If you are here then you no doubt noticed that I have made a pretty significant update to this website. This is the fourth major update I have made over the years and should allow for easier maintenance, a cleaner look as well as a slew of new functionality. I have been working on the new site for more than a month and just decided that even though it is not completely ready that it would be great to start the new year with the new site. Most of the old content has been migrated, however, all of the old blog pages prior to 2012 haven’t been converted yet. I will get to that as time allows. I also need to re-encode some of the older videos so that they can be embedded from Youtube as the new ones on the new Movies page are.

The site is now “Responsive”, that is, it responds correctly to whatever device you are accessing it with. I have tested it with iPhone, IPad, Android and of course Mac OS X with Safari on Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion. I have not tested it with Windows anything as I don’t have anything to test that with. I have not changed the slide shows; they still use Flash so they will only work on devices and systems with Flash installed. At some point I will be using HTML 5 for the slide shows so that they will work everywhere.

You will also notice that the RSS Feeds on the Blog and Movies pages work correctly. So if you click on these and add the link in the popup to your email client or RSS reader you will be notified anytime these pages change or new ones are added. And I will be adding commenting in the near future so we can discuss items on or related to this site.

I thought you also might like to know that if you visit this site you are not alone. I have never promoted or advertised this site in any way but in 2012 there were 1057310 visits by 7806 unique visitors. And they came from many foreign countries including Greece, Russia, India, France, Ukraine, Norway, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and California. That speaks to the power of the Internet and Google search.

I hope you all like the new site as much as I do.

These three bears are among the hundreds of Christmas related miniatures that Joy and I have collected over the years.

I’ll bet that 75 percent of all personal pictures are taken between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Who can resist taking pictures when there are so many brilliantly colored decorations that celebrate this season of the year. It’s always fun to drive around and look at the Christmas lights. Some neighborhoods nearby are probably visible from the Moon because they have so many lights. And there are several award winning displays with lights synchronized to music.

Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year to all and I hope you enjoy some of the pictures by clicking here.

This bridge crosses a creek in a park near our home. It is a beautiful park all year around but fall is my favorite time.

This Thanksgiving morning we went for a nice long walk around the neighborhood to see what Mother Nature has brought us. We have been blessed with beautiful fall colors that past several years and this year is no exception. There’s not much more to say except that I hope you enjoy the pictures and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Please click here to see the photos.

Lenox Woods is a beautiful treat at anytime of the year but in the fall it just sparkles with brilliant colors.

Situated on Pecan Bayou, one of the largest wild watersheds in northeast Texas, the Lenox Woods Preserve is one of the most beautiful old-growth forests in the state. The uplands support mature shortleaf pine and oak forest while moist lowlands support bottomland hardwood forest. In a few minutes I counted six species of oak, three species of pine as well as numerous other hardwoods. It is also a refuge for several rare plants. There are at least sixty species of birds that inhabit the preserve as well as deer and a few black bears.

When I visited the preserve yesterday, the weather was cold, bright, clear and crisp with a beautiful deep blue sky; the perfect fall day. I think this is a wonderful place to visit year round but saw no sign of any trail activity other than my own. I will definitely go back in the spring to see a completely different place.

Please click here to see a few of my images from the day.

This image shows how well the Garden design team worked with the Chihuly team to integrate the art with the garden.

Last night the Dallas Arboretum hosted dinner and drinks for all of the volunteers that have made the Dale Chihuly exhibit such a success at the Garden. All year long most nights have been sold out. The Arboretum managed to extend the exhibit through year end and all but a few nights in December are sold out already. This has been the most popular exhibit ever at the Arboretum with Chihuly Nights drawing several hundred thousand visitors. Go see it if you can.

Joy Mathews, Manager of Adult Education at the Garden, managed to get an invitation to the event for the small group of photographers who volunteer their time and expertise to the Arboretum. Even though I visit the Arboretum often and volunteer there it was pretty special having the gardens all by ourselves for a few hours. I hope these photos will give you an appreciation of just how special the Arboretum and this exhibit are.

Please click here to view the photos.

The LEAF Interns with their mentor, Alma (far left), and Father Peter and Susan Conaty (center) at Nash Prairie Preserve.

This week I had the great honor of shooting the LEAF Interns at The Nature Conservancy’s Nash Prairie Preserve near West Columbia, Texas. The Leaders in Environmental Action for the Future (LEAF) program provides paid summer internships for high school students and helps educators from environmental high schools share best practices and scientific resources. The long-term goal of LEAF is to support more than 30 environmental high schools across the country.

