Behind the Digital LensMusings of an Amateur Photographer

15th Jul, 2012 Sunset after the storm

Late yesterday afternoon I took the dogs out to do their thing.  It was sunny; hardly a breeze; a few big towering white clouds; pleasant temperature, for Dallas in July.  So, I let Bentley in and then grabbed up Bailey and sat on the steps cradling her and rubbing her belly.  She must have enjoyed that because she closed her eyes and had a contented look on her beautiful little fuzzy face.  I must have sat there enjoying the time with her for about fifteen minutes before heading back inside.

After getting something to drink I sat down at my laptop to read some posts in a forum and it suddenly got dark in here.  Now, I only have two windows and they’re both on the same side of this dwelling, and they face the sunset, so when the sun goes down or goes away, it gets dark in here quickly.  I turned around to look out the window at the top of the door and I could see tree limbs and leaves blowing around like crazy and it was DARK.  Somehow the sun ran away and a storm moved in.  So, I grabbed my little camera [Nikon Coolpix S220] and went back out to the porch to watch the storm clouds pass by. I saw one bolt of lightning, and a “sheet” of rain pass by several miles away.  I watched leaves blow off tree limbs and float

Sunset after the storm.

But, I did take a few photos, just to see what would come out.  I had the camera settings on Auto Scene and just snapped a few photos of the clouds through the trees.  Came out pretty cool, I think.  The camera caught lighting I wasn’t able to see.  With the storm moving out and the sun going down, there was a nice yellow lighting on the clouds.  It’s neat when you get a photo you weren’t expecting.  I’m glad I decided to head outside and enjoy the effects of the storm.  It was worth it.

7th Nov, 2011 Cold Front

It was a dark and windy night, the wind whistling through the trees, stripping them of the few leaves left clinging after the summer drought; a haunting and eerie night with temperatures falling from an Indian Summer 78 to a dead of night 35.  The moon, in its waxing glory, dances quietly behind swiftly fleeing clouds.  Autumn has descended with great fanfare, late though it has been, but welcome nonetheless.

[Written November 2nd]

31st Jul, 2011 Into the desert – Summer 2011

It’s hot.  Actually, it’s scorching hot.  Thirty days in a row of temps 100 degrees or more and it is just July 31st.  Six more weeks of Summer and this coming week our temps are heading toward the 110 degree mark.  To add to the misery, we’ve had no appreciable rain since May.

Texas is in an extreme drought situation.  Our ground is so parched it is visibly cracked.  Fires have been rampant across the state, burning thousands of acres of grasslands and forests as well as homes.  Cattle are dying for lack of feed and water and many of the rest have had to be sold.  Rivers, lakes, and ponds are drying up and the States’ water table is declining.  I heard on the news a few days ago that the way the drought is going Texas could soon become the world’s 7th largest desert.  That is quite easy to believe.

I don’t “do” heat well.  For me, that means that taking photos right now has been very hard.  Other photographers may do okay with heat, but I just can’t spend much time outside, especially in th esun, attempting to get decent photos of, well, anything really.  Even standing in the shade to take photos is not comfortable.  The best I have been able to do this summer is take lots of photos of the dogs and sunflowers.  The dogs, who usually enjoy spending time outdoors, now just want to go out, do their business, and come back in.  I don’t blame them.

And so, until this heat pattern breaks I am bound to be frustrated without my one creative outlet.  Pray for rain, pray for cooler temperatures.

14th Feb, 2010 Snow snow snow!

Well, we got our snow last week, and a heck of a lot of snow for here it was!  We got 12.5″ of snow on Thursday, shattering an old record of 7.8″ for that date.  It started earlier than they thought; it was supposed to rain during the night and then turn to snow by noon, but instead, it started snowing around 5:00 AM and continued snowing until about midnight.

It wasn’t so hard driving around on Thursday because the snow wasn’t sticking so much on the road although it was accumulating on the ground.  Cars and trucks were playing it safe, though, and were driving slowly.  A few cars ended up sliding off the road, but mostly because they hit large patches of slush.

I have to say, it was pretty.  the snow sticking to the trees, bushes, and fences.  It was a perfect photo opportunity for those of us that don’t get much snow where we live.  I did grab up my camera and take photos, once again, mostly out of the kitchen window of the back yard.

Friday morning’s commute to the VA Hospital was a bit more trecherous, mostly because I had a hard time getting us out of our subdivision.  Thursday evening I parked the car on the street because I knew I couldn’t get it up the driveway.  A few brave souls had traveled our street, giving me a track I could follow once I got away from the curb, and that made it relatively easy to get out of the subdivision.  And after I got out, it was easy because the main streets and highways were fairly clear.  Had to watch for black ice, though, but it was warm enough that there wasn’t that much of it.  Already the snow was beginning to melt, but it still gave me time to take more photos.

Driving around our little town, I was very surprised to see all the trees that had been damaged by the heavy snow.  Nearly every tree in the Target parking lot had broken branches and limbs.  Around town there were a few awnings that had come down, and in the neighboring town a major auto paint and body shop’s roof collapsed and part of the building caved in.  It’s sad because they just did a major overhaul of their building.

And so, the great snowstorm of 2010 has passed leaving us cold and wet but with respect for Mother Nature and memories of the record snowfall.

8th Feb, 2010 Winter

When I was a kid I loved winter, and I grew up in a “snow” state. Because of family circumstance, I did have to help with the shoveling, but for most of those winters we had a snow blower, so it was more snow blowing than shoveling, although I did have to shovel to break up ice. But, even still, I loved winter. The snow, the cold, the icicles hanging from the eves and trees – all held a beauty of their own.

Sadly, though, I had not yet discovered the joys of photography; from those years of living in Iowa I have no “record” of the beautiful winters that I experienced.

And now, I live in Texas and our winters are of rain and mud and cold winds that penetrate to the core. The trees are bare of their foliage leaving them looking like forlorn skeletons begging to be embraced by Spring and Summer. Only the evergreens seem to welcome the cold and rain.

This year we are experiencing an El Nino winter, which means we’re having a lot of much needed rain, along with a lot of cold. In recent years we’ve seen a few rainy days and cold snaps, but this year our temps have barely made it in to the 60’s and we’ve seen rain nearly every week, sometimes for days on end; our lakes and water reserves have been refilled.

It’s hard, though, with all of the rain and cold, to grab up a camera and head out and shoot photos, not that there are a lot of “subjects” around this area to photograph. This year in particular I just don’t have the desire to venture out in the cold, maybe because it is so wet and penetrating unlike years’ past and my arthritis is finally reacting to all of the cold. That leaves me with few things to photography, and those few things are my dogs and the birds at the feeders, and most of the bird photos are taken from the warmth and dryness of the kitchen.

I am so looking forward to our trip to Florida next week so that I can find some warmth and “new” things to photograph. I left Florida in 1996, well before the age of affordable digital cameras and when I moved to Texas I couldn’t really afford film and processing. The age of digital photography opened up a new world for me and my brief return to Florida for vacation will give me the opportunity to explore places I enjoy there in a new way – from behind the digital lens.