Hodges Garden - Nector Sucker

Finally, I was able tp capture a sharp image of a beautiful butterfly sitting on a flower.... patience grasshopper, patience.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

Hodges Garden - Purple Stuff

These purple flowers where bouncing around in the blustering wind making it rather difficult for the butterflys to land so I decided for forgo waiting for the butterflys and just capture on image of these flowers.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

Hodges Garden - Old Flower

I wish this butterlfy, or moth, I'm not sure which it is would have found a fresher looking flower so that it looked better in this image, but I guess it knows what it needs.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

Hodges Garden - Willow Point

This was a beautiful early fall day in central Louisiana. This young family utilized the fishing peir at Willow Point in Hodges Gardens to try their luck or possibly skill at cathing a string of fish.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

Just for scale

I took this image not because I know this person but to provide scale as to the size of the boulders in this image. Also of interest to me was the rectangular structure of the rock surface she is standing on.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

Erosion

The abundance of moisture from fog and sea spray provides an ample amount of moisture to erode the steep hillside into natural sculptures that reminded me of the giant termite mounts found in Africa.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

Purple Haze

I am a technologist. I thrive on understanding and using technology in the way it was intended to be used.  Why am I telling you this?  Because this image does not use a specific photographic technology known as white balance in the manor it was intended. The purple hues in this image did not actually exist when the image was created, but due to a missed reading of the ambient light by the Automatic White Balance (AWB) of the camera I ended up with something that was different from what I expected. I could have corrected the white balance of the image in Photoshop but I chose not to do that because I like the image just the way it is.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

Hill Country Drought

Somewhere along state highway 16 between Fredricksburg and Llano, Texas.  as you can see the grass is very dry from the serious drought that is currently affecting the majority of the state of Texas.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

Winter at Brazos Bend State Park

My wife was invited to attend a plein air (outdoor) painters meet-up at Brazos Bend State Park near our home.  I of course didn't object knowing it would provide me the opportunity to photograph the park in it's winter colors.

What follows are a few images of the golden winter colors of this beautiful state park.

Brazos Bend Texas State Park - Dried flowers along the Praire Trail


Ancient old oak trees such as this one can be found through out the park

  The ameircan alligators were out in force on this warm winter day.  I counted more the thirty gators as I walked through the many lake trails of the park

 Grassy field at the end of the Praire Trail at Brazos Bend State Park

  The colors of winter wash over the grassy wetlands of southeast Texas

Our new friends Tim and Kirby painting at New Horseshoe lake.

 Brilliant red berries stand out against the mutted winter colors of the trees, brush, vines and spanish moss.




 Three of the five painters whom attended the meet-up

 A sea of dry grass

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

I Don't Regret The Egret

I view photography as an art form, but in my opinion the artwork isn't complete when you've pressed the shutter button on your camera, in fact that is when the creative artist in you can really get to work. 

Back in days of film photography the dark room was where the artists could add their creative touches to a file negative to produce a print that captured the look and feeling of their photographic subject. With digital photography the dark room has been replacing with photo manipulation software that can really allow an artist to do amazing things with an image.

I took the following image of a white egret walking in the mud flats of a creek in the late afternoon.  I didn't care much for the image because the focus wasn't very sharp, the color wasn't very good, the egret did stand out in the image and the all the mud in the foreground wasn't working for me.  All in all it was a mess, but...

I pulled the image up in Photoshop and decided i could fix the color by converting the image to monochrome.  I converted it to black and white and expanded the tonal range so that the egret was bright white and the trees and brush on the river bank had areas of solid black.

My wife walked in and watched over my shoulder as I manipulated the image.  I asked her what she thought of it as I flipped back and fourth between the before and after images.  She said the black and white looked better but what if I used another color, like green?

The final image was cropped to remove the mud in the foreground.  I still don't think it's a master piece but I'm pleased that these few simple changes may have rescued this image from the binary trash can.  What do you think?

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

Graves on Golden Ground

After leaving the beach and heading back home to Houston I spotted what I thought was tall dead grass in the old Galveston City cemetery on Broadway. After taking a second look I realized that it wasn't dead grass but yellow flowers covering the grounds of the cemetery.

I thought this would be a great place to take some late afternoon photos before we headed home for the day so I made a quick U-turn and we pulled into the cemetery. There were many other visitors with their cameras in hand who apparently had the same idea as me.

A family mausoleum surrounded by yellow

My wife loves pictures of old doors so I took this one for her. You can't see her, but she was standing to the left of this image taking her own pictures of this door.
I liked the twisting branches of this small tree and the high peeks of the monument behind the tree. Did you notice that the tree doesn't have any leaves? That is extremely odd for May in south Texas. Many of the trees in Galveston or dead or very late blooming because of the many days they spent soaked in salty Gulf water that inundated Galveston during hurricane Ike. This cemetery was covered in three to six feet of water by the hurricane.

To get this image I crouched down as low as I could on the sidewalk to position the sun behind the top of the crucifix to hide the sun but allow the rays to burst around the sides of the monument. I like the image except for the lens flares (small dots caused by the sun bouncing of the glass lenses of the camera) you can see in the middle of the image.

A clump of the flowers growing out of a crack in the sidewalk.

A wide angle view of a small portion of this very large cemetery

My lovely wife and three wonderful boys were very tired and ready to get some food and head home for the evening after a great day in Galveston. We'll be back in a few weeks.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.

One Fine Houston Evening

I'm reading the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson for the second time. It seems the first time I read it I didn't comprehend much of the information provided in the text.

Last evening I was feeling the call of the camera so I decided to put some of the knowledge I gained from reading the book to good use. So at about 7:00 PM I head out to see if I could capture a decent sunset and possibly some night photos.

I'm not thrilled with the sunset photos. Not because of the sky but because other than buildings and trees there isn't much else to in West Houston to use as the foreground subject in a sunset. Mountains are hard to find in these parts!

These two images are of a building near our house. I was actually driving back home after getting the sunset images and saw the sun reflecting off the building. So I pulled into a shopping center parking lot and setup my tripod and camera and snapped these two images all while a rent-a-cop sat in his/her truck and watched me the entire time.

All images copyright Daniel Ray Photography.