Lite Brite

Just after Thanksgiving, which means time for the annual Christmas Parade.

This year, we  had some nice weather! Light wind, temp of 50 degrees! Parade took hour and a half though, accrding to display on nearby bank. By end of it I was feeling cold and ready to warm up. Usually its quite a bit chillier in late November.

Well over 100 entries. There were many big decorated trucks with trailers like this one. As well as lots of individual cars, and people on foot. Everything lit up of course.

A double decker bus. Don't see many of those out here in the sticks. But this one is extra decorated for the parade. Looks nice. 

Took a lot of other photos, some were the same vehicles/floats as previous years Christmas parades. So I decide to leave them out of this post. Got a little bit better photos from cranking up the camera ISO this year. Got fewer blurry ones, anyway.

And Now, The Rest Of The Story

More Photos from my Photowalk. These were some of my other photos, that were interesting in some way. But not good enough to be picked for the competition. By me. As I said, most of them were just ok, these were just some of the 'better' ones.

A slightly darkened angel statue shot from the outside of a large downtown church. Kind of moody feeling. A bit of light in a world of darkness?

An angled view of an office building. All the ribbing makes it look kind of interesting to me.

A shot of a small sculpture of a couple wolves.

A downtown streetlight, showing a broken out piece with the light coming through it. I made it dark black and white just because it wasn't very interesting otherwise.

Just to add some color. Too many dark pictures here. This is one of the many large colorful alleyway murals downtown. This one is actually one of the largest.

So the competition is over.

And...

I....

Didn't win again. Just the location win. But I got a free Kelby book download! 

Here are the winners:
https://scottkelby.com/announcing-winners-10th-annual-worldwide-photo-walk/

The winners are pretty much subjective to the judge, so, they are what they are.

The only things not announced so far are the People's Choice winner, which I have no shot at. And if he announces any 'Honorable Mention' wins. No prizes for that, just a little recognition of a nice image. Should find out on those next week.

WWPW IV

Or, World Wide Photo Walk, the 4th time I've done it. This was the 10th Worldwide Photowalk.

Last WWPW I did was 2 years ago. Which  I won (location only)! This years was downtown. Day wasn't bad temperature wise. 50s and 60s as morning went on. It was pretty windy though, which made it challenging at times.

20 people signed up this year, most showed up. Walked for about 2 hours shooting random things, got some ok pictures, not sure any of them were really 'wow' factor photos.

2 years ago, only 3 people entered the location competition. I hope more enter this year. I'll be curious to see what other people shot.

Starting off with my entry in the contest this year. Most of my shots most could have used a little something more, but hey, you're trying to cover a lot of ground, in a pretty short time.

An old Ford truck, in front of a colorful mural. Lots of various murals are scattered about downtown in the alleys. If it would have been a 1950s car, you'd think it was somewhere in Cuba probably. Not the wild west.

I WON the local walk with this photo! Nice!

Would like to see the other entries from our walk, but so far they aren't anywhere to be seen. The Kelby Photowalk is a great idea, but it seems to get less organized, more neglected by the people putting it on every year.

I am now one of ~984 potential winners in this years big worldwide contest. No prizes for location winners anymore, apparently. Just an entry in the main contest. That's ok.

So, now that I've won two worldwide photowalk contests, (for my location), does that mean I can refer to myself as a multiple award winning photographer?

More photos and contest news in the next post...

That's More Like It!

A week later, and I'm out hiking again. Gotta get those fall colors while they are here.

After last weekend's cold and foggy day, this weekend was much improved. It was still a bit cool, and a little breezy. But mostly clear, with some interesting clouds and overall just a great day for a hike.

See, that's what I mean! Now that's what you expect to see. Fall colors were overall a little better than last week. Though inconsistency still was about. Just one of those kind of years I guess.

This tree kinda sorta looks like a woodpecker. That's what I'm thinking, anyway.

Pine needles. But not fall colors. Just another pine slowly dying due to the Pine Beetle. That's still going on. Though it seems to have slowed. I hope it ends. There's too many dead pine trees, and I'd really like to see the remaining ones survive.

My favorite shot of the day. It's a 3 shot panorama. The colors on the ground and the contrasty layers of clouds in the sky really looked great. Probably my favorite shot of the whole season!

Late in the hike, headed out. A couple big old dead trees against the fall colors and the sky. At least I didn't get rained on today. I was even warm for a while! Unfortunately, I barely saw any wildlife. No deer, moose, hardly even any squirrels or chipmunks. Can't win 'em all. People and dogs were about it. Still a great days hike though. 

Something In The Air

Fog, that's what in the air. Lots of it!

Out for a Fall hike, and the weather turned out to be kinda iffy. It was very foggy with low clouds, threatening rain later in the day. Temps were in the 50s, a little breeze. So it was chilly. Instead of wearing light clothes and trying to stay cool, I was wearing layers and trying to stay warm!

