The Porch Thermometer Hits 100°F Yesterday for the first time this season.

In some mitigation of that headline is that for about 30 minutes the angle of the sun hits the porch at the hottest point of the day. Still, the temps were close and the humidity and dew points were sky high. 

Then, this morning, the news reports made mention of how bad the humidity and heat were  yesterday. I know, I was out in that heat and even had to use my umbrella at one bus stop. One weatherman said that the humidity was so thick,"could cut it with a chain saw." 

With heat index readings of 100 today, it's going to be an 'inside day' without question. 

So, without making excuses, I missed the shot of the day because I was holding an umbrella at an unsheltered bus stop. The shot was a double wide mobile home moving from west to east on the top 5th level of the Dallas High 5. It was so weird to see a house up there, some 120 feet above grade level.That is looking into the office buildings 10th floor. That was a totally unexpected event and proved to me even more the reason I have always traveled with my cameras. Making shots like that are lost in a moment if not paying attention, or by doing a simple thing like keeping the hot sun contained while in a warming environment of today. 

A cold front is on the way for the weekend with temps in the upper 70s and much lower humidities. The thing about cold fronts in Texas other than winter is that they are usually short lived.

 

 

Cannot do any hurkle-durkling or any WCS. I already burned that candle on Wednesday

 What the heck is he talking about? You don't want the long answer because that goes back 200 years where it began as a Scots term. The short answer could be the route to take here. 

The old Scots term of hurkle-durkling was used to indicate a meaning of lounging in bed well past the time you were supposed to get up. That has never been my style. I get up with my internal clock every morning at about the same time, give or take a couple of minutes on either side. That goes back to my teen years when I had a entire small town route for a large newspaper publisher owned and operated by Gannett Co., Inc.  delivering to the entire town of 1498 people, where most were customers. It was a chore and my dad would help with the Sunday Papers driving me in the car loaded with heavy newspapers filled with ads. Every one got screen door service. But for a teen, the money was fantastic.

So, getting up early and getting the day started just became a habit that continues even until today. And, with that history, the WCS fits right in there just about [here]. That stands for weekend catch up sleep. Quiet simply, there was none. However, there was a slight adjustment made with this one. It meant going to bed earlier than normal bedtime. This past Wednesday, I went to bed at 7PM and did not wake up until 7 AM the following morning. In my book, that took care of about four weeks of WCS. That has never become a habit, either. I like to say, "Only when needed". That need usually is about the time that we switch Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time on either side shortly after the change. 

                                                        An early morning painter

April Steps Fell, Weather brought shut-in days. Happy May Day, Too!

Springtime in Texas is mixing up the cold air with the warm moist Gulf air inflow, but it was still, a pretty good month weather, health and sales wise over all. And, I'm even ready for National Turtle Day this month on Thursday, May 23rd. 

Thistle's are amazing weeds. The geo-patterns and colors just don't come to mind when you think of a weed that grows along fences, around construction sites or in a field that has been unattended for a while.

If Something Moves You, Photograph it!

 This could well be a father's statement to his daughter who just sent me an image that she took. Having said that, I hope she's checking out the blog, for sure. 

I'm very comfortable with my style looking back at many years of images. Twenty-three years ago, when I did the initial research on a name that I wanted to use it was an image of a distorted reflection--- in other words, people have an image of a paparazzo in their heads that isn't really what I wanted to convey. In fact, the ideal was to distort that image that people had with the name in their minds, with the actual end result being nearly a 180-degree turn from what people would be thinking. Hence, the birth of dallaspaparazzo because it would be of things in a high density population and urban setting. People were not the focus at all.

All these years later, I have had a more clear focus on light, textures, angles, materials and structural elements. To paraphrase an article that I found on the web in the early 2021 during the pandemic the article was more like I had envisioned the end result of our name some twenty years before the article was written. 

My mother did amazing things in abstract designs long before they were fashionable. I have always been a big fan of abstracts and when I can photograph something that has endless possibilities of abstractness, I can sit for hours looking at what I see physically and how it looks mentally. In short, I am not afraid to shoot something 'off the wall' odd or strange whether people understand it or not. In fact, go to a museum and look at a famous artist painting. People see different things. With me, composition rules go out the window. My intention is to see how long it takes someone to mention that they saw much the same as I did when composing the shot. Sales is the barometer of that process generally. 

At this writing, images that I shot on a streak of creativity are selling off the wall (pardon the pun) within days of them being published. And in that same vein of thought, last week I sold an image that was shot 19 years ago for the first time. Unusual to have such a vast spread of time of images to be  analytical of one that jumped off the shelf and another one that sat in a server for all that time but had the same results. I love to see those things,  I then go out and photograph point-counterpoint shots again.

One of my old friends and also an AP photographer, once told me that there is no incorrect way to create an image. You see something that moves you, shoot the darn thing. I have long remembered Steve's firmness when he said that to me. He was an amazing man with a camera. He is also the man that would walk out on a steel beam 60 stories up to shoot steelworkers sitting on the beam eating their lunch, just to get a shot that "moved him". That was the point where Steve and I drew the line. He knew better than to ask me to do that and I knew better than to take the bait. I was not going out on a steel beam 600 feet up in the air to get a shot. That's why they make long glass that fit camera bodies. 

Over the years another thing that I ran across in one of several articles Google turned up in a search, answered my question with many references: The common misconception is that Urban photography and Street photography are interchangeable. They are not. They are two separate entities by definitions. 