These three Interns were from New York City and were definitely a tough and determined group of young ladies. It rained incessantly while we were there. Some nearby areas got ten inches of rain over the course of the week. However the weather did not dampen the spirits of these girls.

The Nash Prairie Preserve is as close to the heart of Texas history as any place in the state. West Columbia was the first capital of the Republic of Texas. The Orozimbo Oak where General Santa Anna was chained after his capture at the Battle of San Jacinto while awaiting transfer of custody to the United Staes was right across the road until it died in 1990. All of the Heroes of the Revolution camped here. It is quite an historic place.

This week I was fortunate to meet Father Peter Conaty and his charming wife Susan. This couple was instrumental in the transfer of Nash Prairie to the Conservancy. Susan is a fellow Texas Master Naturalist and quite knowledgeable about the natural history of Nash Prairie as well as Texas lore. She also has turned the land around their home into a nationally certified wildscape which is just beautiful.

If you want to see my photos and video from this trip you will have to visit the Nature Conservancy sites where they will be hosted. I will post an update here when they are up.

This old and very well restored stage coach adorns our favorite hotel in Ouray.

By now you may have figured out that we go to Colorado frequently especially in June. This year we stayed in Ouray most of the time with stops in Eagle Nest, NM and Trinidad, CO as well. And this time I had a plan to do something different photographically than I usually do. I got Joy to shoot snapshots all along the way of anything that caught her fancy. And I did the same so we got a lot of photos that we wouldn’t normally get. I have turned all of these into a whimsical stop-action movie of the whole trip which you can see here. It’s kinda fun to see the whole trip condensed into three minutes.

Since I have been doing so much work with The Nature Conservancy of Texas lately I decided to see if there was anything interesting that TNC of Colorado was doing. I found three preserves in the Ouray area along the San Miguel River that are important for preserving pristine stretches of this river. The San Miguel is one of the few remaining wild rivers in the US. The San Miguel flows into the Delores River and is part of the larger Colorado River drainage. I am hoping to get my photos of these preserves on the TNC of Colorado site soon.

Some of the photos from our trip can be seen here.

This American Basket-flower is absolutely gorgeous in the morning sun. The odd thing is that it is even more beautiful before it blooms.

This past Saturday The Nature Conservancy hosted a Wildflower Tour at Clymer Meadow. I shot the event for them to help with re-populating their stock of images. They are already using some of my images on their web sites and Facebook pages.

You may recall that my Texas Master Naturalist class had a field trip to Clymer Meadow last spring. There were quite a few new flowers this year since the year has been much wetter than last spring. You will see that I was especially taken with the gorgeous American Basket-flower. This flower may be the only flower that is even more beautiful before it blooms and when it blooms it is like an Independence Day fireworks display.

So I have updated and combined the photos from both shoots and you can see them here.

Looking southwest over the Chihuahuan Desert from Skyline Drive in Davis Mountains State Park.

Last week 30 or so Texas Master Naturalists from all over Texas converged on the Davis Mountains for five days of exploration and education. Our trip organizer, Donna Cole, set up a wonderful itinerary with plenty of interesting activities as well as free time to pursue other interests. Some of us camped and some roughed it in the Indian Lodge. Joy and I got there a few days early so we could visit some other areas south of the Davis Mountains such as Presidio and the River Road along the Rio Grande. We were very fortunate to get to know some wonderful Master Naturalists from various parts of the state that we wouldn’t normally see except perhaps at the state convention. Thanks very much to all of you. You made the trip very special.

We had a fabulous evening with Kelly Bryan who is one of the foremost experts on hummingbirds in the world. He showed us how to identify the variety of hummingbirds that live in or visit the Davis Mountains. And the Davis Mountains are the hummingbird capital of the universe. See his wonderful web site here.

We visited the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center which is a facility of the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute including a desert botanical garden, a cactus and succulent greenhouse and interpretive exhibits. The group split so some of us could hike the Modesta Canyon trail while others visited the gardens and greenhouse. The hike was led by local Master Naturalist, Steve Elfring, who did a wonderful job of explaining the local geology, flora and fauna.

And finally we visited the Davis Mountains Preserve which is a 33,000 acre preserve owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy. It is surrounded by another 100,000 acres that The Conservancy holds conservation easements on. Our hosts were John Herron, Director of Conservation and John Karges, Director of Field Science for the Texas chapter of The Conservancy. Both of these gentlemen are extremely knowledgeable and passionate about nature and conservation of our natural treasures. They were also more than willing to share their knowledge with us. It was an honor to walk the Davis Mountains Preserve with them.

