds that were too quick for me.
I have decided I may not be fast enough to capture birds! Here are a few of the better shots.
Female CardinalDowny WoodpeckerJust missed this one but here it is anyway.
In the early years of my photographic journey, I had a film camera that only shot black and white. In my photography classes at High School, we had black and white film cameras as well. I was a lot less expensive to develop. I always wanted a color camera and when I finally got one, the decision of which film to buy, ISO 100, 200, 400, Slide, Kodak, Fiji, etc, etc. I thought of black and white but never purchased any film. Color was cool!
Now in the digital world I can convert any picture to black and white and they look really good. Most every picture I work on in post production, I will at least convert to B&W then back to color.
Some of the pictures here were taken several years ago.
I love being outside in the first place, and have always had a fascination with bird photography. I don’t have the $7000.00 camera and lens that will shoot 10 frames per second from 100 yards away, but mine does pretty good on a very limited budget. Since our trip to Corpus Christi a few weeks ago, my fascination with Birds has grown even more. Of course Coastal birding is completely different than North Texas birding. At some point I want to take a trip to Weslaco, TX to the World Birding Center and Bosque Nature Preserve in Albuquerque, NM. Of course these are not day trips from Plano. So for now I’ll stay in the back yard and surrounding areas of North Texas.
We have all kinds of birds in the park behind our house. It seems I never have my camera when I see something unique like a little finch or a crow.
This Red Tail Hawk was almost out of my range.
M R Ducks, C M Wangs! – Here are a few with babies in a row.
This Robin was taking a bath.
We have a nest of Mockingbirds in our Magnolia tree in the back yard. Mama and Daddy don’t like us getting too close to the nest and now babies!
When we were at Daniels house, there were some House Swallows in a nest under his front porch. These are curious(to me anyway) little birds. They build nests under porch overhangs and culverts along the roads out of mud and twigs.
Last weekend I went looking for the baby ducks again and much to my surprise I found some bucket list birds, Eastern Screech Owls. There were actually 5 or 6 nesting in a tree down by the creek.
I’m in the process of building a bird feeding station in hopes of getting really good shots of some other birds. I also purchased a camouflage changing tent so I can be a little closer to the station. We’ll see!
There will be more to come but for now, I’ll keep my eyes and ears open,
Elgin, Texas April 28-30, 2017 – pronounced Elg-In.
We took Juanita’s Mom, Chana, to see her eldest son, Daniel, for her 93rd birthday. He lives in a very small town named McDade, about 35 miles east of Austin. Elgin is about 24 miles from Austin. It is a small town of 8100 people or so. Downtown is filled with historical old buildings that have now been renovated into Antique stores and shops. The rest of the town is like most other small towns across Texas. There are some really pretty places and some that should be condemned.
Here are a few shots of both places.
Downtown McDade
Daniel, Chana, Juanita, and AdolfoAn uninvited visitor at Daniel’s house!
The train was a building block of most old towns. Of course next to the tracks was the Grain elevator. I think the grain may get wet.
A retired old blacksmith shop. I really wanted to go inside this place!
This is Sacred Heart Catholic Church. We listened to a very nice homily from Fr. Charles Van Winkle. He has published 3 books and can be found at his website.