"Urban photography serves as a representation of contemporary life in a city space, Street photography is a visual documentation of society within public space." Judity Ruiz Ricart, Wix.com/blog/photography/urban-photography, Feb.10, 2020.

Many argue that street photography should be considered a sub-genre  of urban photography. It has always been: it all depends on who you ask. Which was exactly what Steve had told me years earlier in one of those times when he left his comedy side and became a teacher with firmness in his voice. 

My point to be made here in mutual agreement with Steve (R.I.P you old West Virginia Boy) and Google found article by Judity Ricart, is that I have not been as analytical about street photography and urban photography as I should be or

as I have been about the term in which images sell (that's the old Marketing side me of rearing it head). And that was triggered when my daughter sent me her image with the caption, "See I can take good pics too".

In short, the creative juices are flowing again like an open tap. I am anxious to see what appears in the lens when I can get back out there. 

Wildlife Images are interesting in urban nature settings.

                                   I still have to pinch myself that I caught this capture a few years back, like pre-Covid days. I found the chip still in my old Nikon camera the other day, much to my surprise. It says a lot about the battles the animal kingdoms deal with. Here the hummingbird is protecting his nectar source from a bumble bee that was trying hard to drive the hummer away. Luckily, I was focusing on the shot when the hummer did an about face and pretty much told the bee that he would be speared with that beak if he tried it again. Combat awaits but never took place. However, it was a capture that I am proud to say that I took the shot.

                                   A Plano Coyote takes a leisure rest in a front yard.

Then, just day before yesterday as I am leaving the house, I saw a feral cat a couple of doors down chasing something in the tall grass from all the rain. Stopping, to see what was going on, the cat came up with a squirrel. It was lunch time. Had I stopped to unpack the camera, the shot would have been lost anyway. The cat was looking at me with the squirrel in his jaws. Had he felt threatened, he would have run. It was best that I just kept walking. What's the old Texas Poker phrase? "know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em".

Lately, it just seems to me that seeing such things are on the rise. One, because of the stupendous growth in population of humans in Texas and two, the animals are loosing ground for native habitat. And just yesterday on the news, The Trinity non-profit that controls the land between the Maggie 1 and the Magge 2 bridges between the levees announced that the money is now in place to begin the long awaited park on the western edge of downtown. When it was announced during the building of each of the two bridges (Maggie 1 is the one arch and Maggie 2 is the double arch bridges that cross the Trinity River) there was a lots of excitement stirring. It seemed to fade a bit after a period of time, but things developed here and there that seemed to garner a bit of hope left that eventually the park would come to life as planned. Groundbreaking is set for this fall we are told. Oh! Maggie came about as a nick name for Margaret. Both the bridges are names after women with the first name Margaret Hunt Hill and Margaret McDermott. The single arch Hill bridge was first and the double arch McDermott was build second. Hence Maggie 1 and Maggie 2. It is an easy way to remember which one is which   being so close together. During the construction of the Maggie I, daily shots in the progress were made over the course of construction and are published through our agents. 

The wildlife scene changes a bit in this area with water fowl, but it is also on the migration route to the Great Trinity Forest, a 6,000 acre hardwood forest in Southeast Dallas. It also is the largest hardwood forest in the United States. Here, the bob cats, coyotes and other things seek safe harbor from all the growth driving them south as the Metroplex grows North into vast farmlands.

If Dart ever gets service out there, I would love to return to the Trinity River Audubon Center. It is a birders paradise. Also, the AT&T trail connects to the tail system. The last time I was there was when the PGA golf course was being constructed, from the AT&T trail, I got a shot of the #5 flag on the green. When it opened, one year of the Byron Nelson was held there after leaving Cottonwood in Irving and before moving North, closer to the new PGA headquarters and new courses.

                    Yes, even these little creatures are having a bad time with urban sprawl.

    One thing about the Monk Parrots is that their colonies in the Urban Scene are growing.
 

 

Construction Zone

 Saw the National Weather Service Summer Forecast yesterday. It ain't pretty. More Hot than the two record years of the past. That set the time clock ticking to switch from Spring Backgrounds to Summer. If it is going to be as hot as the NWS thinks it will, I have two choices, get out before the sun comes up and shoot until it starts to feel like Texas--that's 10 AM forward. Or, prepare to be under the AC for the duration of the summer.

It Rained all night. It Rained all day. Loud Thunder and Lightening Rumbled Sleep Away.

 Over 2-inches of rain since late afternoon yesterday. Rain with high winds. Falling temperatures came as the cold front passed and weather system became a slow mover. The low tonight will be 49°F. Two days from now it will be back in the high 80's. But the kicker is that after three days of nice weather again, we are in for another round of 4-days of rain. 

It might be better to go to Sam's club and buy a canoe and rain gear, Then, I can forget about the buses and train schedules.

It might even be to my advantage because I could get to places in the canoe that I have not seen. Of course, I am kidding. I had enough canoe trips at summer camps in southern Michigan. I'd get up at 5:30 AM and paddle around the lake before breakfast. My wife and the kids were not big canoe fans. The peace and quiet of the morning as the sun came up is one of my favorite times to be out in nature. The birds sing sweeter songs, the light paints the surrounding landscape like a Norman Rockwell canvas. The stillness of the water is like a mirror and to me, it's a perfect start to the day. 

The rain also cancelled the 40-miles of trails at the Blue Bonnet Festival in Ennis, Texas today.