Moonrise over San Antonio

As I mentioned in my previous posting, I will still be dropping in here occasionally to share photos from time to time. Here is a photo I took tonight of the moon rising over the San Antonio Cathedral near the Alamo in San Antonio, TX. I had to take a few shots to get the moon at just the right angle and to have the flag fluttering in the right direction. I happen to think this turned out pretty well. Hopefully you think the same.

FWIW...

On Hiatus

Given that I received no emails or comments wondering about my being gone and stopping making entries here, I am putting this blog on hiatus. I'm sure I'll still have stuff to share from time to time, but it's obvious that what I'm interested in doesn't necessarily translate to stuff other folks are interested in. Given there are only so many hours in a day, there's no reason for me to spend time posting stuff that's just a waste of your time.

FWIW...

Three Views of a Meadow

Finishing off the week with a post that takes three different looks at the same meadow in Yosemite National Park. Part of the reason for doing this is to show you that you should try to look at other ways of looking at the same image when you're out taking pictures. In other words, try different angles or orientations. Generally you'll run out of time before you run out of storage media (and if you're having a problem with that, you should really get another card). So experimentation should be the order of the day. But also I'm trying to point out how time of year affects your picture options. In the rock formation in

the background of the first image, you can see an area that appears to be "stained". That is where, in the spring, you would see Yosemite Falls. The grass and flowers wouldn't be quite as prominent, and you'd be much more likely to center the image on the impressive fall of water. Here in late summer, though, the flow has become a trickle, and so the meadow itself takes over as the feature that draws the eye.

In the first image and this one, I'm also using the footpath to both add a visual accent to the picture, and to draw the viewers eye across the landscape to get them (you) to look at the entire image.

Finally, in the third picture, I was walking down the footpath, and turned to get an image that was just the natural setting by itself. Again, same meadow, but now with a bit of a different look, and possibly even a different meaning to the viewer.

Notice how the "grain" of the grass, i.e. the way it naturally leans, causes the grasses here to look a bit greener and fuller than in the other images. Also how getting the sun a bit more "over the shoulder" makes the sky look a bit more blue too.

Hope you enjoyed this week of photos!

The Sheer Power of Stone

This is a fairly zoomed in look at what I believe was El Capitan - although I did not remember to get a picture of the identifying sign.

Regardless, I was intrigued by the blocky textures and earth tones that were displayed by this outcropping. It certainly serves to explain the draw of this park.

Of course you can also see why Black and White photos from here tend to be so powerful. You are then emphasizing the geometries and the differences in contrast rather than the more subtle differences in color.

Down By The River Side - Yosemite

As promised, a much closer look at the Merced River - one of the two major rivers that run through Yosemite. The highlights in the background are a bit overexposed due to my wanting to bring out the detail in the natural framing of the weeds and willows here. I suppose this would have been a good place to experiment with creating an HDR image. Just that I don't like to mess with my photos quite that much.

Tomorrow, we get a little closer to the main portion of the park.

Welcome to Yosemite National Park - After Driving a Few Miles

Here is one of the first images I took at Yosemite National Park. You drive for a few miles when you first get into the park before you see any of the stone features that the park is known for. Sort of like Sequoia National Park as far as that goes.

Below you can see some of the trees that follow along the river that is also partly visible. We'll get a closer look at that tomorrow!

Picasa and Blogger - We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Generally I write up my posts a day or two before they actually post so I don't have to get up at 5am (I'm up that early most days anyway, but occasionally I'm not) to have them appear here each morning.

Today I was working on the Monday entry, and while the photos ARE going into my Picasa Web Album, they are not showing up here on Blogger. So something is evidently broken with the handshake between the two Google services.

I HOPE to have a Monday entry eventually, but if it's late, then at least you know why :-)

Two Last Shots of the Giants

To finish off the week, here are two more photos of some of the giants from Sequoia National Park.

Next week we move a little further south to spend some time at Yosemite National Park.

Quick Post - Pictures of a Possum in a Tree (My Tree, not My Possum)

Took the dog out before calling it a night, and the dog kept acting like he wanted to go up the tree. Then I saw why, and brought out the trusty camera and a flash to catch the perp in the act. Thought y'all might enjoy a quick look...

Giant Forest Museum and The Sentinel

I like this photo of the Giant Forest Museum which is next to a tree called "The Sentinel". Mainly because it helps give a real sense of the size of these trees to see people and buildings right next to one. Of course with the wood in that particular tree, you could rebuild that museum about 4 times over... and have enough left to build the fence again too :-)

Free Windows 7 Themepack

Don't say I never gave you something for free :-)

For those of you already on Windows 7, or who are looking to upgrade, I've created a free Windows 7 Theme with a slideshow background of pictures from around the San Antonio Riverwalk. You can DL the file from:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U7YF1IK6

Once it's DL'd, you should be able to double-click it and have Win 7 automatically add it to the list of Themes you can choose from with the "Personalize" option from the Desktop.

