Washington-on-the-Brazos Wildflowers

I'm still sorting through my back-log of photos taken over the past month or so. Here's a pair taken in late March at Washington-on-the-Brazos state park.



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These were taken hand-held with my 5D and trusty "beater" lens (the Canon 28-105mm). When I say hand-held, it doesn't exactly mean what you'd normally think (e.g. like some tourist with a digicam held at arms length). These shots were taken with me squatting on the ground, elbows planted firmly against my legs, and camera smashed up against my face. That's as close to a tripod as I can get without using a tripod.

I didn't have the luxury of taking my time with these shots or planning them at a different time of day to catch better light. I was with my wife and son to enjoy a family outing to see the wildflowers. My wife was assigned monkey-wrangling duty (i.e. watching our son) while I paused for these pics.

I really wanted to get a portrait of those two in the flowers, but it didn't quite work out. Henry is constantly moving and won't sit still for anything. If you try to hold him against his will, you're likely to catch a stray flying elbow or fist. I never knew holding onto a 3-year old could be so dangerous :-)

Anyway, W-o-t-B park has a few nice trails out into the woods. They're short and well-traveled, but we did find neat openings into the woods with wildflowers right next to the trails. With better light, I think you could find a few decent small-scale landscape scenes worth shooting there.

And, it's a great place to take the family for a picnic and portraits in the wildflowers (much safer than the side of the highway).