The Circus Comes to Town

  A few pictures that I like from the NASCAR AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. The place is huge, and the management knows how to compliment the regular circus to really accentuate the fanfare.

Traffic is Flowing

7th Street Bridge at sunset with traffic.

  After what seemed like an eternity of rerouted traffic, road closures, trail closures, inaccessible stores and numerous u-turns the 7th street bridge is open again for vehicle traffic. Soon there will even be pedestrian and bike lanes to give access to Trinity park from downtown offices. None of it can come soon enough even if the project is ahead of the planned schedule. I am sure the businesses along the corridor will agree. It may not be as tall or majestic as some other bridges in the area but with it missing for the summer, we all appreciate how vital an artery it actually is to the community.

Little Red Corvette

  Once in a while an assignment will end up being way more fun than you can ever expect. With the famous person name on the assignment you walk into them a little leery however because you never know how much additional baggage you will have to wade thru.
  The name Ruth Buzzi and her car came across and I started to smile just remembering all those "Laugh In" skits from when I was a kid. Had not seen anything about her in a while so I really was not sure what to expect and as funny as she is it could not possibly be a Cadillac or some other conservative sedan could it?
  When the writer Laura Meyn and I show up on her ranch, we meet her husband Kent Perkins and what turns out to be only one of the stable of cars the couple own. A gorgeous red 1964 Corvette, just as feisty as the comedian herself. In beautiful but driver condition and a rumble that could make any car fan salivate.
  After spending a most delightful morning with the two of them and a couple of dogs that helped with the photos as well I have to admit they are one of the most delightful couples with none of the pretensions you would expect from the entertainment industry.

Getting Dive Bombed

  So the dogs get to take an adventure which started with a visit to a friends bunkhouse near Fort Davis that takes advantage of the cattle water tank as a swimming hole. So of course they had to check it out, march along the rim and get a cool drink. They just never expected to be attacked by the swarm of dragonflys while looking around. Did not phase Kimo much since he went swimming any way but Yodi got a little spooked and made a run for it. Guess the baying of all the cows had shook him up from the beginning.

Pair of Vandals

Troublemakers wondering how to push the nozzle on a paint can.

  Some days I spend lots of time having to dig thru images from days past. It can be long and time consuming and in lots of instances it results in nothing fruitfull. But once in a while I come across something long forgotten that makes me laugh or I see something in it that was missed before.
 
   Such was the discovery this morning. Looking for old images that a client had misplaced, I came across a picture of our two traveling companions Kimo and Yodi. All in all pretty good mutts, not too demanding, can hold bladders with the best of them. They each have a few quirks though, Yodi likes to bark at everything in his belief that he is guarding use from dangers, Kimo is pretty quiet but can get really territorial about his domain.

  I accuse them constantly of being troublemakers, but after I saw this photo of the pair at Cadillac near Amarillo, Texas on a trip a few years ago I realized how appropriate the title and picture really were. A bunch of cars vandalized with paint, the two of them sitting amongst the tools of the vandals trade. Of course the culprits are avoiding any eye contact, Yodi is even hiding behind his big brother.

  Just so appropriate, bunch of vandals caught red handed and still will not admit to their dirty deeds
.

Beach Trip

  The very first road trip I ever took with my traveling buddy he was only a couple of months old and we went to the beach in Corpus Christi. It really opened his eyes wide as he ran along the stretch of sand and dug holes chasing crabs. The water intrigued him but even the little waves along shore scared him to death. It may be why he still is afraid of waves on shores.
  We went back for a few days this week, he still loves sitting in the sand and getting dirty but with a few more years under his belt he does not chase nearly as many birds down the beach. He may just be spoiled by traveling to the cold waters of California for the past couple of years, I know I prefer sitting on a beach when the temperatures are only in the 80's rather than the 100's but the allure of salt water and sand can still get me to drive crazy distances. A little wind for kiting and waves to surf and everything is just grand.

Cool Summer

  Growing up in Texas you learn how to stay cool at a very young age. The hydrodynamic effects of water on skin are not lost on the young. Hours are spent splashing in any body of water more than two inches deep. In the shallow ones you just learn to lay really flat.
  I still have that urge to jump in anything that contains H2O regardless of how low it is. The homeowners along the shores of Possum Kingdom Lake are grumbling about the low water levels. Yeah it is making the water smell a little funky as well. It is still cooler than the air in the heat of the day and you just have to realign your jumps so that you miss any exposed rocks in the shallows.
  Makes me feel like a kid all over again. I think there would be fewer skirmishes if we all spent a bit more summer time in the drink.