The fog made for some interesting conditions to be sure. The fall colors were decent but very scattered. Some spots were still very green, some were about at peak color, a few areas looked past peak and leaves were down. Inconsistency! But the combo of the fog and the fall colors still looked pretty nice.

The day started off pretty foggy, then it tried to clear for a while. Mid afternoon the fog and clouds came rolling back in DARK. YOu could see it coming. It's 'The Mist!' I could tell it was about to rain, and it started sprinkling about 15 minutes before I got to the car. Good thing I was wearing my rain jacket. Within minutes of getting to the car it started raining pretty hard. And it hailed a little too. I timed that just right! Came home, took a hot shower!

Trade In, Trade Up

My old Pentax K10D DSLR camera, that I haven't used much lately, was something I've been thinking of selling. Just the body. It's about 10 years old, and since cameras are now little computers with lenses on them, not vessels to keep film from getting exposed, they need upgrading every so often. Technology changes make them obsolete, just like an old PC. Then they just sit around unused, collecting dust. More clutter. I'm trying to declutter. And so decided to get rid of it.

Was going to sell it on eBay. But Amazon offers a trade in service. And the value of it was maybe a little better than what I've seen cameras like mine sell for on eBay. Since I still had all the manuals, cables, original box etc. I gave it a try.

They ended up giving my about $30 less than I expected. Which wasn't great, they said it was 'heavily scratched' which it was not. The box was a little rough looking, but not the camera. I also traded in an even older Canon G6 point and shoot I hadn't used in years. Didn't get much for it. Not sure I like the Amazon trade-in service, feels like I should have gotten a little more. But it's done, time to move on.

The money from both of them will go towards a new DSLR probably. Just haven't decided which one to get. It'll be a Pentax, since that's what all my lenses are. Using the old technology to pay for the newer technology seems to be about as good a way to go as any, I guess. Who knows.

When I get a new camera I'll post about it here. Till then, I'll keep shooting with my trusty little Pentax MX-1. My only usable digital camera now. Yikes!

End Of The Road

For my old Jeep.

I've had a Jeep J10 pickup truck for ~17 years. I really like the look and style of the old Jeeps. Even if they aren't the most reliable thing on four wheels.

I had big plans to restore and fix it up, customize it, possible even doing a custom extended cab body conversion. Which they never made, so it would be really unique. It was easy to mock up the idea on the computer!

I even though of doing a whole body swap. Taking the body, with the extended cab, swapping it onto the frame and systems from a Toyota. Then it would still look like the Jeep, but be drivable and reliable as a Toyota. Certainly doable, many people do swaps like that.

I just didn't want to invest the time, large amounts of money and more. Plus my lack of detailed knowledge of how to do that sorta stuff finally made the decision for me. After mostly just maintaining it and keeping the rust semi at bay, I decided to sell it.

Put it on eBay, and it sold. To a guy near Toronto Ontario in Canada! Seems like a real nice guy, was happy to get it. Shipping it there wasn't cheap, I know that. Hope they fix it up and enjoy it up there, eh?

So here's it's send off - DHCBWOCHO style...

Eclipse

Right after I got back from my summer trip, we had the total solar eclipse. Well, it was total, about 100 miles north of where I was in Cheyenne. We had 97.5% totality of eclipse.

It was interesting. Got noticeably cooler. Probably 10-15 degrees for a short while. Was still daylight, but kind of an odd 'dim' to the light. The parking lot lights started turning on, till the eclipse began to end.

Put together a montage of photos, I shot with my small camera through a pair of eclipse glasses. While we missed out on the totality, we also missed out on the traffic! And it was pretty bumper to bumper. Going up and coming back later the same day. Looked like a parking lot on the highway.

Travellin' Man

Time for my summertime roadtrip to visit some family. And I always find a couple interesting photos to take along the way.

Had lots of interesting weather and clouds during the trip. Made a black and white out of this very interesting cloud scene.

Some heavy rainy clouds as well, as you can see from this. Looks like its just about to touch the ground. Was in and out of clouds and rain all the way.

And after you have rain, there's always some standing water. I liked how the water was reflecting the clouds, and broken up by all the rocks. That's about all I have that's interesting from this trip.

Explodio!

Independence day - which always ends in a big Fireworks show.

Same as every year, set up in the dark, shoot a bunch of pictures as the show goes on without really looking at them, hope you got something good afterwards!

And, I managed a couple!

 

The first, a nice starry multiple burst shot.

A big blue and a smaller red burst. That little one between them looks almost white. Maybe its a actual red/white/blue combo?

The last colorful burst from this July 4th. Happy Independence Day everyone!

Hot Metal

Late June means Superday. Which means a car show. So I went in search of interesting shots. The weather was good, warm, sunny, clear. And a parking lot full of cars. Which means some hard to shoot cars. Backgrounds are all bad, reflections of everything, people in the way, etc.

