see story run » Images

Old Queen

chris — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:39:24 +0000

Looking around this old house I’ve got there are lots of little interesting details. I decided to not watch TV for a night and take a few pictures. Nothing special, just some old bits with some character. It helps that I’m not one for the cold and it’s been pretty cold here the last few days.

Space Shuttle Endeavour – last night launch

chris — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:14:35 +0000

2010 marks the end of the space shuttle program. I had never seen a launch and it is one of those things I told myself I’d see. So a buddy of mine and I, along with the help of his wife conspired to converge in Florida for the February 7th launch, which would also happen to be the last night launch. Oh joy!

-1200 miles from Texas to Orlando Florida, check.
-4 hours in line to get to the causeway, check.
-3 more hours of waiting, check.
-no go due to low cloud cover, check.

Wait whaaaat? The first night was insane. There were SO many people there to see this thing go, I could not believe it. We estimated there were at least 5000 people on the causeway via bus alone, not to mention the thousands of folks watching from further away public locations. It was PACKED. No technical issues were being worked on all night, only issue was the threat of low cloud cover which would make an emergency landing back at Kennedy Space Center dangerous. Weather went from 80% go one hour before launch, down to 30% go at the 9 minute hold. Feb. 7th launch was scrubbed.

Should we do it again? We drove 1200 miles and waited in line and in the cold for no reason? I think not! So we foolishly sign up again for the next night. Rinse repeat, except NO crowds. Between the superbowl and it being a Monday morning thing instead of a weekend launch, the crowds were gone. We got to relax and actually visit Kennedy Space Center, it was a much more peaceful night. Once out to the causeway, the weather looked worse, however it was less dynamic. Weather remained 60% go all night until the 9 minute hold. Clouds thinned out, polling took place, everyone is go for launch! This thing is going! 1200 miles, 2 nights of waiting for a few minutes of glory, it was worth it, the sights and sounds are amazing. There is still time to see a shuttle launch, if you can make it to Florida for one of the 4 remaining, I highly recommend going.

I’ll shut up now and show you the pictures. These pictures were taken from the NASA Causeway viewing area, roughly 7 miles from the shuttle. I’m using my sigma 500mm lens zoomed all the way in, all settings were on manual. The atmosphere didn’t allow for any stellar pictures, but I didn’t care really. I had it setup on my tripod with remote shutter in hand, I wasn’t going to watch this through the camera. I just waited for sparks to fly and clicked away until it was out of the camera’s view. If you were to look at 100% crops of these you would see there are NO strait lines. Even with your bare eyes you could see the shuttle flickering in the distance. I believe it was worse than normal due to air temps in the low 40′s and water temps in the 70′s. So I’m shooting across 7 miles of heat waves basically. Anyhow, pictures:

UPDATE!
The fellow I went with just uploaded the video he took using a few of his camera’s to the youtubes! Enjoy:

MotoGP, 2009

chris — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:43:35 +0000

Formula one has left the US for the time being, this leaves MotoGP as the only world class series to hold races in the US. Fortunately for us, they hold 2 races here, one in California at Laguna Seca (amazing place) and the other at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. California being a 24 hour drive and only 2 of us making it to the race this year- we chose Indy.

As a side note, I’d like to shamefully admit that I forgot about these pictures. I closed on a house while on this trip, so as soon as I returned from Indy it was house house house full tilt. It’s kind of interesting coming back to the pictures though after a few months out of mind. Kind of a “I took these?!” kinda thing… neat.

Enchanted Rock & Gorman Falls

chris — Sat, 23 May 2009 20:00:33 +0000

Holiday weekend camping with friends down at Enchanted Rock State park; fun. We left Fort Worth on a Friday and spent the 3 day weekend messing around at various state parks, camping, taking pictures, and camp fires at Enchanted Rock and Gorman Falls.

Most of these pictures are of Gorman Falls at Colorado Bend State Park which is nearish Enchanted Rock. The falls are a 45 minute hike in and they are simply amazing. Water from underground aquifers seeps out from atop a cliff face creating mineral formations normally found inside a cave outside. Plants growing on the cliff face get covered in minerals and more plants grow which get covered, resulting in sheets of mineral formations that must be seen to believed.

Snake!

