Photography – Page 11 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

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Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Migratory Ruby-crowned Kinglet. I originally thought they were Orange-crowned Warblers, but further research and a reader tip indicates I may have mis-identified them.

You can compare here:
Orange-crowned Warbler
Ruby-crowned Kinglet

The wing-bars seem to be the tell….

They visit our yard each winter and are extremely elusive in terms of getting a photo. Today there were two of them in the front yard and they seemed oblivious to my presence. So oblivious, one nearly landed on my arm while I was shooting the pictures. Even so, they dart around so quickly and erratically they are not easy to photograph.

Snow!

Around 4:00 yesterday afternoon it began to snow here in Houston. A freak weather occurrence, to be sure. It didn’t really “stick” as the ground temperature was too warm for that and frankly, I thought it wouldn’t last too long.

Cynthia called me from the road as she headed home. She said it was definitely snowing out west as she proceeded to the beltway. I wasn’t headed home right away as I had my Wednesday commitment and was hanging back at the office. I was pretty disappointed that I wouldn’t be seeing it for myself.

Prior to heading over to KPFT to do my radio show I met up with Owen for a pint at Rudyard’s. I did see some snow as I drove over, but it was super light.

As Owen and I sat and chatted, the snow started falling harder and harder. It was quite the cozy scene as we sat in the warm pub and watched as our fellow revellers went outside to marvel at what passes for a winter wonderland around these parts. We heard some young lady exclaim “It’s a miracle!” I don’t know about that, but it was pretty cool!

Snow Man

After a few pints Owen and I parted ways so I could get over to the radio station. The snow was kicking up pretty good at this point, and while not treacherous driving in terms of road conditions, you still had to be careful as many drivers were stricken with a case of “deer in the headlights” syndrome as they gawked and the magical white stuff drifting from the sky.

The radio show goes two hours and the studio is pretty sealed up where you can’t see the outside easily so we were somewhat taken aback when we wrapped for the evening and proceeded out to the parking lot…

Snow!

There was enough snow accumulation on my car for phliKtid to write a message on my back window:

Snow!

As I headed home around 10:30 the snow event was mostly over. This morning as I write this, it’s just cold and there are reports of some iced over roads, mostly overpasses and such.

According to the weather forecast, the temperatures will be back in the mid 70’s by this weekend.

Gotta love Texas…

Studio Work

Allen Hill Entertainment Xmas Card 2008

I was contacted recently by my friend, Henry Davis, the brilliant graphic artist about a project. He’d been retained by Allen “King Of The Oldies” Hill to produce a holiday card for Allen Hill Entertainment and he needed a photographer to assist in the project. Apparently he couldn’t find one, so he came to me.

Allen wanted a card that depicted himself ice skating on the reflection pool in front of Houston City Hall.

Since it rarely gets below freezing in these parts, much less does it ever snow, this was going to be a studio project combined with digital chicanery. We arranged to meet up at the Houston Chronicle to “borrow” their photography studio and staged what we needed and Henry did the rest in Photoshop.

It was my first time in a studio with the new flash. I think it came out pretty well.

Shiny Euros

We have received our travelin’ Euros for the upcoming trip. I love the colour of European money. The holograms are so pretty. It’s like play money in that it doesn’t look real, but it also evokes the passion I associate with travel. Having Euros in hand makes the whole thing more “real”, if that makes any sense.

Of course, being the shutterbug I am, I wanted to photograph the bills as a matter of course so I played with different configurations and ended up with the above shot.

When I had finished procressing the RAW file and went to open it in Photoshop CS3, the strangest thing happened. This message popped up saying “”This Application Does Not Support the Printing of Banknote Images”:

In doing some research, this seems to be the same for the new American bills that were recently issued.

What stikes me is that this is not a scan of the Euro notes. It’s a photograph and it doesn’t even include a complete, unobscured bill in the photo. Yet Photoshop recognized the content of the image and produced that warning and, presumably, will not print it in the unaltered form.

It only let me save the oringinal file as PNG and I have not tried to print it.

Technology is cool!

On A Pedestal

Cynthia demonstrates why she is the brains of this outfit. Predicting the challenge of shooting art at your feet, she packed a lightweight stool to take with us to Via Colori so she could more easily photograph the art.

She further demonstrated her smarts by suggesting I not try to balance myself on same said stool.

Thanks to my wide angle lenses, I was not hindered by such good judgement.

Taking It To The Streets

Via Colori 2008

Flying Fish Sailors - Photo by Scott Davis

To be honest, I was only peripherally aware of the Via Colori festival prior to being contacted by Greg about The Flying Fish Sailors performing at the event.

Via Colori is a licensable special event that any given charity can “lease” for the purpose of raising funds for their organization. Here in Houston the annual event is held in support of the Center For Hearing and Speech.

Basically you (or your company) can purchase a square to be painted with chalk. Donations for the square range from $500 – $1,500, depending on size. You (or your company) get a placard next to the square with your name on it indicating your patronage and an artist of your or the festival’s choosing then paints the square over the course of the two day event.

All in all, not a bad deal. There were some 175 companies/organizations/individuals represented by artists who spent the weekend on their hands and knees transforming a small patches of asphalt into works of art that ranged from benign to magnificent.

If you do the math, that’s a sizable # of donations for the well deserving Center For Hearing and Speech.

As a whole, the event was very interesting and the weather could not have been more cooperative in terms of temperature and, more importantly, lack of precipitation.

Before and after my band’s performance, Cynthia and explored the festival and shot pictures. Watching some of these artists working in chalk, knowing their creations would be washed away by Sunday night was, well…compelling.

Via Colori

Additional photos of mine can be found here

Ripple Effect

Shot with the Tamron 70-200mm