Possum Kingdom boulder jumping.

Reflecting on a Scourge

With all the rain that has been passing thru the North Texas area in the past few days I hope a lot of these grasshoppers disappear due to natural causes. I think there are a lot of farmers and ranchers that would love to see fewer of them around. I know my yard would be a lot happier.

Super Moon

  I always love shooting pictures of the moon. It may be that you get to hang around outside at night, thinking of all the childhood stories about the moon. Made of cheese, man in the moon, cows jumping over it, rocket ships to it, in Texas they even lasso it. Great stories all, but eventually my mind always wanders to the concept that a few men have climbed into a device, lit the equivalent of a bunch of sticks of dynamite and flew to that object so far away. They did not get lost on the way there. Got into another device and fell to the surface. Climbed out and jumped around a bunch. Got back into the device with a bunch more dynamite, blasted off and mated with the original capsule. Again not missing the bobber in the entire universal ocean. Flew back down with a couple of loop de loops before landing and lived to tell about it. That fact that it was 14% closer last night definitely did not make that whole adventure any less impressive even if it

Supermoon caught between buildings.

is called a super moon.

Night at the Movies

  Nostalgia comes in all shapes and sizes. Big screen televisions hark back to the day of big movie screens in an open field with a view so broad it took in the entire sky. Drive-ins had their day or so we all thought, but with the resurgence of places like the Coyote Drive-in on the banks of the Trinity River in Fort Worth, Texas they may be the next wave of the social age.
 
   You would have a hard time measuring the size of the screen and the seating is as comfortable as you would like, the leather seats of your daily sedan or a comfy chair from the porch or a big old blanket. The best part is going with a group of friends or family and spending a little time outside. If the movie does not keep your attention (with "Man Of Steel" that will not be a problem) the stars over head are always interesting and I bet you have not seen them nearly enough lately.

Watching the setting sun, again.

Moon rise and projector beam.

Great view of the City to boot.

Scary critters

If you look really closely at something you always see more than you expected. Does not matter what it is or how many times you have seen it. Small nuances, changes in light, differing moods, they all have an effect on what and how you see. The most enlightening seems to be taking a really close at small things. Macro like things. Bugs especially. Solves the riddle of where do they come up with the monsters in movies, especially the space aliens.
  Something as simple as a dragon fly that you can really take for granted. They never attack, have not been chased, stung or bitten by one in my life. But when you look really close at one those spins, and big eyes, veiny wings and all look pretty darn scary to me.

Piano Face

 Being a photographer and claiming no expertise in piano music I am at a disadvantage in handicapping the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at Bass Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. For my novice ears every one of the contestants is absolutely stellar in their abilities. My tally sheet ends up favoring those with the most expressions. All the pianists make some faces as they play, but a few verge on the comical. For me however, the absolute winner is Italy's Alessandro Deljavan. Expressive, diverse and down right personable to boot.
   Regardless, it is a great way to spend the day and I get to hear some incredible music as well. BEst of luck to all the contestants and their faces.

Alessandro Deljavan with sad face

Ruoyu Huang of China 

Scipione Sangiovanni of Italy

Vadym Kholodenko of Ukraine

All Day Meal

  Regardless of the time of day, I can eat what is considered breakfast food. May be that I am not particular to the sweet and syrupy stuff but hearty fare with eggs, potatoes and lots of carbs.
A new place in Keller, Texas called Devivo Bros. Eatery fits the bill. Actually run by John and Ralph Devivo, real brothers with years of food industry experience. Straight up good food with a heavy accent on desserts. One of the best cheese cakes I have ever had, but you have to start with something solid to make a good base like this Italian Eggs Benedict dish.

Italian Eggs Benedict at Devivo Bros. Eatery

Total devastation

  Living in Texas you become conditioned to having tornadoes in the spring time. Every time the storms start up you hear the warnings and the weathermen on the news go into hyper drive. It is doing this and going there, everyone run for your lives in exactly 3.2 minutes. Eventually you take it all for granted and go about your life as if it were another day, hoping and wishing that it just does not effect any of your plans.

 When you see the utter destruction that one of these storms can do it is hard to believe that you will ever take them for granted again. The randomness of the destruction by the tornado that hit Granbury on Wednesday night just leaves you shacking your head. Buildings for a square mile just wiped away and their debris left in piles as if the hand of god was used as a bulldozer. Nothing, absolutely nothing left. Matchstick size splinters abound, splinters of a door trim exposed by the streak of blue paint still left on one side and the door shoved thru a tree branch 20 feet up with a matching color. Cars that have been thru the junk yard crusher, with no heavy machinery in sight. Sounds like hyperbole or escalation to say nothing is left since the piles of wood lay two stories high.
 
