Blue Christmas

Took a trip to visit some family for the holiday. Unfortunately had some less than cheerful family things going on this year. But that is life.

Just a couple photos from the trip.

A colorful sunset with some HDR during the drive. It's almost a Van Gogh!

Took a bunch of Christmas tree light streak effect shots. It turned out ok. Most of the shots I got looked much like past ones I've done.

Weather was dry and unusually warm for trip up. Got super cold while I was there, and somewhat snowier for my return. But not stormy when I had to travel. Last year there was a blizzard on Christmas day, so overall the weather was WAY better!

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.