But hey, that's the way it goes. Here's a couple shots from the day.

The front of an old Volkswagen Beetle. Has some nice pinstriping detail.

An old T-bucket Ford hot rod. And it could be yours - it's for sale! I applied a little bit of a cartoony effect to this image.

There were a few old cars there, I picked this as my DHCBWOCHO subject. I forgot to record the exact model, but its a mid 50's Mercury. The car was light blue, so it turned out looking white in the image. A very broad chrome hood ornament.

What a difference

a few weeks makes.

After a surprise late spring snowstorm, spring/summer returned in a hurry. No surprise really.

So I took off for a early summer hike. Back to a nearby state park. Nice and green, not too hot and not many bugs. Pretty agreeable all around! Snapped an assortment of photos, here's just a couple.

A old dead tree. After I photoshopped it a bit, it's a ghost tree!

Wild Turkey! In this case, the actual bird, not the whiskey.

In the Summertime...

you should keep your snowboots, shovels and winter coats handy!

Here it is, mid May. Grass is green. Trees have mostly leafed out.

And here comes the snow. Not just a little either. Over a day and a half of nearly steady snow, we ended up with 11 inches of very wet heavy snow.

It was amazing really. It looked like middle of January, not May. Temps hovered around 30, just a little too cold for rain. And it just kept snowing.

Snow hanging very heavy in the trees. By Friday afternoon it was warming up a couple degrees, snow started coming down. The heavy snow damaged a LOT of trees, broke limbs, etc. This heavy snow really did not come at a very good time. A week or so earlier probably would have been a lot better. But hey - summer officially begins in about a month!

Heavy Metal

Had a visitor to town this past weekend - one of the few still flying B17 bombers from World War II. The Madras Maiden. An awesome aircraft, and kept up in very good shape.

This plane was built in 1944. That makes it 73 years old this year! It never saw combat duty, but was used as a trainer mostly. With less glamorous work after the war, eventually bought and restored to the current condition you see today. If it had been shot up a lot during the war, it probably would have been scrapped or at least not be airworthy like most other surviving B17s.

A head on shot. Would be better without all the people in the way, but that's pretty hard to avoid. Lots of people want to see these old warbirds.

A shot of the nose art on the plane. That is one shiny plane. 

Another shot from the back. It's big, but inside the crew didn't really have a lot of room. 

Took a fisheye shot of the front. From this perspective it looks a bit like a giant bug!

The business end of the tail turret, called the Cheyenne turret. Because it was built and installed here in Cheyenne. The planes were built by Boeing in Washington state, then flown to Cheyenne for the rear turret installation and further testing, before continuing on their way to war duty.

If you notice the big building behind the plane in the first two photos, that was supposedly THE hangar where the turret was installed in B17s. Over 70 years ago. It's a homecoming trip!

I didn't get a chance to climb through the plane - when I was going to they were clearing it out before a flight. Which cost $450. I skipped it, but sure would be awesome to take that ride.

However, you can watch this YouTube video from a local radio station- it was shot of this plane's visit to town, and has some flight footage along with some other interesting video -  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PSQX7ypBEo

I did get a little video of them starting up the engines before the flight. (Has a lot of wind noise. Thanks to it being Wyoming, and a camera that doesn't have any way to block wind noise)

And then they flew away...

Off they go, into the wild blue yonder. Zoomed way in for this shot. A very interesting visit from a very pretty Maiden! Safe travels!

The Light Fantastic

Took a Christmas holiday trip. Managed to make it without any weather difficulties. Other than when I was there. More on that later. Did get some interesting travel photos. And played around with some creative Christmas light shots as well.

Start of the trip early in the morning. Some clouds on the horizon gave a interesting start to the day.

Christmas tree lights. Always fun to play with, photographically. I took a lot of different shots, this is just one example of time exposure fun while moving the camera.

Another shot, but closer and purposely out of focus to create a fuzzier color streaked look. Turned out pretty good I'd say.

Now, don't get scared. But, you might see a ghost! (of Christmas present? Past? not sure...)

This is my favorite shot. I think it looks kind of ghostly. This was from a color-changing lighted angel figure. But the overall look here to me is a little ghostly, and quite interesting. 

But enough of that. It's winter! And what good is winter without a blizzard? Luckily enough, we had one! Yay! On Christmas eve and Christmas Day. Not sure how much snow we had, but it was very windy and also drifted in like mad.

It was several feet deep when it was over. Took a good chunk of the day to clear out, with several people on shovels and 2 snowblowers. The engine of my car was pretty full of snow. Cleared most of it off, then ran it to melt the rest.

A little later on, and it was time to return. And, snap a few photos along the way.

Sun is just about to disappear under the horizon as I get close to home again. After a long, all day drive. At least the weather stayed nice, and gave me some good sunset shots!

One last colorful shot as the daylight fades.