Yellow Rose of Texas

On my way to take my little sister somewhere, I saw this really awesome prickly pear covered in yellow flowers. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me so I just had to keep driving. On my way to pick my sister up an hour later, I drove by again and was able to stop for 7 or 8 minutes. I parked in this little parking lot in front of some building and creeped around a bit getting shots. I'm not sure what place that was, but I felt extremely awkward crouching in their flower bed. Thankfully, no one came outside asking what I was doing and none of the bees got me, either! Yay!

I got almost 20 pictures, but at this point, these are my favorites I think.

Black and White

So far I just have little creatures on here. This is proof that I do, in fact, also take pictures of other things as well. Black and white just makes things look better sometimes. In the case of most of these pictures, that holds true, although the color ones are also nice. It just depends what kinda mood I'm in when I'm editing and playing around with them.

7-A Ranch Resort, Wimberley, TX

Wimberley High School Band Hall

Somewhere on the AmTrak line

Bel Canto Farms (I think)close to Dripping Springs

Creepy Crawlies

This is one of my favorite pictures. This caterpillar was crawling down some tree by the river and I was able to get some good pictures of it. Unfortunately, I only put them on the school's computer which accidentally had its memory cleared and this is the only one that I had saved onto a cd. Scary moments there, I'm telling ya.

As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I somehow always end up taking pictures of bugs. I love taking macro pictures and they present themselves as good targets. This next pictures is of a massive bee I found buzzing around some flowers in our yard.

Getting close enough to actually snap a shot of it was somewhat challenging. It would fly off before I could get my little point and shoot camera to focus on it. I ended up guessing how far away it would be, focusing on a leaf or my hand that distance away, and then moving the camera around until it focused in the right spot.

Having a good eye is what many people value most in photography, but I believe that ingenuity is probably more important than a cultivated sense of where to place a subject or following the rules of how everything should be done. Find something that works and then do it before the chance is gone.

A Baby Kermit

While out swimming, my little sister found this little guy climbing around on one of our tubes. Of course, that meant that I had to run back inside, scare the dogs, drip on the floor, grab the camera, fall down the steps, and yell at my sister to, "Keep the frog there!!!" Thankfully, I was able to get there before he hopped off and I stalked him for a good 15 minutes. He jumped all over the place. I think he was enjoying the fact that I was getting covered in dirt and cobwebs as he just chilled out. Then again, he may have simply become too terrified to move around. It's a close call.

The pictures I got of him are among the favorite animal pics I have ever taken. This frog was just too cute for its own good.

If you click on the pictures and enlarge them, you can see how colorful its eyes are. Frogs have very unusual eyes and they are worth taking notice of.