Sabinal River Gallery Finished

I've completed the photo gallery from our recent trip to Utopia, Texas:
http://www.texbrick.com/photo/utop_sab09

click to view gallery

It's been since March that I've gone outdoors and seriously photographed. My time in the field was short but very enjoyable. I miss doing that, and I'm glad I miss it :-)

Frio Bat Cave

On our recent vacation, we saw the bat flight at Frio Cave.

click to see larger

The colony is supposed to contain 10 to 12 million Mexican free-tailed bats. I'm not sure how many flew out during the evening flight we saw, but they trailed off into the sky in thick blobs.

click to see larger

Seeing this amazing spectacle of nature was a thrill. And we didn't get pooped on either.

The Sabinal River

The Sabinal River near Utopia, Texas:

click to see larger

Two weekends ago, my family and I spent 5 days vacationing in the Texas Hill Country. We stayed in a house on the Sabinal River near Utopia. I'm slowly going through my photos, and I will post a few more of them in the coming days.

My wife asked me the other day how I was doing photography-wise and if I felt like I was back in the game. I really didn't have an answer then and I still don't now, despite thinking about it a lot lately.

What I do know is that I definitely had an urge to get out and photograph. I came home with 1245 photos :-) of course about half of that take were action shots of us using the rope swing to jump into the river (and my mom used my camera to take a bunch of those).

What was interesting is that my usual super-eager attitude and desire for photographing was not there. Or rather, it was quite diinished. I guess you could say that my desires have matured perhaps. I moved slower, picked through the landscape slower, and really didn't care if I took a photo at all. I had no expectations and no stress (I guess it was a real vacation then :-) ).

Something has definitely changed in my photographic attitude and drive. I realize this is boring to you and probably not worth stating. I doubt you've even read this far (maybe you just looked at the photo and nothing else... and that's just fine :-) ). But I wanted to write it down just as a journal-type entry to capture how I'm developing. And right now I kinda don't care. I'm just going with it... and we'll see what happens.

Dark Skies

Self portrait with the summer Milky Way (near the Sabinal River in Utopia, TX, July 2009).

click for larger image

Canon 5DII with Canon 24mm f/1.4 II
25 sec.
f/2.5
ISO 3200

4th of July

It's a little late, but happy 4th to everyone. This was taken last Saturday at a neighborhood fireworks display.