Working Inside with Ceilings at 200 feet!

A wild life camera. Nothing unusual there. What is unusual is that it is in a cemetery

Sunshine rules in  my book, and over time, days when the clouds roll in tend to really give me a good case of the downers. I don't get depressed, but I do get down with weather like we have have the past several days. In short, I discovered today that it isn't so much the clouds as it is the level of the ceilings. Today, the National Weather Servcie's web site, indicated on an hourly basis that the clouds were hanging at 400 feet, 200 feet, 400-300 feet most of the day. It really wasn't raining much, the total rain fall has been reported at less than .07 of an inch or less several hourly reports showed. With a total of less and .22 of an inch total since yesterday, that is measuring drizzle and with low clouds.  That is a downer of a sprinkle kind that I just as soon see move on out tomorrow and welcome the cold front in it's place. That should clear things out nicely.


With that kind of misery from weather, it gave me a change to look back over the past two weeks of images in more detail and find all the unusual things. And I did find one. A very interesting one at that. In fact, I debated whether to post it or not for several reasons. Yet,  it's got editorial value and those are the ones that hold the most interest for editors and brokers of editorial stock images the most. And... open my mouth and insert foot again... the hawks have positioned themselves in better locations where details highlight their beauty even more after I post that this blog isn't turning into a bird blog. I should have know that Murphy's law would come back to haunt my words on that topic.

Beautiful Red Shoulder on a Wire. This is the second time I have seen him on the wire in the past 4 weeks. Usually, he likes trees over the roadway. (Click on the image to enlarge)

On The Last Day of Fall, A Red Shoulder Gave To Me

a chance to get some very unique images of textures. It was on my return trip out that I got to see him fly low and over the the tops of the tall prairie grasses. He was hunting, I am  sure, but do not  know what it was the he was hunting. A mouse, a rabbit, maybe? But, while the images are a bit darker of his face, the feather features and the backgrounds were good for posters.

I was on the DFW HD cam this morning  watching the sunrise. The thought hit me that the sunrise was more like a sunrise on some distant planet---it was really weird in a way, although pretty as could be. Then, this afternoon while I came up on the Red Shoulder sitting on a branch over the road just as pretty as  you please, I shot from the car, then parked and shot from the car again and then got out, walked under the tree, around the tree, crossed the road and shot back at this amazing bird. It was like, okay, I see you and I see your camera and its the holidays and go ahead an take some pictures. I have been seeing him more and more lately. He has also allowed more camera time without flying off. But, as I came back down the run, he took off on that flight over the tall grasses mentioned above. So, I walked down to the edge of the lake and was looking at the reflection in the water. It caused me to look up at the sky and the clouds were doing that strange kind of light as I had seen this morning on the DFW webcam.It's really weird to see how they have been so different and yet, that has duplicated it again within the same day. Strange. I observe a lot of things and have  for way to many years. These are somehow different and more strange. It's just hard to explain. I wish that I had gotten a screen shot of the sky this morning at DFW. Then, I could have compared the two in likeness.

Imagine the middle row of clouds being sunrise yellow and you have the DFW image this morning at sunrise.

Red Shoulder not phased that I was under the tree clicking away.

Cute! I was at a stop sign and saw this. It was just to good to pass up. Creative design and placement without doubt. It's another Red Shoulder, I do believe.

There's A Race Going On!!

My pictures are indexed. There is a book for each agency. When a license is made, that  is recorded with the agency that licensed it and the revenue generated from the license (some call that a royalty; the IRS sure does!). Never-the-less, sometimes, images are listed with more than one agency, When that happens, that license is recorded in the book with the agency, even though, there may be one listed in another agency book. I suppose that is why they call it indexing. I call it landmark recording! ☺♫ ♫.

Up until today, I had one image that has just set the universe (my universe) on fire. This morning when I checked my e-mail,  Instead of opening the e-mail, I just went directly to the agency listing. When I recorded the license, it hit me that this image was pretty much being licensed as much as my best one to date with another agency. When I investigated more closely, sure enough---that image had surpassed the number one licensed image by seven more than the other. Then, when I looked at the financials----the number one licensed image was still a winner because it's revenue was more than double the one that just surpassed it by seven licenses. So-- yep! it's a winner in numbers and the other is winner in dollars! I had to call it a tie!! At least it wasn't heading toward a black hole yet.

Overall, my images are being used more now each year. That is why my workload has been rather heavy of late. It's the old adage: you create the beast, you have to feed it. That is what I have been doing. Overall, it has been fun and as long as it continues to be fun, the schedule can be adjusted around daily activities of shopping and banking and grocery trips and medicine trips and doctors! To be grateful and thankful that I have pretty good health (although there are some problems to deal with) would be an understatement. There are a couple of setbacks coming up and as I work through those I'll be back behind the eight ball again, no doubt. Speaking of the eight ball,,,I just picked that thing up form the 8-ball repair store, too.

We've had three days of 90s. June is looking like it's going to be right on target. The humidity has been better of late,  and the wind...it's been gusting more than normal.I'm hoping that this summer just does not see much of that triple digit stuff.  You know that when you add the outside air temp and the dewpoint together and it is under 130 it's a pretty good day. If when you add the two together and it's over 130, that means you can stand still and have sweat form. That's the days when I turn around and come on back inside. In Texas, that 130 number usually pops around 10  or 10:30 in the morning. So with that in mind, I start out much earlier and by 10:30 when those numbers come together to wring out the sweat , I'm in the car with the AC on, heading back to the barn.

Something else that I noticed today with all the new transplants moving in. That 10:30 thing is when those people start to turn mean! Today, I saw plates from the following states: Montana, Nevada, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Idaho, Kansas, Illinois, Wisconsin,  The usual that are the result of Toyota workers starting Monday at the new Corporate Headquarters here  are ton's of California plates. And it's only gonna get worse as the numbers increase as they fill up the campus.

Tempers!

Tempers again!

Now he thinks that he's gonna peck a hole in that cement! Crazy woodpecker---but he was so funny.