  They are just that, piles of little scrapes of wood. Most of it smaller than the bits of lumber children gather from construction site discard bins to build forts. All the bits of color and slivers of insulation indicate they were once full sized homes.
 
 The New York Times used this picture of mine to try and show the rest of the country how devastating it actually is.

Fuzzy looking friends

Big eyes and furry feathers give away his age

   I walk out the back door a little bleary eyed since the sun had not made it over the horizon yet. Minor inconveniences like that have never stopped my four legged friends. They accompany me everywhere and seem to run the house regardless of my intentions. Still too dark to really see anyway, I get a sense of something passing by really quickly and heading to my left where a fence frames the backyard. Thru the gloom I can just make out a small oval figure silhouetted on the fence rail. Pointed ear tufts, rounded head with a matching rounded body almost like the old weeble wobble toys.
   The little figure can obviously see better than I since it vanishes back into the tree over his head as silently as it appeared. The dogs are restless so we head out for a quick splashing of the neighborhood to make sure no one gets the idea that this street is uninhabited or lacking a pee patrol.
    When we get back from lifting legs for every bush, post, wall and blade of grass within 20 feet of their haphazard path I make a quick survey of the tree to check the status on the little critter I saw earlier. Sure enough, I spot him in the yoke of two branches with saucer eyes looking back at me. I notice behind him another set of eyes just as big on a smaller frame staring as well. Further to the left another set. It started to feel a like a cast member in a hitchcock movie.

Adult Screech owl keeping a constant vigil

   After a few minutes of scouring the branches, the total count is two full grown Western Screech Owls and four of their half feathered offspring hiding in the elm tree in the middle of the back yard. As the sun rises and shadows start to show in the tree the young ones make a cautious exit to the  fence line behind the yard but the adult male wedges himself into his secluded yoke of branches, closes his eyes and promptly falls asleep, ignoring the dogs rushing around below him.
   In the afternoon I find the family still split but hanging out  in the trees spending the afternoon incognito waiting for the sun to set to resume their night raids on the neighborhood mouse population. Never would have expected what I have come to believe was an exotic species co-existing in my humble suburban plot with a menagerie of creatures great and small, loud and silent. Makes me rather humble in my respect for mother nature.

Three young Screech owls hanging out

New Context

  Cut that, don't need that, seen that, who cares about that. Editing for me is the hardest part of any shoot. Everything has relevance when you snap the shutter open. In the long run does it ad or subtract to the story you are telling.  I understand after years of the cruel chop that it is not limited to the visuals but to tell a story in a concise fashion with words need the same judicious application of a knife and scissors.
   All of that can change with a different take on a story, so rather than talk about the wonderful day for recognition the dedication of the George W. Bush Library was, I thought I would look at the strange images that come from editing with a different purpose after the fact. Crazy looks, and out of place people make me laugh. Barbara Bush giving President Barack Obama a dirty look for laughing inappropriately. George W. Bush with forlorn look in response to a poignant remark about his presidency, but taken with a cropped frame it like complete befuddlement.

George W. Bush, what does that mean?

Sidewalk just for the press

Don't laugh at my son

Definitely not a shrub back there

LadyBird sighting

I can be a bit dense some times. Stare at something for days and what is right in front of me just does not register. Color is spring and it is not spring till there is color. The blooms around the house have been a bit slow in coming this year. Not that I can blame them with a late freeze happening in parts of North Texas at the end of April. Kind of explains why so many of the flowers have been waiting to show themselves. I am sure that is why the color of the ladybug (known in other parts of the world as a ladybird, since they are actually beetles not bugs) jumped out at me as I passed it in the yard. Definite sign that the color is here, and spring has sprung.

Rookie Debut

   Always loved the sound of screaming race engines, the smell of high octane fuel blowing from hot exhaust pipes, but the site of a guy loaded with testosterone yanking a 200 pound, 200 mph beast around underneath him while he drags body parts all over an asphalt track makes dreams float thru my head. Dreams of flying myself, until the creak in the bones and joints keeps me from tying my shoes as I get up and I realize fast motorcycles are a young mans game.

