Sunday, November 30, 2014

11/30/14

Well, it's the last day of November and it's turned back to winter again today.  Yesterday it was in the 60s, today a high of 30.  Yuck.  Thinking warm steamy thoughts with this shot of the 12 inch scale train from the railroad I volunteer at outside of Topeka.  The train had just climbed the hill and come into Hawkin's Gap named for one of the owners and made a very steamy image on a cool day.





Saturday, November 29, 2014

11/29/14

This is a female Praying Mantis I saw hanging out on the hummingbird feeder after work one day.  Not sure if she was catching any bugs but she seemed content to stay there for a while and watched me as I took her photo.


Friday, November 28, 2014

11/28/14

It's Black Friday here in the US where people go out shopping at horrendous hours of the day and night and fight crowds of people for buys.  There is nothing I need that badly to go out shopping on this day for.  This Queen Ann Lace on black is the closest I'll get to Black Friday participation.


Thursday, November 27, 2014

11/27/14

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the US!  These are some leaves that I saw on a walk this summer and liked how they were back lit.


Wednesday, November 26, 2014

11/26/14

It's the first day of my Thanksgiving break!  Yay!  Today's image is of a little guy I found on a Milkweed leaf this past summer.  I believe that this is an Argus Tortoise Beetle.  They usually are found on Bindweed.  Must not have been enough around at the time.





Tuesday, November 25, 2014

11/25/14

I decided to try another split tone and I liked how it turned out so I am sharing it here as well.  i thought the process lent itself well to this type of image.  This is the Columbia-Wrightsville bridge in Pennsylvania.  This is the longest multiple arch concrete bridge in the world, 6,657 feet including the spans over land.  This was a split of red and yellow on a B&W image giving it the sepia look.


Monday, November 24, 2014

11/24/14

I was going through some older photos this weekend and found one that I thought turned out pretty well but had never shared.  I took this last winter of a male Cardinal posing for me on the bird feeder pole.  Everything outside right now is brown and blah, going to be a long winter.  At least Christmas decorations will help.



Sunday, November 23, 2014

11/23/14

We had a couple of warmer days, I think it's supposed to go back to winter today but the break was nice.  This is an image from this past June when we were at the Cumbres &Toltec Railway.  This is locomotive 487 being put to bed in the engine house located in the yard in Chama, New Mexico.  The locomotives are not truly ever shut down fully, they are kept warm and somewhat ready in case an engine has a problem on it's scheduled run and then another can be quickly brought up to operational status and switch out.  This rarely happens but is done to make sure everyone's excursion is a successful one.  I decided to process this one with an older look.



Saturday, November 22, 2014

11/22/14

Well, seems all we can get for rain these days is drizzle.  That doesn't help much, just makes it even more dreary out.  This is an image from October when I was up and out early and it was very dewy out.  I took this image before the sun burned it off and liked the sparkly look of it.


Friday, November 21, 2014

11/21/14

Not many butterflies in the garden this year.  Most of them seemed to come late in the year.  This image was taken in October so was even into Autumn.  This little Skipper was feeding on the Zinnia flowers that were still blooming.


Thursday, November 20, 2014

11/20/14

Well, Autumn was quite short this year.  Only about 4 weeks at most and then we went straight to 20 F for a high so all the leaves are brown.  At least there are photos to remind me of some of the color we did manage to have for a while.  I have heard of this as 5 Leaf Ivy.  Someone who saw it said they thought it was Virginia Creeper.  Whatever it is it gets nice color in the fall.  :-)


Wednesday, November 19, 2014

11/19/14

Still dreaming of summer though it is warmer out now.  I guess I should be glad I don't live where they are getting all that snow!  This is an image of some wild Blue Flax that I photographed out in Colorado.  I love these dainty little flowers and the lines in the petals.


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

11/18/14

Wishing for warmer days.  I think we are going to get a bit warmer for the next few days anyway.  This was taken a while back of a dragonfly perched on the side of a small tree.  When I looked at the image on my computer screen I saw it had a snack.  


Monday, November 17, 2014

11/17/14

Taking a break and posting a bit early as I have some business to attend to later.  This is another version of a Meadowlark I was able to capture on a walk a while back.  I loved how the top of the cedar tree that it was perched on curved and the bird's pose.



Sunday, November 16, 2014

11/16/14

I was going through some older images and I decided to share this one today to think warm thoughts.  Winter has arrived early and woke up to a bit more snow today though nothing like what they had predicted,  Anyway, this is Dragon Mouth Spring from Yellowstone National Park.


Saturday, November 15, 2014

11/15/14

So, we are having our first snow this morning.  Only flurries right now and not amounting to much.  I am thinking back to warmer days though and this is a photo from then.  I took this image back in early October while on a trip for work and able to view the sunrise.


Friday, November 14, 2014

11/14/14

This is a macro image of my Toad Lily in bloom before something ate about half the plant.  still not sure what was causing all the problems and why it was so bad this year, possibly the drought?  Anyway, the Toad Lily has such unique flowers, reminds me of an Orchid.  Apparently the name is due to the fact that some think the mottled look of the flower and that they prefer moist locations reminds of a toad.


