We took another cruise from Ft. Lauderdale a week ago. This one went to St. Martin, St. Kitts, San Juan and Grand Turks. We stayed the night before in a Hyatt Regency in Ft. Lauderdale. We went to dinner on the Marina, and I got this shot coming back from dinner that night.
They had a tower that overlooked the resort and Ft. Lauderdale. In the morning, I took some pictures including this one of the two ships docked in the cruise port.
We went to visit my mother last week. While we were in Chicago, we decided to go downtown and take a hop on – hop off bus tour. Although it was cold, I got some really good pictures of Chicago.
This was one of the first ones I took. It is looking West over the Chicago River at Clark St. You can see a great mixture of old and new architecture along the river.
One of the landmarks of Chicago is The Chicago Theater.
Another landmark is the Picasso statue at City Hall. I remember when it was first installed and people complained about it being just a bunch of rusty metal. It has really aged well.
Chicago’s skyline is dominated by the Willis (Sears) Tower and the Hancock Building, but the building(s) i remember most were the Marina Towers.
A week ago, while mowing the lawn, I noticed a peony blooming. I thought it would make a nice picture. So, the next day, I took my camera out and started taking pictures. While I was doing that, the mailman came. So, after I thought I had enough images, I took my camera up to the porch and walked out to the mailbox. Sometimes, things just are aligned in a unique way. Debbie has a rose bush next to the mailbox and some of the roses were blooming. It just so happened that the sun coming through the leaves of the trees created a kind of spotlight on one of the roses.
I took a few more than did an HDR bracket. I had watched a video on using some additional software to create a detailed look in the petals. So, I played around with that and came up with this one.
I took Hwy 7 to Crockett and then 287 down to Port Arthur. On Hwy 287, I saw this old structure in an area that was being used to store hay.
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:
Sunday was a rare combination of a lunar eclipse and a “Supermoon.” During such an event, as a result of the nature of the light, the moon appears to take on a deep red color. It wasn’t the easiest picture to take, as the area in shadow is extremely dark and the area not in shadow is bright. So, an exposure fusion ended up being the best way to get a good picture.
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.