Some Cuteness In The New Year

My car sometimes just takes control and heads me randomly in one direction. It did that on Monday. When I decided that it was really time to stop, my car was at the parking lot to the Ron Kirk Bridge, formerly known as the old Continental Bridge before the Margaret Hunt Hill was built. On good weather days, the crowds are usually pretty good if you are going to shoot weather shots for the Live Feeds or have some editorial shots as a group. Such was how the day went. I had 11 images running on the live feed the past 48 hours and I really enjoy spotlighting Dallas when I can.

Family of Cowboy Fans save #84. A hold out as a Pittsburgh Fan

Two bull dogs taking their owners for a walk.

The Skyline Trail along the Trinity and crosses under the Ron Kirk Bridge Park . It runs both sides of the river from Sylvan Avenue to I-30 and the Margaret McDermott Bridge that will have a pedestrian bike access suspended under the bridge as the southern cross over. The old Sylvan Avenue bridge is the northern crossover point. It is a little over 4 miles long for both sides of the river.

What A Way To End The Year!!

During the course of the year, I have tried to present some of the fun and unusual things that jump off in North Dallas. Heavens only knows that there is enough bad news channels already. So to present that oddity to make you chuckle or laugh out loud or to say that passionate---AHHHHH! has been a goal of mine.

This year, it seems that yard decorations have gone with a more dangling mode that is made of unusual things. I have passed up many more that were so "complicated" to sort it out would have been not worth the time because while you were making up your mind what it was, the element of  comedy delay that always works, would have passed. But, there were some that just had that little tickler that would make sour lemon drops smile.

Today, while making my last round of the lake for 2016. It was rather mundane of sorts. Even I was a bit surprised how people were kind of not themselves for some reason. So as I headed out for home, I wanted to head out on the highest overview of the lake and downtown. As I turned onto the street that would provide those views, I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye that made the turn around and come back for a second look. I cracked up!! If I was having a contest for the most original humor decorations, this would have won thumbs down. See what you think. Everybody have a good and safe New Years and come on back in 2017. I post especially for Y'all.

Suspended  from tree branches, a lantern, table lamps with shades is not your average decoration.

It can't be said that it isn't original!!!

Accomplished A Lot Today

Just A Pretty Duck

Black Ring Bill Gulls Resting

A couple of days to New Years and the past week has seen two record breaking days. One at 81 degrees and one at 83 degrees.

With the tic-toc ticking, somehow, a lot of year-end task were accomplished today; even got in a 45-minute power nap. In the process, many images got listed with a handful of agencies. Every year, I try to go back through my images because for one reason or another, I miss one here and there. My thinking at the time could have been that I didn't want to list that particular image.  Some times it's as simple as whether I can list it as stock or as an editorial only image. Those can be the easy choices---sometimes---and at other times it can be a major debate of mind reasoning. There has even been times that I have prayed over an image here and there. Plus, there are projects to plan for shoots and editorial stuff happening that one needs to stay on top if the event changes. Frankly, with the degree of hate in the world today, I think about those projects with extra special care. Mom called that, "loss prevention with maximum realization".

On our website under the last tab, some of our images portfolios can be viewed via links. But, of course, there are a couple that do not give us that advantage to include every image so that you can check them out. For that reason,  I have exempted those two sites so that images are not listed there unless they are on all the links.In other words, if you can not check it out, then I don't list images on those sites, but will list them on sites that allow us to link our portfolios.

There should be one final post before the New Years. Hopefully, I'll still have time to get it written .  

Sometimes, Best Waits For The Last Minute

Here it is the end of another year! Where does that time go? Well, from a scientific point of view, it only moves forward so at least we know what direction to look for it each year. There is always a rush to finish projects or start looking for tax information,too. It's also a time to reflect and to make those New Years resolutions. A year in review seems to be the moniker that hangs for this kind of stuff. Although, for me, my annual review is always in July. That's when I sit down and comb through all the services that I use and figure out if I am getting my value out of them. If not, then they are cut or terminated. I've already got a heads up on one for July 2017. AT&T forced me to go to U-Verse and now since they purchased Direct TV, they have figured out that it cost them $17 more per customer to stay on U-Verse and are planning to switch customers  (I call it forced) to Direct TV. So, 2016 hasn't settled in the dust and a dust bowl is on the horizon for 2017 already.

Image Creators have that "forever stamp" in their indexes. Using a picture taken 5-years ago is just as timely as using that same image taken yesterday. There are exceptions, of course, but generally, stock images don't need to be updated as much as some think that they do. When bottom-line economics first appeared as a game-changer, I wasn't all that impressed. Now, today, all I hear is that no one listens to them anymore when they shop and certainly don't listen to them if they have an issue with something from a retailer to a bank to the phone company or even at times--- health care providers.