Hope y'all like it!

Moon Just Above the Trees

It may be a little hard to see at this size, but if you look in the top center of this photo, there's a shot of the moon at mid-day just above the trees growing on this steep hillside.

Ideally I would have been there about an hour later when the moon would have been a little closer to the treeline, but then I may have had a little more problem getting a good focus on both.

I was also interested at how many folks walked by, looked to see what I was shooting, and then kept walking. Don't know if they didn't see the moon, or didn't realize that this wasn't a photo you could take just any day.

Week 2 - Continuing West on I-10

Starting on the second week of photos from the road trip, here's a photo of I-10 about an hour from El Paso. You can see that there ARE some mountains in Texas, even if they are primarily at the Western and Southern borders of the state.

Again, this is a shot from inside the car, and it gives a point of view that I really like. You can see how empty the road going my way is, while checking out all the trucks heading east. But also, the clouds in the sky are just spectacular.

Wrapping up Week One - Road Trip 2009 - West Texas Butte

One of the things I really like about my Panasonic FZ28 is that using the iA mode of the camera, I can shoot one handed. That allows me to take pictures like this one while I'm driving down the road. There wasn't an exit for miles on either side of this Butte, so if I hadn't gotten it from here, I probably couldn't have gotten it at all.

This image had to be slightly cropped to remove a bit of the dashboard and passenger column support along the bottom and left side of the image. Since my eyes were on the road (safety first after all), I couldn't completely frame the shot first.

I hope you've enjoyed this first week of images here on Ewan Photos! The site runs sort of like a Public Radio station where the donations that people make help fund the work to make this available for everyone. So if you've enjoyed what you've seen so far, please drop by the Donations Page, and make a contribution to keep things going.

Thanks again for visiting, and I'll have more images up starting again on Monday!

Road Trip 2009 - West Texas from Interstate 10

OK, I have two images for you today. First is a barn with an old fashioned windmill located in West Texas just off of Interstate 10.

Next is a group of modern windmills about half an hour further down the road. While the first windmill would have been used for pumping water, these newer windmills are used to create electricity. What's interesting is that a lot of the power from the windmills in West Texas is actually sent over to San Antonio. So in one sense I was taking a drive to see where the power that recharged the batteries for taking these pictures came from.

Outdoor Office Number 3 - Old Faithful - Last of this series

Last picture in the Outdoor Office series. This time you can see Old Faithful steaming as it prepares for an eruption that occured about 15 minutes after this picture was taken. I chickened out of trying to get a photo during the eruption as the wind was kind of variable that day, and I didn't want to get any moisture on the system. While everything was solid state (thanks to the SSD), it wasn't waterproof.

Next series will start the images from the Road Trip I took in August of 2009 (not that long ago) through Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico. See you tomorrow!

Outdoor Office Number 2 - Rocky Mountain National Park

Here's the next image in my Outdoor Office series. I played with the exposure a bit on this one to make sure the computer screen was visible so folks could see I really was working out here. Got some interesting comments from some of the folks who hiked by while I was setting this up :-)

In the background is a small waterfall that is visible if you take the Glacier Basin Trail heading up to Sky Pond.

First Picture - My Work Environment on the Road

Let's kick things off with a series showing my "Office on the Road" from my latest trip. As you can see in the picture, I used an ASUS 900HA that had been upgraded to 2 Gigs of RAM, and the internal HD was replaced with a fairly fast 128 Gig SSD. The dongle on the right is a Verizon 3G USB modem (which worked well until you got below the rim on the trails), and the white base is a Logitech Notebook Cooler.

In the background is the Grand Canyon as taken from the South Rim.

Camera for this and most of the pictures I'll be showing on the site is a Panasonic FZ28. I will occasionally post (and will note when I do so) some older images taken with either a Panasonic FZ18 or a Canon S2IS.

As I mention on the Donations Page, most of the images here are also available as prints if you are interested. Just drop me an email and let me know.

Of course, I'd love it if eventually doing this covers the bills well enough that I could be shooting images to share with y'all all the time. For the meantime, hopefully you'll enjoy what I do have already for you!

Grand Opening Scheduled - Monday, September 14th

Looks like I have all my ducks in a row to have this site "go live" next Monday morning, September 14th. The plan is to have a new photo up every day, which will be one I've pulled from my collection of the "best" of my photos. Generally I'll be trying to tell a story along with the photos, and occasionally I'll post something designed more to show how NOT to take or edit a photo, or just because it helps with whatever experience I'm trying to relate.

If you haven't read any of my previous stuff, most of the photos will come from the Western United States. Over the first few months I'll be posting stuff from my recent trip to six National parks, as well as some shots taken on the road as I was going past everything.

Look forward to sharing more with everyone next Monday!

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