Thursday, November 13, 2014

11/13/14

Thinking of summer while experiencing this bitterly cold January type weather.  UGH  I hope this is not what winter is going to be like the whole time.  I had a Monarch visit my garden very late this year.  This was actually taken on the 26th of October which is quite late for them to be around and about the only flowers left for them to feed on were Marigolds and Zinnias which this one is perched on.  I used this image for the last one of my Split Tone Challenge and thought it turned out well.  It can be seen using the link in the About Me section on the right of the Blog.  I learned a lot about a process I had never tried before and even liked how the images came out.  :-)


Wednesday, November 12, 2014

11/12/14

Posting a bit early and quickly as we are going to a show tonight.  This is the lower part of Minnehaha Waterfall in Minneapolis, MN.  I was just learning long exposures for waterfalls at this point and I think it came out fairly well despite that.  :-)  I used this image for my Split Tone Challenge today which can be viewed over on G+ in the link in the About Me section at the right of this Blog.


Tuesday, November 11, 2014

11/11/14

I took this photo quite a while back in Minneapolis, MN on a trip there for work.  I had never shared the image but when I was invited to do this Split Tone Challenge, this bridge came to mind as I had seen other architectural type images that worked well.  This, of course is the color version but you can see the other at the link in the About Me on the right.  This bridge is in a park where Minnehaha waterfall is located.


Monday, November 10, 2014

11/10/14

Well, Autumn is over and arctic winter is on the way.  SIGH.  I high of 33 tomorrow and 16 at night!  This is January weather.  UGH
So in thinking of  warmer weather this is a macro image of a Zinnia in my garden that I used for my Split Tone Challenge today.  You can see that version in the link in the About Me on the right of the Blog if you are interested.


Sunday, November 9, 2014

11/9/14

This is Cumbres & Toltec locomotive 463 moving cars around in the yard back in June.  I have been invited to a Split Tone challenge over on Google Plus and used this image as a starting point.  I had to Google how to even do a split tone.  I had seen images and kind of had an idea but for those who have no clue, this is a definition I had found:  Split Toning is an effect which has its origins in the days of film and it involves tinting the highlights in a black and white image one color and the shadows another color. The best results are where you use opposite colors for each, such as yellow and blue, green and magenta and so on.  If you are interested in seeing how it turned out, I think it worked rather well, click on the link of my name in the About Me section on the right of this page.



Saturday, November 8, 2014

11/8/14

This is a sunrise I witnessed exactly one month ago today on October 8 while at work.  The sky had such gorgeous color that morning and I had to step outside and get an image.  This is not enhanced at all, it really was that vivid and lovely.  Of course even with having a red sky at morn we still didn't get any rain out of it but at least we got a lovely sky.


Friday, November 7, 2014

11/7/14

This is a macro view of my button size Mums that I took a few weeks ago when they were in their prime.  I was going for a soft effect on them and I think I achieved it.  :-)

Thursday, November 6, 2014

11/6/14

This is an image I took a few weeks ago while experimenting with my new camera.  There was some color in the trees and actually some reds mostly due to 5 Leaf Vine.  It made for a nice autumn image I thought.  The water is a stream that should be flowing but due to the fact that we can't seem to get more than a sprinkle once in a while is basically just a big puddle.  I liked the reflection captured in it though.


Wednesday, November 5, 2014

11/5/14

This is an image of the scenery you get to see while riding the Durango &Silverton Railway in southwestern Colorado.  The ride is great for the scenery alone but the train is pretty cool as well.  There are several waterfalls along the way and this is one of them not too far out of Silverton.


Tuesday, November 4, 2014

11/4/14

This is a large Swallowtail butterfly that I saw at a Butterfly House by Milford Lake.  I believe this is a male Tiger Swallowtail.


Monday, November 3, 2014

11/3/14

This is an older image of a Junco that was giving me a quizzical look as I was taking it's image.  :-)



Sunday, November 2, 2014

11/2/14

Did you all remember to set your clocks back today in the US?  :-)  This is a shot I got a few weekends ago while running for a small group at the Large Scale railroad that I help at outside of Topeka. KS.  It was a cloudy dreary day but we all had fun.  This is one of the owners doing a typical railfan runby blowdown.  It's not normally done on a small scale like this but he had prepared for it by making sure the boiler had more water than usual.  There's not a lot of water to play with in these engines when they are at normal levels unlike a big locomotive.  Due to the colder day the steam was pretty impressive.  



Saturday, November 1, 2014

11/1/14

It's the first day of November and our first hard freeze of the year.  Got down in the 20s last night.  I am kind of surprised it took this long as cool as it had been at times this summer and fall.  So winter is seriously on the way now.  
This is an image I got one evening a couple of weeks ago when I went out to take photos with my new camera.  I went out to the Geary State Lake to see what I could find interesting.  There were some clouds in the sky that evening so I hoped for some color as the sun set and this is the result of that.  I even have a title for it:  On Golden Lake.