Category Archives: Quick Click

San Antonio River Walk

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I think the River Walk in San Antonio is pretty cool. Yes, it is touristy, and expensive, but it is pretty cool. I think a lot of cities would love to have as vibrant a downtown area as San Antonio. It’s a pretty walk. Trees, water, rocks, bricks, waterfalls, paths, grass, flowers, and pretty views. The river walk has it all.

We have stopped a couple of times now for margarita’s. It’s pretty nice to be sitting by the river in the shade of a tree sipping a margarita taking a few pictures and people watching.

Pedernales Falls State Park

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I just realized that for a post with a title of ‘Falls’, I don’t have a picture of the falls. Anyway, this was one of my better pictures for the day.

Anyway, we spent Wednesday afternoon/evening at Pedernales Falls State Park. It’s quite a pretty place, but when we first got there, the cloudless sky was making the dynamic range a problem. The water has carved all kinds of channels and pathways through the rock. The water was low enough that the upper sections of the rock in these channels was very light. The bottom and the water, was very dark. Too large a range for the camera sensor. I didn’t end up taking too many pictures of these channels. I took pictures of several other things.
Luckily the light was hitting this tree nicely just before it ducked below the horizon. Unfortunately, with no clouds, no sunset. Still, it was a fun day. I’ll have other pictures later.

Those Damn Bats

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We tried to see the bats under the Congress street bridge again today, but no such luck. No bats. Unpredictable nature. You would think that someone had trained them by now 🙂 So I bolted up the road to get a picture of the capital. There is a lot of light on this building, and the sky is just a little too dark. Couldn’t get a good balance. I was a little too late. Waited too long for the bats. Oh well.

We leave Austin Monday afternoon. No more bat chances.

The Austin Congress “Bat” Bridge

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Unfortunately, no bats. There are supposed to be hundreds of thousands of bats here, but we got skunked. This the the Congress bridge in Austin Texas. We staked out a tripod location on the east side by the Austin Statesman parking lot. They have signs up telling people you can park here. There were a lot of people around, and even more from the bridge.

I had understood that we would see a cloud like mass of bats. I was hoping to get some slow shutter speed pictures. I figured the light would be low anyway at sunset when they are supposed to come out. I guess the temp or humidity wasn’t quite right for the bats, and they preferred to stay hidden under the bridge.

Another iPad Photo

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I think I may have taken enough of the kid playing with the iPad photos. Just a little down time between dinner and her bath. Here, she is playing a puzzle game called Tozzle. She drags little puzzle pieces around until they fit into place. She loves it.

Bright and Purple vs Black and White

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I asked this gentleman at the playground, (we were both their with kids) if he wouldn’t mind posing for a picture. I loved his hat, beard, and shirt combo. He agreed, after he asked me what kind of camera I had, and if I had a model release. After I showed him the image he said, “nice bokeh.” I was a little taken a back, but turns out he used to shoot movies.

Anyway, the above shot is pretty much what I envisioned, but I thought it would have been better without the blue car that was in the background. I had other shots of him, but I liked his eyes in this one the best. So, I tried it in black and white.

So which one do you like better. I can’t decide. The car is irrelevant in this image, and his features are stronger I think, but I miss the purple shirt.

Then I asked myself, what was my vision for this image. Good question. I knew I wanted his look without a strong background, hence, the shot at f/4.0. Actually, I thought I was shooting at 2.8. My bad. Anyway, I think I like the purple shirt. Maybe I didn’t have a clear enough vision when I took the image. Maybe I am thinking way to much about this.

I still like the shot.

Westlaw Next Ice Sculpture

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Westlaw Next in Ice

I have been sitting on this image that I took with my iPhone for a long time. The official name was announced within Thompson Reuters last month, but we were told not to ‘leak’ the name early. How anyone coming to the Eagan office was going to miss this and not pass it on to the media is beyond me. Actually, I think that was part of the leak strategy.

Well, the product is about to be released, and on the last weekend before launch, I am going to Boise, Idaho for a cousins wedding. I am not shooting it, but I do have my gear packed. I have a new smaller light stand now, and I even packed it and an umbrella. Who knows when an impromptu photo shoot will break out.

Because of taking my camera gear on board (light stand is getting checked) I have another bag with my clothes in it. It could almost fit in an overhead bin I think, but because it is getting checked, it cost me $15. That means that my flight just went up by $30 total. Sheesh.