Photo 05-01-2008

Couple more bird pictures of yesterdays stroll through the park!

Photo 04-30-2008

Since the theme is water, I will stretch it a little and post some cute waterbirds today... and water of course. So cute, cuter and supercute!!

Photo 04-29-2008

Today I went to the CSI exhibit in the Museum of Natural Science. For all you fans of CSI (mainly Las Vegas), this is great. They have the miniature boxes from last years episodes. In the exhibit you research different crime scenes. It was a lot of fun.... for the pictures... we did not make many pictures while doing the research, but I have a few of the miniature boxes and.... what do you think of me as a dead body?! I know that one is not sharp, but it was just a fun snapshot.

Photo 04-26-2008

Another flower picture....

Photo 04-25-2008

A quick picture on my way home from work....

Photo 04-24-2008

I finally had my (hopefully) last test today and can spend my time to photography instead of studying. Today though was not a good day... I was exhausted from all the stress and studying. So just a picture of the cow that was at the restaurant where we went to eat to celebrate this end of testing. And also a picture of some old equipment!

Photo 04-23-2008

Just another picture of our little kitty. We went to the vet with her today and she's probably around 8-9 weeks, so even younger than we thought. Let's hope the owner will contact us.... otherwise she'll be staying with us. i must say I do like to have this ball of energy in the house! We'll probably start thinking about names by the end of the week and if nobody contacted us we will also start vaccinating and getting our cats adjusted to her.

I love this picture of her and my husband's hand. It shows how tiny she is!!

Photo 04-22-2008

I posted the cropped and uncropped version of the pictures of the pyramid a couple days back. I haven't had time to go back but decided I would post a couple of others... please let me know what you think? These pyramids house an aquarium (blue one), children's science museum (pink) and rain forest park (white one).

Oh and to answer some of the questions: I was about 4 feet away from the bird and at first thought it was a fake one, but than it moved and I got really excited. I have never been so close and have a great environment to shoot in (e.g not against the sun and plants around it). Everybody else was looking at the snakes so I could take the pictures, by the time they spotted the bird I had taken the pictures and the bird got annoyed and flew away! LOL

Also I'm shooting with a sony cybershot dsc h9 with maximum zoom (78mm).

Thanks for looking!

Photo 04-21-2008

Today was a lucky day.... while walking in the nature park everybody was looking at the snakes when I spotted this heron. I love to picture birds and was so glad that it posed for me. I hardly ever see a heron so close by!!

I do have some snake pictures.... but for today I like the pretty cute birds and no reptiles or insects!

Photo 04-20-2008

Today just a flower picture.

Thanks for looking.

Oh and I forgot to say thank you for all the comments on the cropped or uncropped version of my picture. I really do appreciate the comments that you gave and I think it was pretty much 50/50 for the cropped or uncropped. I personally would prefer the uncropped... if it did not have the big "hole" of mud in the foreground. I will probably go back and see if I can change the position or the angle of the picture, so it does not disturb me as much as now. Thank you all for responding!

Photo 04-19-2008

I have not posted for a couple of days.... reason is this little girl! My hsuband found this little kitten complete wet, shaken en scared on friday in a big thunderstorm. He of course couldn't leave it there... middle of the city, nowhere near houses or people. So it has been in our bathroom... looking really nice, but really scared, hissing and growling at us. We placed an ad in the paper for next week and I posted at a lost cats site. We're going to call the vets on monday to see if someone is missing her. She can be really nice if she's not scared and she's trained to use the catpan. Obviously someone has kept her inside.. she looks like she's about 3-4 months old. If nobody responds we might keep it, although I'm worried one of my cats will not accept her. She's already walking around scared (the kitten is not even half her size... but apparently that doesn't matter.

The last picture shows how I started to take pictures.... my automatic white balance did not work well in this environment.... so since I had learned to set the white balance with the twopeas photocourse... I changed the setting, set the white balance and took the other two pictures. Besides some noise reduction I did not need to change anything about them. Thank you Twopeas for helping me understand my camera and the limitations of auto functions and it's corrections.