While climbing around on the rocks near the falls my buddy who is leading the way suddenly jumps back and yells “SNAKE SNAKE SNAKE!!!”. We collectively jump back and gain our composure and snap a few pictures with a little point and shoot before we moved along. I honestly don’t know how my buddy saw the Cottonmouth curled up in a small depression in the rock he was in the process of climbing up. One more step and that snake would have taken a bite out of him center mass some where as his chest/face would have been directly over the snake as he pulled up on the rock. I kept thinking as we found another route around if I had been leading, would I have seen it? No rattle, no hiss, just a grey mass ready to bite. Yikes.

I didn’t really take many pictures at the actual destination for our trip. Enchanted rock is a cool place, but there are lots of people all over, so I generally kept the camera away and just had fun hiking, climbing, and caving. The last picture in the set below is from the top of what I call “the crack” which is literally a crack in the rock face that runs vertically from the bottom of the rock to near the top. You can get inside of this crack and shimmy your way all the way up. Its a real thrill when you poke your head out of the top (pictured spot) and see the sheer drop feet away. The last few feet pulling yourself out of the crack onto the main rock is pretty hair raising, for me anyways.

Cactus Kingdom Lake, TX

chris — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:00:15 +0000

Possum Kingdom (i’ve never seen a possum there…) Lake is a pretty rad area west of the DFW metroplex. Lots of hills and shrubs. This trip was a blend of camping and motorcycling and hiking and general fun. I show you some of the artsy sorta shots I took this particular weekend. Also, take a gander at the ‘ride report’ I threw together for a broad understanding of the weekend.

Cedar Hill State Park; tilt shift fun

chris — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:43:54 +0000

Cedar Hill State Park is a decent state park placed on the only real ‘mountains’ in the area (hills really). Its generally quite pretty and very close to my residence at this point in time. The girlfriend and I made an afternoon hike here and found ourselves some pictures. I initially broke out my 16-35 when I decided I’d give the tilt shift a shot. I really enjoied being able to break the foreground away from the back ground in wide shots while in the trees. I very much plan on returning with a tripod and more time and more tilt shift fun.

Oh! A bobcat, swell.

chris — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:48:16 +0000

While on a bike ride during some rather awesome March weather my girlfriend and I stopped for a breather on the side of the path in a fairly wooded area. Seconds after we’ve sat down Tiffany spots a rabbit sprinting across the path 50 feet away. Neat! A few seconds pass and a bobcat appears from the same direction at a very leisurely pace. I suspect it had been chasing that rabbit for a while and had just given up chase. It saunters across the path into the trees and plops down under a small treeish bush, I pull out my camera and clickity click a few.

The sun was low enough to not offer much help in the trees, plus I was shooting through thickish underbrush, so they’re not ideal pictures, but I think they came out well. I wish I had brought my 500mm lens on the bike ride with us; but I pulled it out of my bag to make room for other things. Oh well, my 35-350mm was just enough. I also wish I bumped my ISO to 800 or so to get a bit more shutter speed, it all happened so quick I was lucky to get any shots off at all; I’m content.

I ended up getting fairly close to the guy before he/she slowly stood up and walked off into the woods, never taking its eyes off me. It was a little unnerving when it first stood up from its resting spot, I didn’t know if it was going to come toward me or what. Fortunately it knew I was a force to be reckoned with and went its own way :P

Nixie Tubes!

chris — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:58:17 +0000

Smooshy blast from the past batman! So my mom hands me a box she found in the house, post fire, and tells me that its mine. I have no clue what it is and ask, she tells me its got some kinda electronic something in it. Not enough to jog my memory… so I open it and what is in side? A frequency counter from the days of yore with marvolous wonderful vacuum display tubes! I absolutely love the look of these things. Enjoy some pictures as this magic box counts from one to forever!

HORSES, DONKEYS: STOP!

chris — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:00:29 +0000

“HORSES, DONKEYS!!!”, the girlfriend yells at me to stop the car. When we first stopped the animals were a pretty good distance from us but quickly came to the fence line to get some attention and some of that greener grass everyone’s always talking about. I’ve never seen any of those fancy big Clydesdale horses, but these guys were HUGE; biggest horses I’ve seen. They were sure friendly, to us anyways. They kept shooing away the donkeys, they never let them get close enough for some lovin.

Washington Water Falls and So Much More…

chris — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:17:43 +0000

These pictures were taken during a trip to Washington for a good friends wedding. These were my first real pictures taken with my 40D; I must admit, I did not get as many good pictures out of this trip as I would have liked. For some unknown reason, my user settings in the camera were on custom and the sharpness was pushed to the MAX. When viewed at full res the pictures are pretty harsh, and no, I wasn’t shooting RAW. I do now though; I do now. Good times though, new friends, and all that jazz.