  So the youngest of them all, Marc Marquez wins his first top tier race on a brand new track. Ripping apart the gorgeous Circuit Of The Americas in Austin, Texas at the tender age of 20 to be the youngest rider to accomplish the feat. Ousting the "fast" Freddie Spencer from the youngest spot by a couple of months. A toast to the kid for one heck of an accomplishment, or at least I'll drink to him since he can't have one himself just quite yet. 

Turn one comes at the top of the biggest rise of any track

The former king Valentino Rossi struggled on this day

The new bull has arrived

Rookie Marc Marquez 

Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez celebrate

The view from the top of Red Bull Tower

MotoGP in Texas

   In the rolling hills east of Austin, Texas they were riding some very different horses. This weekend at the Circuit Of The Americas the rides are made of aluminum and carbon fibre, sport more horse power than any real cowboy would ever need and top end at over 200 mph. The Moto GP circus comes to town and showed the state what riders can do on two wheels. Fast, colorful and oh so european all at a cream of the crop facility in the heart of Texas.

Red Bull Tower view

Marc Marquez scuffs his leathers and still gets the pole

Valentino Rossi the "Doctor" running hot

Angels defeat the Rangers

  The grass is freshly cut to that height that just tickles the toes on a day without shoes. It is warm enough that you get the comforting glow from the suns penetrating rays. After a long winter under sweaters and coats it feels glorious on the skin. Soothing, relaxing, mellow. This needs a cool brew to keep the heat from building.
   In the distance there is a crack like a metronome on slow motion. You can just make out a netting between the hurler with his fluid whip on the mound and a quick snap of the batter on the ball that flies in your direction. Even in batting practice the swing makes you take notice. Quick, solid and unwavering. Later in the day as the actual game wears on that snap from the shoulders makes everyone shudder. That is why manager Ron Washington will decide to throw around him at two of his at bats. The two sets of pitches he does face, he knocked over the fence with deadly accuracy ruining the day for loads of Ranger fans.
  His name is Albert Pujols and he still makes pitchers shudder. Grins like a kid when he makes contact.   As you watch the ball arch it seems to defy gravity. Even the die hard fans of the opposing team marvel at the strength and consistency.
   It is spring and with that comes baseball and big kids like Albert playing a game just for fun. Just too bad for Ranger's fans on this day Albert gets to grin the most.

Albert Pujols celebrates his second home run for the day.

Albert Pujols hits a a two run blast in the first inning. 

Pierzynski tags out Howard Kendrick. 

Angels Peter Bourjas can not grab David Murphy hit.

Eternal Fascination of Waves

I long to feel the caress of the water, the flow of the molecules around my skin. The energy of a far off power as the waves break on the shore where I am. The dream is of a huge, nebulous wall but the reality is that the tiniest ripple brings me back to a giddy child hood.

As I have gotten older I have found the patience to sit for hours watching the subtle changes roll by. The difference of the curl from one to another. The effects of the size on the breaking shape. Some breaking in a defiant collapse as the base can no longer hold the weight of the peak as it surges. Others creating a bubble filled pile as it pushes ever shoreward.

 Amazingly, all the endless variations can be delineated by a mathematical formula far beyond the grasp of my simple mind. The force vectors and bottom shape all combining into a final blow. Dissipating all the energy that has traveled so far in thunderous crash or a unimpressive gurgle.

Never diminishing the beauty of the lines and curves because it can all be defined in a sequence of numbers. The art is the simplicity that it creates. The colors reflected by the surface and ripples. Constantly changing but forever the same. A push from afar that perpetually transfers energy directly to me that I feel the need to harness.


The simple beauty of a wave never ceases to amaze me and can keep my attention for days on end. Endless upon any shore, the only constant is that they are never the same.

Moon Rising

As a big moon rises, it tells us all we need to get home. It might be the impending dark and the boogie monster that is cloaked by the lack of light, hiding in the shadows. So we all run for cover, even the cormorants that spend their nights roosting in trees along the banks of the Trinity River. 

When the moon is full it keeps the dark from being scary, but the spooky light makes up for the change.

Just look out for what comes thru the trees.

Chameleon

Lizard in brown

same lizard in green

Forgot your lucky green shirt for Saint Patty's Day. Maybe you feel a little under dressed at that business social that mentions casual on the invitation and every one shows up in a suit or formal dresses. Enough to make you want to crawl in a corner, but have no fear. With your new lizard skin  you could swap clothes as fast as the green anole  lizard, you just have to think about it and you're in a new coat. As the surrounding changes colors, so does the color of the skin. Shades ranging from dark brown to a vivid green all as you watch, and of course he watches you hoping that you're not just gonna pluck him up and eat him for a late afternoon snack.