GEARS AND A WHEEL

A walk across the top of Overholser Dam one will find straight rows of gears that were once hand operated.

Opening and shutting the flood gates were their function. Although I did not count them, there were many to be opened when the flood waters arrived from the rain swollen North Canadian River.

I sure hope the workers had more than one wheel because that was a lot of 'DAM' gates to open!

The tree

The large Banyon tree on Magic Island is the perfect place to relax in the shade on a warm Hawaiian afternoon.

Well????

OK, so it wasn't a UFO. I was going to title the photo "Look Ma, No tripod!".

The photo was taken of a cruise ship sitting just off the Lahaina Harbor on Maui. I took the photo with a Sony point and shoot from the lanai of my room one night after we had returned from having dinner. I knew better than to even try but I did it anyway. The camera has a 10x zoom on it and I had it zoomed all the way out and I cropped these photos by about two-thirds. As you can guess, this picture and the one I posted yesterday were taken hand held and after a day of being a tourist and having a cocktail (or two).

Q got me to thinking about Hawaii again (like I ever stop) when he posted the photos of the paddle surfers. This got me looking at my old Hawaii photos to see what I had that I could post that wouldn't bore everybody. This last one was also taken from the lanai of our room but during the day (and hand held with the same point and shoot). This was about 7:30 a.m. and there were already people sitting in the lounge chairs waiting to get those bronze bodies.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand the concept of traveling thousands of miles to a tropical paradise to sit by a pool.

Cold and clear... Burrr

Port Hardy Coast Guard Station

Have the Arctic outflow winds happening in this part of the world just now! Beautiful photography weather but too cold to stay out of the truck for very long... Why can't it just be summer again for a few days at least! LOL

Is it a UFO??

OK, I promise I will get out and take some photos soon. But until then, I was bored and playing with the old photos again and thought I could make this one interesting.

So how'd I do?

SHINED RAILS

No rust on these tracks! Several Freight Trains a day assure a highly polished finish to the steel on these rails.

Playing with fire

Don't ask me why but a couple of years ago when I was burning brush in my yard I felt compelled to take some pictures. I wasn't sure what I would get but I was going to try anyway. I did get a lot of orange and yellow!

PRIZED CATTLE

The Texas Longhorn was brought into the Wildlife Refuge in 1927. Gathered for their pure blood from South Texas and Northern Mexico the descendents of these original animals thrive in their surroundings. It is the responsibility of this Guy, along with many other Herd Bulls, to make sure the herd thrives.

Nice specimen of a mama cow with her horns beginning to form the natural twist as they grow. All Longhorns are branded with the WR on their left shoulder.

These little bull calves will be evaluated for symmetry, conformity, color and need to see if they will be the next sires for the WR Brand, or whether they will go to work for another rancher. The Wildlife Refuge maintains a healthy herd by selective breeding and carrying capacity of the land. Surplus animals bring a premiun price at an annual sale held in the fall of each year. The bloodlines of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge herd are a desired quality among Longhorn Breeders nationwide!

Duck, duck, duck, duck... Goose!

Many years ago in Coal Harbour one of the locals kept some domesticated Canadian Geese. Because the weather here is so mild these geese never bothered to fly South for the winter.
More recently another type of goose the Brant a much smaller Russian goose has decided to winter here also. Though these two groups of geese usually ignore each other this picture is evidence that this hasn't always been the case. Note the Brant with Canadian Goose markings.

To bee or not to bee?

From two years ago in our orchard. Shot with the D80.

Downtown Quatsino

Took this picture a few days ago just as I pulled away from the Government Wharf in Quatsino. This is the water access only comunity that I deliver vehicles and building materials to with my landing craft on a regular basis.

What the flock?

Another one from the files. I took this about a year ago I think. I kept trying to sneak up on the birds to get closer and they kept flying away. After stalking them for about a quarter of a mile I started thinking the birds were up to something, trying to draw me in so they could peck me to death once I got far enough away from the car! LOL

Oct. Festival.

These pictures are from Oct. Festival about 3 years, and these are the first photos from my D3 camera. The ISO on the first two picture were on 1600, and the bottom picuture sets at 800. I felt in love with this camera right the way, after I saw the noise level on these pictures. So therefore, if you have decided to upgrade your camera, this is the one or D700.

Paddle Surfing

I'm like Ron digging out those old photos to post on this Blog. These ladies were doing morning exercise by paddle surfing on Hanalei Bay Beach. I don't see why not, because this beach is a #1 best beach in the America announced on the CNN couple years ago. Thanks alot, now I see hundreds of people swarmed the beach everytime I took my family there.

Unexpected snowfall...

