So I went on a little trip to Texas last week for business, and managed to grab a window seat on the way down. Â This gave me a fantastic view when our plane’s flight crew had to play dodge-the-thunderhead a few times on the way.
This is just one of the beasts we had to work our way around (the orange tint is from the last bits of sunset working their way through the clouds).
Interesting things, flowering cacti — they give a photographer such a list of contrasts to work with. Â Bright vs. muted colors.
Spiky vs. soft shapes.
Angular vs. rounded shapes.
These are all shots of a “Nipple cactus” (Coryphantha sulcata, a.k.a. Pineapple cactus), seen at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. At least, that’s how it was labeled — but all the online information on this species shows it to be both smaller and bearing yellow flowers. Â Not sure what’s going on there…
Another excellent piece of art from the 2013 Denver Chalk Art Festival:
It’s a chalk interpretation of “Steamnocchio” by Fabricio Moraes — his award-winning 3D CG steampunk adaptation of the Pinocchio story. Â Check out Fabricio’s other work, too — he does some great stuff!
Kansas — definitely not the first place that comes to mind when it comes to photogenic geology. But it does have some gems tucked away here and there.
Rock City is a small park about a half-hour’s drive north of Salina, run by a non-profit corporation, and home to hundreds of spherical limestone boulders:
Admission costs a mere $3 (cash only), and it’s also got some beautiful local plants and birds — so a great quick side-trip if you’re ever heading through Kansas on I-70.
Life’s been a bit busy for us lately, but we managed to run off into the mountains for a little R&R over the July 4th extended weekend. Â One of our stops was the neat little ghost town of Ashcroft, near Aspen. Â On our way through the sights, my daughter alerted me to this little hummingbird perched on an old bit of wood.
Fortunately for me, this little guy was very patient on his perch — alert and watchful, but never startling or making any apparent move to fly off.
Seen in the ancient Maya ruins of Calakmul, Mexico — five stelae at the foot of Structure II:
Calakmul has no shortage of the vertical monuments called stelae, 117 at last count (the most of any site in the region). Â Sadly, the local limestone is fairly soft, so most of them are eroded to the point where much of the once-rich detail has been lost to weathering. Â But they can still make strong elements of a photographic composition if you’re careful with the lighting you’re working with.
A white tiger at the 2013 Colorado Renaissance Festival in Larkspur, Colorado:
Admittedly, white tigers are eye-catching, and maybe their presence at shows like this somehow supports or encourages conservation. Â But the reality is that white tigers are Bengal tiger mutants not normally found in nature — and they’re only still around thanks to generations of human-induced inbreeding. Â They are often used by zoos and other shows (most famously, Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas) to draw in visitors — but the breeding of white tigers has been banned by the American Zoological Association (AZA) since June of 2011.
The Denver Chalk Art Festival is always a colorful (if crowded) experience for photographers.  This year, it happened to coincide with the Denver Comic Con — so it was fitting that the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (RMCAD) contributed this work based on cartoon / sci-fi characters:
One of the hallmarks of RMCAD art works is their use of reflectors to turn a curved artwork into something that is visually straight when seen from just the right angle. Â If you look carefully, you can see the bottom edge of their reflector in the top third of the above image.
One of the particularly nice things about Austin’s River Walk is that if you catch a boat taxi, you can just sit as it carries you past all sorts of beautiful and photogenic scenery — take this view, for example:
Of course, you’d better have your wits about you. Â Things come up fast, and you can miss a number of interesting sights in the time it takes to swap lenses.
I own some fairly roomy camera bags — but some trips just don’t allow me space for much photography gear. For situations like that, and for trips when I need a protected way to carry a second camera body (with a lens or two), I purchased a Think Tank Mirrorless Mover 10 camera bag.
The Mirrorless Mover 10 is advertised to hold one medium size mirrorless body (e.g., the Olympus OM-D EM-5) along with one to two lenses and additional accessories. So since my photo gear is increasingly EM-5 based, I thought I might as well put one of these bags to the test, and let you come along for the ride.
To get the specs out of the way, the Mirrorless Mover 10 measures 5.3″ (13.5 cm) wide, 6.1″ (15.5 cm) high, and 4.5″ (11.5 cm) deep on the outside; 4.9″ (12.5 m) wide, 5.3″ (13.5 cm) high, and 3.7″ (9.5 cm) deep on the inside. It comes in two color combinations — I bought the black / charcoal one, you can also get it in black / taupe. As is usual for these folks, the bag is sturdily made and while being water resistant, also comes with its own rain cover.