Photo 04-17-2008

Uncropped: Cropped:

First of all: Thank you for all the kind responses yesterday. I guess the pictures weren't that bad after all. I was just disappointed that they don't have that cute, furry feel that you get with deer.

For today I have a question for you guys. i took these pictures today and I want to use them for the 26 things, but I don't know which one... the cropped or the uncropped version. Please let me know what you think! Oh I forgot it's for in the background, #10.

And one picture of a flower just because it was beautiful weather here in Texas and everything is blooming!

Photo 04-16-2008

Okay, I went for a short hike this morning before starting to study..... I wanted to take some really nice cute pictures of deers, but.... first I did not see them. Then later on my hike I almost walked into one, I don't know who was startled more, the deer or me! LOL Before I could raise my camera he/she was already gone. So no cute pictures, you will have to do with insects and flowers. I was not really happy today with my pictures. Oh well tomorow will be another day!

Thanks for looking

Photo 04-15-2008

I had a hard time deciding what to post today... I have two more for the 26 things, not what I planned for but they are fitting the theme: #2 backside and #11 little things.

And for the rest a couple of portraits I took today.

Photo 04-14-2008

Today as I was driving to work I saw this tree with beautiful purple/pink blossom. So I decided (addicted as I am to nature pictures!) to turn around and go take some pictures. i guess I was not the only one, because as I turned in the street another photographer had the same idea and was taken pictures too. I guess more people like to take the spring pictures.... at seven in the morning!LOL

Photo 04-13-2008

I'm trying to challenge myself to take different pictures than the nature pictures that I normally take..... so I decided to start with the 26 things challenge for april and may. This is a list of 26 subjects to take pictures of. Everybody has a different view of these subjects and the results can be really refreshing. It really stimulates your creativity. So here are the first two shots: #19 "public art" and #20 "shoes" The shoes hanging on the tree are there for the child abuse prevention month. Every pair of shoes represents one confirmed case of child abuse.

Thanks for looking!

Photo 04-12-2008

Do you have that? That you see all these nice photo opportunities, but just don't have the time to shoot? I had it today.... I have a lot of ideas, but just no time to go out and shoot them... so just a picture from last weekend, since I might even have to work double shift tomorow, so there's probably not much time again. Hopefully next week I will have some more time.

Thanks for looking

Photo 04-11-2008

A little bit more history on the first picture that I posted from yesterday.... this is called the Balinese Room. At the moment it's a restaurant with giftshops and a cybercafe. But in the 1940and 1950's this was one of the big gambling casinos in south texas. And since it was not legal to gamble in texas, rumor goes is that they build the casino (the white, little wider building at the end of the photo) in the back, so they could stall the police and make sure all the signs of gambling were gone before they were there. Appartently ZZtop made a song of this casino in 1975 called balinese:

Deep in the South of Texas

not so long ago,

there on a crowded island

in the Gulf of Mexico

it didn't take too much money,

man, but it sure was nice.

You could dance all night if you felt all right,

drinking whiskey and throwing dice.

And everybody knows

it was hard to leave.

And everybody knows

it was down at the Balinese.

Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill & Frank Beard

So for today a couple more pictures of the other side of "the Balinese room"

Photo 04-10-2008

Today I challenged myself to not take pictures of nature... but take pictures of manmade structures. I guess I'm getting a little tired of only nature pictures.... I need to find a new challenge! The second picture shows that winter has come to an end, we're starting to get towards summertime!

Photo 04-09-2008

Another food picture today.... no this is not my pizza, but my husband's. Mine was too boring with only pineapple and tuna on it. His has peppers, olives, capers and I don't know what else, makes a much better picture. But I had to be fast, because he was hungry and in about 15 minutes there was nothing left of this delicious pizza!!

Photo 04-08-2008

Not much time for pictures... only for chocolate!

Photo 04-07-2008

No cute pictures today..... just some green creatures that I saw today:
A treefrog, don't you think these frogs look so fake?

This little green lizard was either trying to impress the other lizard (not in the picture) or trying to scare it away, either way every couple of seconds the lizard would kind of blow up with this red sack!
And the last picture.... I wonder who is catching who?


Thanks for looking!