The purple of his flower is very dark, so this doesn’t “pop” as dramatically as other examples, but I love the subty.

This one was fun to do, since there was so much color all around here and in her bouquet.  (No colors were added to this, they are all original!)

This last one was a quick shot of the ladybug that visited the bride on her wedding day.  Nikki’s own good luck charm!

This image put a little smile on my face, so I thought I’d share!  Hope you enjoy!

There’s a tiny little park off of 360 that I’ve seen several times, always making a mental note to stop there one day.  I finally did.  It’s a wonderful little spot, the river has been carving a path through the rock for thousand of years here.

One of my favorite things about Austin is that there’s always another little surprise, you just have to keep your eyes open!

  I really enjoy the challenge that photographing water presents.  You really never know exactly what your end result will be, since your subject is constantly changing.  It’s a lot of fun, and I was very happy with the results!

From my office building, I have an amazing view of downtown and the river.  After seeing this day after day, one tends to get tempered to its beauty.

So nature makes a point of reminding me now and again to keep my eyes open.  One morning recently, the colors of the nearly rising sun and the lights made me stop and take some pictures.

Then last week, the view of the skyline was temporary replaced by a vision of clouds that one would only expect high atop a mountain peak.  Austin is truly a beautiful city!

I found a fun stitching program and threw together a panoramic view of Austin in the clouds.  (Still working the bugs out of the stitching program!)

This fellow put on a bit of a show for me, or perhaps I was too close to the recently deceased rabbit/racoon/coyote/et al.

It’s amazing something this big actually gets airborne, and simply floats on the thermals.  They are fun to watch – from a distance. 

Christmas came early this year!  My uncle sent me several of his old filters for my camera.  Now, I’ll be experimenting with what works best with which light and subject.

I played with them a little this morning.  The pink and yellow hibiscus above were shot with a blue filter.  The yellow one below was shot with no filter.  The lighting did change a bit, which forced me to change my perspective to avoid throwing heavy shadows on the bloom.  I love the shades that it brings out in the pink, and gives the yellow a soft look to it, but I d0 find some of the “pop” of the colors in the shot below to be missing with the filter. I have more to learn so your thoughts and/or comments are welcome!!

I’m still learning, but I do love to take shots of the moon.   I”ve been working on learning the manual lens, which some slow progress but I am getting some interesting results.  The shot above was the phase Waxing Gibbous with light clouds drifting across the face of the moon.   I played with the lens for a bit to dull the focus and really liked the result.

The shot below was a full moon with a more sharpened focus, it let me catch  a crisper view of the details of the face of the moon are visable.

The moon is a greatsubject, but it is amazing how quickly it rises.  After just a few minutes, I’ve lost my shot, framing or lighting.  The picture below was during a very humid night during a full moon.  The wispy detail was simply moisture forming on my lens, I couldn’t seem to get it to clear off, but it turned out to be one of my favorites!

It’s amazing to me that the closer you get to something, the more beauty you can find it in….typically.  Sometimes, you get to close and end up with an image burned into your mind that tends to pop up again as you are about to fall to sleep.

obviously, this guy was only a couple of inches long, but with a macro shot, he looks like something out of sci-fi.  I managed to stay brave enough for  a couple of good shots.  He did do a rather intimidating swaying as I was doing this, most likely trying to find the quickest route to take out one of my eyes.

I am happy to report, we both managed to make it out of this encounter alive.

 Oh yea, by the way…..sweet dreams!

One of  my favorite views on Kauai.  It’s not as sharp here, for one reason or another.  The original was actually taken with a disposable camera.  I was pretty impressed with the outcome!  This is the further point on the island that one can walk, without climbing over the cliffs or taking a boat to the next shore over.

It is a beautiful island – breathtaking actually.  No words or photographs capture how amazing this place is!  We still miss it all the time.  I strong suggest that if you haven’t visited, to go.  The people are very friendly and cheerful,  and always take care of their slice of heaven.  The hard work is evident.

The air is sweet and clean, the flowers are like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  Plants that I try to grow at home have leaves the size of small cars on this island.  The fertile earth is a beautiful red, which stains the sand a lovely pink.  Every turn on this little island offers another beautiful surprise from Mother Nature!