Stop One: Sometimes, being in the right place at the right time is because of the camera. It is amazing how a camera does train you eye to pick up on things long before others. Having my camera in the car, enables me to get a shot that would otherwise be missed altogether.
Such was the case this afternoon. After going to the bank, it wasn't two miles before I see this huge bird in my traffic lane. The bird flies from the traffic lane onto the roof of a building being used as a charter school. At the light, I turned, pulled into the side street and parked. The bird wasn't moving. In short, there were two dead squirrels in the traffic lane. Not one, but two! That within itself was unusual but what surprised me most was that it was what I grew up knowing to be a turkey vulture. While they are related to eagles and hawks and falcons, they are not seen on the ground in the city as much as a hawk or even an eagle or two.
Watching the vulture for a while, the bird became very interested in a camera mounted on the side of the building, just below the coping that the vulture seemed to like. One, he could keep his eye on the carrion and could see me. So when I did start to shoot, he just posed for the camera. I do talk to animals while I shoot them. They understand more than most people think.
Stop Two: After spending nearly two full years and over 100 weekends of following the construction of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, when it was finished, my thoughts were that I would not devote that much time to the second bridge whenever construction started. Today, I went down to see what I could see and try to determine if I had any interest in photographing another long-term construction project. It took about 5-minutes and I was hooked. When these large projects get into your blood, they just seem to call out wherever you are until you can't resist any longer.
Stop Three: On the way home, I was just coming up on the Anatole as these 5 white buses with a 6-man motor cycle escort was pulling into the hotel. Making the block and coming back down the service road on the west side of 35E at Market Center, I pulled into the parking lot. The team had unloaded and was inside the hotel. But, I was able to get a shot of the last two buses in the 5-bus lineup. Shortly, the motor cycle guys waited until I passed then pulled in behind me. At the second light, they took off like crazy and headed toward I-30 on Inwood. Hampton Road a mile farther south.
Generally, for all three events, I was in the right spot at the right time again. It was about the same thing a couple of years ago when checking on the trains at Fair Park and the Penn State Athletic Semi pulled into the Cotton Bowl.
Since the teams arrival at the Anatole today, I submitted the picture of the buses on a live news feed and the image is running on the 48-hour cycle. Because it is one of the top NCAA football events of the season, I could not withhold the image. It was sports news after all!
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| Turkey Vulture interested in camera just below on wall |
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| The Hotel Anatole and the Missouri Team |
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| Work on the second Santiago Calatrava Bridge is under way on I-30. When Finished, the bridge will be known as the Margaret McDermott Bridge. |
