I'm Baaaack!!

For those that may wonder where I have been, well the summer just got away from me. Between Children, Traveling for work, work itself and moving into a new office, life has been very busy.

I've thought of many things I wanted to blog about, but haven't had a moment to put my fingers on the keyboard to capture my thoughts. Hopefully that will change in the upcoming weeks.

Just Take Pictures

I know I have asked through the years how do I get better at photos. Well I have finally found the secret. Just take pictures. It sounds simple, but all of the book reading and classes won't help you unless you apply the knowledge. I speak from experiance. If I read something or attend a class without ever applying when the time comes when I am in the field I think, well I know I can do this but I don't know how. Practice, practice and even more.

As I was looking through my libraries recently I noticed a continuing trend. Every year I have taken more pictures than the year before. That even goes with when I made the transition to digital. In the film days we had an excuse to not try things, today we don't. Just Take Pictures. Repeat after me, Just Take Pictures.

Easy enough.

The above was taken on the way to yet another golf course in September. I saw the sun rising in my rearview mirror and yanked the strearing wheel over and jumped out slapped the camera on the back of the car and clicked away.

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.