Lake LBJ sunset

I just want to thank everyone that visited my blog last week and especially those that took the time to leave comments on my pictures.  I really appreciate that.  I haven’t had a chance to return the favor yet because I was traveling overseas last week.

I spent the week in London and Dublin – two towns that I really enjoy visiting - and both were fantastic.  Although I got rained on a bit in both places, I still came away with what I believe will be some beautiful shots, and of course I had some wonderful experiences, saw some fabulous sites, and even had the good fortune to meet up with some great photographers in London.  It was a great week!

In the meantime, please enjoy this sunset from Lake LBJ in the Texas Hill Country.  Thanks for stopping by!

The Parthenon, Nashville

This is the Parthenon in Nashville, TN which is a full-size replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece.  The first time I saw this, I couldn’t really believe it.  It’s just not what you expect to find in a town like Nashville, I guess.  But it is a beautiful structure and it sits in a beautiful park, so who’s complaining?

I caught it on a stormy day with all those awesome, dramatic clouds behind it.  Many people dislike when it rains or storms because it can mess up your photo hunt.  That’s true, but I always find that the benefit is that you get interesting skies, and that’s normally worth it!

Antique gas pumps

I swear, some things are just MADE for HDR photography.  Old rusty stuff is one of those things – it’s just perfect for HDR.  All the nice little details come out through the processing, and when you get some radical clouds in the background, it makes you all happy inside.  Well ok, it makes ME all happy inside.

These lovely antique gas pumps sit in front of the City Garage in Salado, TX which is a great place to shoot.  Whenever I drive to Dallas, I make it a point to stop here.  It’s a small spot so it’s a quick stop, but it’s always rewarding.  Normally I shoot toward the little building which is covered in old gas signs (find all my pics of this place here).  It’s got character.

But on this day I was just loving those clouds so I turned around to shoot them behind the gas pumps.  And then a red truck drove by…

Millennium sunset

Do you ever feel like you will never get your photos processed and shared?  Yeah, me neither :-) .

I was going through one of my old London photo batches taken over a year ago and thought I would give this shot a go.  It was sunset and I was shooting along the River Thames with Mike Murphy and John Esslinger - both locals and great photogs you should follow.  We were next to the Tate Modern, shooting here at the Millennium Bridge.  As you can see the sunset was pretty awesome.

For some reason though, I never got around to processing this pic, and now that I have, I rather like it.  It’s just that I have so many and I try to mix things up for you all, so you don’t get burned out on one place.  (Ok, so I don’t get burned out on one place.)

Anyways – here it is.  Better late than never, right? (And yes, I realize this photo isn’t perfectly centered/aligned.  Call that “artistic license”.  Or maybe the bridge is skewed a little.) 

The lobby at The Grand Wailea

When I travel, I try to make a habit of getting up for sunrise at least once.  It’s just better.  You get great light most of the time, and everyone else is asleep.  But I admit, it’s hard to do, especially when traveling east.  It’s hard enough losing time due to time zone changes.

But when I travel west it gets much easier of course.  In this case, I was in Hawaii a few weeks back and getting up there was easy.  In fact, I got up at 3am the first morning!  That’s a little too early, but my body thought it was 8am.  Oh well, the challenges of time zone changes.

Anyways, since I was up before sunrise I figured I should get out and shoot some, and the hotel lobby at the Grand Wailea in Maui is just gorgeous.  Anytime there is water running, I get pretty fired up.  During the daytime the sun is just too bright to make this shot work, but before dawn it looks pretty awesome!