To see just a few of my pictures from this trip please go here. I normally don’t include so many images on one of these updates but I just had so many things I wanted to share. The Davis Mountains and the Big Bend area are just so photographically opulent. Please tolerate it this time.

These glass “reeds” growing out of one of the pools in the Women’s Garden are just a few of the many sculptures in the Chihuly exhibit.

The Dallas Arboretum is constantly putting on new exhibits but the new exhibit of world famous glass artist Dale Chihuly sculptures is certainly one of the most unusual. These lighted glass sculptures are just spectacular and they are opening the Arboretum at night so that everyone can see them lit up. However they are quite beautiful during the day as these images show.

Check here for some of my photos of the Chihuly exhibit.

This Great Egret was shot at Hagerman National wildlife Refuge 30 minutes before sunrise with dense fog shrouding the water. ISO 3200 1/500 @ f11. Even viewing this image at 4:1 there is no discernible noise.

I received my new Nikon D800 last Friday and the battery grip arrived Monday. Thank you Camera Stop. Over the weekend I shot a variety of subjects to test the limits of the D800. First I shot a lot of handheld stuff which I almost never do since I know that using a tripod is the single biggest improvement anyone can make in their photography. I also shot a bit of high ISO to see how the D800 performs under low light conditions. And finally I shot some action/sports. I can say without equivocation that the D800 performs flawlessly under all of these conditions. So I am going to simply ignore the received wisdom of all of the pundits and especially those armchair academics who say that the high pixel count requires a tripod and that the camera is only suitable for studio and landscape work. They are WRONG. And they were wrong when they said the same things when the world moved from 2 megapixel cameras to 6 and from 6 megapixels to 12 and from 12 megapixels to 24. And, yes, great pro glass still out resolves even a 36.3 megapixel camera.

Some of my first shots with the D800 can be seen here.

Here I am getting ready to do the Happy Dance.

No need to say too much about this. My new Nikon D800 arrived yesterday. The is one heck of a great camera. I shot some jumpers and dressage with it this morning and I am totally blown away. Zero noise. Outstanding dynamic range and color depth. No wonder DxO Labs says it is one of the best cameras in the world in terms of sensor performance. In fact it is number one in the DxO Mark suite of tests. There’s a lot to be said for 36 megapixels!

The shot below and the crop from it show the outstanding detail. Look at the horse’s mane in the cropped shot. Individual hairs are fully resolved! These were shot hand held at f8 1/320 using a 70-200mm f2.8 at 70mm.

These Iris are so beautiful that they sometimes just take your breath away.

Spring is such a wonderful time because it signals a new beginning for everything in nature. Many years ago my neighbor planted these Iris along the fence behind his house. And each spring they put on quite a show. Mother Nature must have a sense of humor because they will bloom for six weeks or so and then just look like broad leaf weeds the rest of the year. I suppose the brief time they bloom is what makes them so wonderful.

Check here for some more iris images.

This Tiger Rose was shot on a Light Box to give it a dreamy, ethereal glow

In my continuing quest to banish winter and keep from going stir crazy I built a Light Box out of inexpensive foam board I bought at a local craft store. The top of the Light Box is a sheet of translucent white plexiglass. I put a single speedlight in the box pointing up and another speedlight about two and a half feet directly above the Light Box pointing down. Then I placed various objects on the Light Box and started shooting. The results were well worth the effort I think.

Practically anything that is at least partially translucent is a candidate for this type of shot. I’m going to try thin sliced fruit, various leaves, flowers and grasses next.

You can see more of this series here.

This is a fun project to get through the winter blahs when it is cold and snowy outside. This bottle of Triple Sec makes an especially nice subject. And when the project is complete you can use it to make a nice margarita.

When it is cold and dreary outside it’s not much fun to be out there shooting so I decided to shoot inside where it is nice and warm. This series of images was very easy to set up and light and the results are pretty incredible. These are water droplets sprayed onto a sheet of glass which is supported by two wooden wine boxes (Cabernet Sauvignon from Argentina if that makes any difference). I placed various colorful objects under the glass and these objects are what give dimension and color to the water droplets. The setup is lit by a single speedlight from an oblique angle in order to eliminate any reflections.

It is really a fun exercise to see what kinds of interesting things laying around the house have the greatest effect. I tried flowers, jewelry, various liquor bottles, Christmas cards and just about anything that had color or interest. I especially liked the card with the wolves on it. See if you can spot the wolf’s head in the droplets.

You can see more of these images here.