I had to go to Lake Charles, Louisiana last week for a meeting. On the way over, there were several places where there was lots of standing water in fields as a result of the recent rains. I topped one place over by the Trinity River and took these:
I have tried several times to take pictures in Galveston using a long exposure causing the waves to blur and the water to look diffuse. Last weekend, the weather was terrible. Before it started to rain, I took my camera and tripod and ND filters down to the beach and tried to get the 61st St. Fishing Pier. I got several images, but the rain really started and I had to leave. This was the best of what I got.
The AMCA Board of Directors held its interim meeting in Savannah. I went a day early too give me time to visit some of the sights.
One of the icons of Savannah is the fountain in Forsyth Park. It is impressive. Savannah personifies the old South. Lots of Live Oak trees and Spanish Moss.
I took the Hop On Hop Off Trolley tour, and it was great. I spent the whole day seeing all kinds of sights. I ate lunch at a restaurant called The Pirate House which was allegedly on old inn where pirates stayed. The restaurant added to the flavor by having “guides” in pirate costumes tell the customers stories of the place.
Even when we were done for the day, there was still a great moon to finish off the pictures.
The TMCA had its annual meeting in Kerrville this week. We stayed at the YO Ranch, and, as always there was a little time for photography. There is an old wagon in front of the hotel.
The lobby of the hotel is quite impressive with lots of trophies and western items.
In back of the meeting rooms, there was a small flower bed with flowers that were reaching the end of their lives, but they still made for good subjects.
Coming home from Clifton on Hwy 6, I found a couple of interesting rural scenes. This was an old windmill in a field.
This was an old harvester and tractor in a field.
And, passing through Valley Mills, I saw this Blacksmith Shop.
I went back to Clifton on Sunday because I saw some things on Wednesday that I wanted to get pictures of. One of those was more of the details of the Bosque County Merchantile Building. This is the front of the building (actually,the building spans the block and there are entrances on both sides).
These are some of the doors that I thought looked interesting, and these are the others.
The last place I stopped in Clifton was the old Santa Fe Railroad depot.
I mentioned in my last post that we went to Clifton a couple days ago, and I saw some things that I wanted to go back to get pictures of. I went back yesterday, and driving through town found some really interesting old buildings and places that made some fine images. The first of those was the Dansby Feed Mill.
Walking around it, I found lots to shoot. These are the old doors on the main building.
There was another building there that appeared to be an office. The windows were boarded up, but it wasn’t with plywood, it was with sheet metal.
Across the street, there was an alley with a sign that said “Artist’s Alley” so I walked down it. This was a doorway in that alley.
I went to the Doctor on Tuesday for a checkup. While there, in the waiting room, I saw a magazine about Bosque County. There were all kinds of things in it, but I saw that there is a Bosque County Art Center in Clifton. So, I decided we needed to go see what it was like. Debbie and I drove up there yesterday and spent the morning there. The Art Center was quite nice. They had a large number of pieces of many different types of display for their permanent collection. They also had a room of photography. I found out that there is a Photography Guild associated with the Art Center. So, we joined the Art Center and the Guild.
After that, we drove around. I found a couple of interesting places for photographs. The first was two old stone buildings on the grounds of the fair and rodeo complex.
As we were driving through town, another building caught my eye. It is apparently actually the back of the Bosque County Mercantile.
As I was processing the images, I thought those green doors really look interesting. Also, on the way home, I saw some other things I want to get. So, I am planning another trip to Clifton real soon.
The final stop on the cruise was Aruba. Aruba is another Dutch island. Where Curacao was well developed for tourists, Aruba was more rugged, but had some spectacular resort beaches. We tok a tour of the island that took us from Oranjestad in the South to the Northern coast. There, we went to a “Natural Rock Bridge” that was a rugged, rocky coast.
This was not at all what I expected, as I have more or less thought, because of all the resorts that it would be mostly hotels and beaches
The third stop was Curacao. We docked in Willemstad. Curacao is a dutch island off the coast of Venezuela. The buildings were all inspired by Dutch tradition. Walking from the ship to town you are forced to walk through an old fort, and this was looking through an opening they used to fire canons from.
In that picture, you can see a bridge going over the inlet. This is a “Swinging” bridge, in that it actually pivots to allow boat traffic to pass by.
