A Horse is a Horse of Course

Track day. Now my daughter would just go crazy with so many horses about her. For whatever reason when one is blessed with two X chromosomes for some reason a love of horses goes along with it. For her this would have been one amazing day, but she would have wanted to touch and grab and be apart of the fun. Now as far as the whipping, I don't know how that would have went.

I am not a gambler. I will purchase photography equipment like there is no tomorrow and frequently for some reason I think there is where that is concerned. Ask me to place a bet on most anything and I can't. Not that I think it's wrong or not moral, I literally can't place a bet. I had a buddy who got married and took a trip out to Vegas to do it. I flew out to be his best man and also to get some pictures of Bryce Canyon. He gave me $50 because in all of the years since preschool he has known me he had never seen me gamble. There would be big games in his basement with people all over and I would watch. Some would think it's not fun to watch, well I am amazed. I just couldn't spend that $50...it seemed wrong. I could have however purchased something with it or even ate it, but to gamble it away! I can walk through Vegas and not drop a quarter in a slot or even a penny. I just don't have it in me.

Horse racing is like that as well, but the Million! Well that is different. Until I had a run in with a bad machine I was gearing up to spend my vast little fortune on some horses...since that time in 2007, well now I'm back to I just can't. I still love going. Crowds were down this year though. Maybe racing has gotten a bad name or maybe just the price of Gas and Milk has gotten us down, but it wasn't even close to as busy as past years.

The park looked great and who couldn't love sitting out on a sunny day dressed up and ready to drink an eat. I purchased a liquid refreshment the Millionaire, the signature drink and got down to taking pictures.

I have been stretching some recently. I have been trying to take more people pictures...or people in public pictures. This is something I just started, I've also wanted to see what I could do with a wide-angle lens to show more of an environmental portrait. The lens was the Tokina 11-16 and other than the photographer gelling his flash a bit too much. (I took it out in post) I really liked the results.

You can look at the photos here.

Off to Kingman and the Great Basin

I had an opportunity a great short trip out west. My plans included trips to San Francisco and Kingman, AZ. Little did I know that storms would hit the Chicago area which would delay my departure until Tuesday morning. I wasn't feeling the love from United despite being a Premier member they still bumped me off of my flight into Denver. I had a layover before I would get to SFO. As I was at the airport they told me I might get to Denver that evening, but once there they wouldn't have any idea when I might make it from Denver to San Francisco. Since I had pressing business plans and needed to be there Tuesday if I was to be there at all, I concentrated on the latter half of the trip with a flight to Vegas and then driving through the rocky dry country into Kingman, Arizona. I was all set to go with at least a little love from United in letting them bump me over to a flight to Las Vegas when a tornado warning hit the O'Hare airport. Since it was obvious that I was not flying tonight or at least any time soon and I was only a few miles from home, I opted to sleep in my own bed and see what tomorrow might bring me for flights.

Well Tuesday morning I got out of bed disgusted with O'hare swearing off ever flying from there again...that lasted a whole 3 weeks. I found a flight out of Milwaukee (MKE) to Vegas for as little as $240, but it was leaving and my bags were already checked to SFO from the night before. With nothing but a bag in hand and my computer...of course the cameras were in with the computer, I packed the important things and headed to MKE to catch the flight. All went well there. Almost all of my travel experiences go well out of Milwaukee. After landing I needed to find where the rest of my bags were. Worse thing was that with those bags was my tripod, Circular Polarizer and extra battery. Just a few of the incidentals. Midwest Airlines helped me track my bags down, but I wouldn't receive them from United until Wednesday. So I was left with few clothes, no tripod and no CP. I'm in the middle of the Great Basin without a CP and that is just asking from trouble. I won't even go into how I can't hand-hold anything anymore. I did have my trusty Fuji S5 for this trip...love those colors.

As I walked around the Vegas airport...have I said I don't gamble. Vegas to me is interested and very scary. What was really scary to me is what Carrot Top has done to himself. Well I jumped into the car and headed off to get myself a CP so I could take some pictures. I didn't know what to do about the tripod, but I would figure it out later. With the help of my dw, I found a place called Casey's. Nice Photoshop and very good prices. I picked up a Rodenstock and then was able to head out.

I found a great road to take off the beaten path. This lead me to Grapevine Canyon and a wonderful place to see Petroglyphs. Now this would have been perfect had it not been 105 and without a tripod. I did the best I could as I was wobbling from heatstroke. I had a great time...I did my research beforehand with one of my favorite photography guides. I highly recommend this Newsletter, Photograph America.

After getting back I was trying out the Silver Efex Plugin from Nik...pretty pricey, but it does a nice job. I love Control Points. Don't think I will buy it because I like the conversions almost as much from other programs.

So without further adieu, here are the pictures. Enjoy and comment...don't make comments on how much out of focus they are. I wanted my tripod there and it didn't happen.