The big new thing that is really going to be the icing on the cake is all the talk about AI (artificial intelligence). Just  yesterday the police want  Amazon to turn over information from their Echo device in a murder investigation in Arkansas. It appears that even when not in use, the AI is still listening and recording that information. In my own home, why would I ever want something like that?

When I voted this past election, I ask my precinct foreman if my voting machine left a paper trail. He didn't know. But after I voted he came up to me and said, " no it doesn't." I had been observing each time that I voted for a few years that the election volunteer after checking the information inserted a smart drive into the machine before turning it over to me. I had already assumed that he was down loading the last persons vote and that after I left the machine, my vote remained in the machine until the next person voted, repeating what he had done before I used the machine. So when the Donald said that there was a great potential for voter fraud, I was not surprised. Now, this morning, the voter machines that I have been using have been declared not fit for election use because of the fraud issue. Why am I not surprised about that, either?

Yesterday, I started going back through my images from the first of 2016 and reviewing those that I have submitted, those that have been sold, and those that have been used by magazines, newspapers and as still shots on television. That is one class. The second class are those that have a WOW factor. They fulfill my mission statement : "A project to enhance the mind, stir the emotions and  quench a thirsty soul." All the others I begin to delete. According to my camera numbering system, 2016 will be a bit off. As with the images from yesterday, 2016 saw the shutter click shut just shy of 50,000 clicks. That's about one tenth of one percent that end up earmarked as keepers. A good shot can still be good but for submission purposes, someone's arm or elbo in the shot pretty much marks that image for the delete button. It's the old adage: you create the beast, the beast wants fed. In this case, my beast is eating about 50,000 shots a year. As long as I am still having fun doing it, then the beast doesn't get hunger pains. When I have to put the camera down, for me, it's going to be a sad day.

So, in this last week of the year 2016, the unusual appeared. In searching back, my most amazing image came from a pigeon earlier in the year. Both were of animals. I'm thankful for that. Their brains may be smaller than ours, but they have more intelligence than we give them credit and their hearts beat just like our, too.

Layla--a pure white German Shepard from Germany.

Muscle is still Muscle

Dragon Boat on White Rock Lake. One team trains here.The annual race is at Las Colinas in May each year.

Warmest Christmas in Dallas...Ever!

Yesterday, my youngest brother and I had lunch at Twisted Root. If you never have been there, it's a fun place to get a burger for sure. Our order-taker made mention that they actually had buffalo meat in house yesterday. I replied that I really preferred by buffalo in National Parks. For that, our order card was the "Charlie Brown" card. It's kind of like the old Jerry Seinfeld soup Nazi episode in real life. And yes, I mentioned the word potato at Spring Creek BBQ a time or two, also. You never want to do that. Luckily, for me, that kind of  humor is just as much fun as the themed restaurants can be and I like that atmosphere. 

Speaking of atmosphere, the low temperature in Dallas Christmas Eve broke the old low temperature reading by 14 degrees. That low temperature was 69 degrees. But, the surprise came today when the old high temperature for Christmas Day was 78 and at 2:53 P.M at DFW International (the official reporting station and hourly reporting) the temperature hit 80 degrees. That is the highest temperature ever, in Dallas, for a Christmas Day.

It was obvious too!. People were out in numbers riding new bikes, playing with new remote controlled cars. BBQ grills in the parks were all smoking as families spread picnics out on picnic tables. There was a strong and gusty south wind blowing, too! Cormorants were flapping their wings and flying sideways rather than moving forward. Pelicans were making double approaches landing and suburban main streets Christmas decorations were swinging in the wind.

Places in the Sierra Nevada mountains were covered in snow and looked a lot like a Norman Rockwell painting. Watching the snow plows move the mountain- elevation snows while I cooked the turkey this morning was that romantic-type Christmas for sure. Seeing  the White Rock Airforce coming in for a landing in strong gusty winds was also amazing. In fact, just as smooth as a A-380 landing in cross-winds at DFW Nature is so amazing.

White Rock Air Force

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

It's a blue and silver Cowboy Christmas this year!

Go Cowboys!

Perseption Is Everything, But ......

Sometimes, images are just waiting to happen. For more than a decade, I have not gone anywhere without my camera riding  next to me on the passenger seat. It's an old trick that I learned from a friend of mine who was an AP photographer for many years. In fact, he was the same guy that would shimmy thirty feet out on an I-beam that was seven-hundred feet up on a job site just to get a shot of  several iron workers eating their lunch on that same I-beam.  Steve was patient (and a bit crazy) for sure.

At this time of year, I make my rounds to include a few cemetery visits of people that I have known and worked with in the past. While doing that yesterday, a rare moment began to unfold right before my eyes. Instinctively, I reached for the camera. While the opportunity presented itself, it did not present itself in ideal conditions but none-the-less, I got the shot through my dirty windshield and being on the wrong side of the truck. All that aside, afterwords, my thinking was---how many people have ever seen the particular setup?  That's what makes it one of those rare shots.

Cemetery Delivery

My question: on-line purchase?