I guess the snowfall was unexpected for me anyway... I pored my first cup of coffee for the day and looked out the kitchen window into the inky darkness and saw funny white things falling past the streetlight at the head of my driveway.

I've since come to find that everyone else pays attention to the weather forcast and nobody I talked to seemed surprised or even the least bit thrilled by the white stuff except my dog who tore around while I took a few pictures.

From the sidewalk.

When my wife and I came home from eating supper tonight we were greeted to a beautiful moon and almost clear sky. After getting her and the kids inside the house, I grabbed my camera and tripod (yes I said tripod) and went out to the sidewalk to see what I could capture. After shooting a few shots on auto, I figured what the heck and swiched it to manual. I tried alot of different settings to get my bearings and this is what I came up with. The top photo is a 20 second exposure and a apeture fo f4.5. The bottom photo is a bottom photo is a 30 second exposure and a aperture fo f4. I also used a 5 second timer to keep from disstorting the image. I did a little retouching to the photos but not very much.

Being flexible

Once again I have reached into the files of old megapixels to find something to post. This was taken in 2009 while I was working a job in St. Louis, MO.

Lake Tahoe

These pictures are from my first DSLR Nikon D70 with a kit lense 18-70mm f/3.5. I bought this camera about 6 years ago, and just couple hours before our flight to Reno. Due to lack of knowledge about DSLR, I spent 3 hours on the plane reading the manual. But, endup shooting in auto mode entire trip.

Also, I thought I'm going to pay for this camera by playing poker. But somehow I see myself at the ATM machine more than at the poker table. LOL.

Yard Art From Santa Fe

I just want you to see how people decorated their yard in Santa Fe vs. Medicine Park.

Digging through the files

This is a shot I took a few months back. I saturated the colors a little bit in Elements and added the frame.

Man, I need to get out and take some photos!

On the fly

I am still digging through my old photos since I haven't been out shooting any new ones. This one is from Sedona, AZ. As much as I know Q is going to chastize me for this, this photo was shot on the fly, one handed, while driving the car about 45 mph.

I don't remember why but for some reason I couldn't (or wouldn't) stop so I fell back on the old P.I. habits and stuck the camera out the window and started shooting. No tripod, no viewfinder just point and shoot. Sometimes you just get lucky!

From the top

Here's a couple of more from the desert just for Parker. This is Red Mountain in the background. I was VERY fascinated with this mountain and drawn to it everyday when I was out there but it is located on an Indian Reservation and they wouldn't let us hike out there. One of these days....

While at the top of a mountain for other reasons I took this shot looking east towards the Superstition Mountains. I was trying to get more color from the blooming cactus but I wasn't that succsessful. I was also very tired by the time I got to the top so I wasn't thinking straight! LOL

As a side note, the wife and I went to the "Big City" this weekend and while we were there I took the opportunity to do a little camera shopping. I didn't buy anything, not yet anyway, but I was looking at the Nikon D3 and D700. I haven't made up my mind yet but while looking at these two cameras I was made aware of a new Nikon lens I didn't know about.

The lens, a full frame 28-300mm came out last August but I hadn't heard anything about it. This is one really nice lens! It doesn't do much for the DX style cameras but if you are shooting full frame this may be the all in one lens you'll want. I know it's something I plan on getting when I go full frame. The reviews of the lens have been pretty good and although a lot of the lens is plastic, I was still impressed with how it handled and worked. So if you're planning on going full frame I would suggest you take a look at this lens.

He who has the stick...

What a life! Nothing to do but play...

Took these pictures last weekend at a favorite beach. Haven't had a chance to look through them until today. By the end of the day all three were dead to the world!

B+W CP filter.

I got this B+W filter, and other filters from Christmas present. I did not get a chance to test these filters out until last winter storm from last week. I took these shots from walking distance from my house. I'm very impressed how the filter handled the lighting when I shoot against the Sun like you see on the bottom picture. It was very cold day so I did not want to stay out long to setup my tripod. Therefore, the sharpness is not as good as I expected.

More from the Arizona files

It's amazing the things that you can learn in a short time being around the right people.

I've been going back and looking at some of my old photos, some that I thought were actually pretty good, and have figured out they weren't that good to begin with. I can quickly pick out several things that I should have done differently with the photos that would have made them so much better.

It's also nice to rework some of the old photos now that I have an idea of what I'm doing with some of the post processing programs. Even with that knowledge, there are still several photos I just can't "save". LOL

Jackson Hole Back Country On Fuji HS10 Camera.

I thought riding the horse for an hour is easy! It tooks all the muscles in your body to keep yourself on the back of the horse. After an hour of this ride, I could not even walk to my car. Now I'm really appreciated for those folks back in the 1800's on the horse back go across the country for months. By the way, the river you see in the first picture is the Snake river.