Pretty Bad Pictures

I show below some pretty, but bad pictures I took today. I'd like to exemplify the difficulty in taking good photographs and in this small way show my great respect for the photographers out there who do a great job at their task.

Loggerhead Shrike.

Northern Shovelers.

A flock of Pintail ducks. 

Pintail ducks taking flight.

Prairie dog town.

Panorama of prairie dog town.

Turtle peaking through the surface. 

Post Processing in the Digital Darkroom

Another Emil Hermann painted appeared from nowhere, found in someone's bathroom. It's condition seemed dismal, for it had cracks and a deep gash across the center. I am not skilled in the digital darkroom, but finished a passable rendering of what the painting must have looked like approximately one hundred years ago, when Hermann finished painting the ship scene. Below I show the original. 

Into Greenville Airport

It was a perfect day for flying with clear skies. That's Papa Charlie in his truck approaching the plane.

Another airplane takes off. 

Right seat view. I stopped the propellers at f2.8.

If you squint, you can perceive the Red River meandering across the middle of the picture. 

I took this picture at f11 to show movement in the propellers. 

The Smokies begin to appear over the nose of the King Air, with scattered puffy clouds to embellish the picture.

Greenville Airport, in South Carolina, in sight.

View before landing. 

I Am Ready for Spring

Mid-February and I feel excited about seeing springtime finally arrive in a couple of months. We have had more snow this winter than we see in years, no, decades, and it's been cold, windy, and damp. I fired up the old Mac to look for photographs from the past, and I found, delightedly, pictures I took on a hike through the Wichita Mountains Wildife Refuge. Above, two Eastern Collarded Lizards soak up some sun's rays -- an activity I'm SO ready to do after all our cloudy days.

Canada Goose.

Dragonfly.

Sometimes when we take macro pictures, we do not see the number of insects on a flower. Here, I count six; you probably cannot see them well in this resolution. 

Great Backyard Bird Count

Among the usual gang in the cove at Wild Bird Rescue Center, Penny, Terry, June, and I spotted a Cooper's hawk, Pintails, Cedar Waxwings, Buffleheads, a Winter wren, and a Yellow-throated vireo. The usual gang consisted of hundreds of pelicans and cormorants, coots, or mudhens, Canada geese, Redwing blackbirds, robins, and starlings. Oh, and we saw three Great Blue herons. We also saw a large hawk that we could not identify right away, so books lay open on my table, and I'm sure Penny's at home with her own books, attempting to discover which variation of hawk we saw hovering overhead.

Goose prints in the mud.

Racoon pawprints.

In the Cove

Pelicans and cormorants took flight when they caught me 

approaching the cove at Wild Bird Rescue Center.

A cormorant in flight.

I wish the birds, such as the Red-tailed Hawk pictured above,

would fly at me and above me, and not away from me. 

Makes better pictures. Do tell them if you ever have a chance.

The Great Blue Heron in the cove finally caught by my lens. 

Great Blue Heron flying away. 

A cormorant taking off. I'm paying attention to how they land. Maybe I'll learn a few things.

A pelican takes off. I wish I could say they are landing, but that takes more dedication 

from the part of a photographer than I am willing to undertake, i.e. rising 

at four o'clock in the morning to arrive in the cove before sunrise 

and before the birds discover my presence. 

Nearby, the Red-tailed Hawk returned to his tree and watched us. 

Just outside BirdManBob's window, two meadowlarks 

and two white-winged doves sat on a cold wire, roosting for the evening,

and, I'm sure, hoping for him to bring seed to the feeders in the morning. 

Third Five Inches Plus Snow

We've had fifteen inches of snow this winter, which is unusual for this part of the country.

Hodge seems to enjoy walking around (and running) in the snow.

Winter Lion.

 

Kodiak Bear belly-deep in snow.

My Mr Mallory's third time this winter shoveling snow. 

Another Snow Seems Unusual

My footprints along the road.

The bench and lake taken with the fisheye lens. 

Mallards in the water. 

A fisheye view of a vehicle's tracks on the grass. 

Cedar Waxwings on Armstrong Drive

Art Up a Post

The Kemp Center for the Arts exhibits "Art on the Green" sculpture garden every year with seven permanent sculptures, and ten different sculptures. Joe Ed Barrington chooses the sculptures that will stand in the gardens. Bill FitzGibbons served as curator of this year's exhibit, viewed until mid-May, 2010. Above, I show "Ghost Riders in the Sky" by Bob Wade, Austin. For more information on the exhibit and the Kemp Center for the Arts, visit http://www.kempcenter.org/

Costa Rica Elects First Woman President

(CNN) -- Costa Rica elected its first female president, as the ruling National Liberation Party claimed a historic victory.

"I want to thank the pioneering women who years ago opened the doors of politics in Costa Rica," Laura Chinchilla said Sunday to flag-waving supporters in the capital, San Jose. "My government will be open to all Costa Ricans of good faith."

Second-place candidate Otton Solis of the Citizen's Action Party had conceded defeat earlier in the evening, as the PLN -- the Spanish acronym for the National Liberation Party party -- forged its way to a nearly 2-to-1 lead.

Polls showed Chinchilla garnering 46.8 percent of the vote, with 84 percent of election sites reporting. Solis had 25.1 percent, while Otto Guevara of the Libertarian Movement had 20.9 percent.

Election day was festive throughout the nation, with video footage showing supporters of the main presidential candidates dressed in their respective campaign colors.

International observers interviewed on CNN affiliate Teletica compared the election scene to a festival.

The festivities included election sites where children could vote in a mock presidential vote. The educational outreach let the children pick their candidate on a digital ballot not unlike the ones the rest of the electorate cast their votes with.

Some 2.8 million Costa Ricans are eligible to vote.

In addition to voting for president, Costa Ricans cast ballots for two vice presidents, 57 Congress members and 495 council members.

The legacy of outgoing President Oscar Arias -- a Nobel laureate who leaves office a popular, if polarizing, leader -- has in many ways shaped the presidential race.

Although he has given Costa Rica a larger role in foreign affairs through his involvement in seeking resolution to the political crisis in Honduras, but his style has rubbed some the wrong way.

After casting his vote Sunday, Arias called the electoral process transparent and trustworthy.

"I would like to thank the Costa Rican people for filling the streets with color," he said.

Fisheye Lens

Walking around in this misty, cold, damp day, I came up close with my very wide angle lens to photograph the asparagus, and the leaper of a black Jaguar. 

Reflection on Puddle

In a puddle on my driveway, altocumulus clouds reflect 

through the Oak, Pecan and Magnolia trees. 

Kemp Center for the Arts Threw a Beautiful Party Today

I took a panoramic of the exhibit put together by curators Richard Carter and Marsha Dillon. They invited artists who have published their work in the Wichita Falls Literature and Art Review to submit work for this exhibit at the Kemp Center for the Arts. The Kemp Center characteristically hosted a beautiful gathering with great food by Sera Daugherty (my culinary hero). Folks attending the exhibit had the opportunity to remain in the Great Hall to watch "Pandora's Box," a silent film presented by Richard Carter.

Chained to a "Do Not Enter" sign.

This is how this cold weather has made me feel, unable to do much

of what I do throughout normally mild Texan winters; no biking, no

walking in the park or walking in the countryside, no motorcycling,

or flying the Scissortail. I feel doldrums that photography can ameliorate,

even if it's resting an Olympus P/S on the door of my warm car to take the shot.