Cold and Foggy Morning

The boat dock at Beeswax Creek Park looks cantilevered into space.

The sun was up, but hard to see for the dense fog

The water was silky smooth.

One old guy (no comments from the peanut gallery, please) did launch his old flat bottomed johnboat to work his catfish trotlines like he does every day. He went very slowly, and this is all I could see from the dock.

The johnboat created only a tiny wake.

After a few minutes, you can't tell where the water stops and the fog starts.

As I was headed home, the fog had thinned a little and you could see all the way across Beeswax Creek, but it was still thick only a little downstream.

This guy finally decided to go ahead and launch. He was headed upstream to do a little bass fishing, but wanted to wait till he could see the water ahead pretty well. He had heard the main channel was full of floating logs washed into the lake by the recent heavy rains.

Remnant of a Summer Past

Poor Hawk

We heard a loud thump this morning and when I searched around outside, I found a juvenile Red Shouldered Hawk lying on the roof. We often have song birds fly into the windows, and sometimes they will lie still for a long while, but eventually come to and fly away. I let the hawk lie, and though he slid down the roof a little, he did not fly away. Eventually I retrieved him from the roof and after a couple of photos (the others are somewhat macabre) buried the poor fellow in our pet cemetery.

November Sunrise

There was a beautiful, but short, sunrise Saturday morning.

Helena Spillway

Our Catchlight small group visited the spillway on Buck Creek in Helena, Alabama Monday evening. Lovely lighting, but I kept trying to figure out what the small handprint in the lower left was. It was actually a reflection from the office building across the creek.

This is the building that was reflected in the photo above.

Yeah, it's a composite, but the moon was blowing out to get the spillway and it was too tiny to tell it was the moon.

What the . . .?

At first I thought it was a Lady Bug, but . . . no, it's not!

November Camellia

This Camellia blooms in November, while others in our yard bloom in January and February. They're always beautiful when they do, though.

Magnolia Seeds

Magnolia trees can be magnificent, but their leathery leaves can make a big mess on the ground. Their beautiful flowers turn into these seed pods, and as far as tree seeds go, I don't think I know of any that are prettier than the bright red ones of the magnolia. Close up, the fuzzy pod can be kind of weird looking, maybe even gross.

Gulf Fritillary

This poor little fella didn't make it to the gulf this year. I found him on our driveway last week, already gone. I brought him inside to photograph him, but never got the chance until the small group met last night to discuss product photography and try our hand. I guess he's a product of something, just not manufacturing. By the time we got to shooting, he had become very fragile, and positioning him without destroying him was tough. There was a discussion afterwards about what kind of butterfly he had been, and I thought it was a Gulf Fritillary, but was unsure because I remembered their wings being mostly orange. It turns out, the top side of the wings is very different than the bottom, but it is a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae).

Upon close examination, I commented that the eyes looked, well dead, I guess because they were. He's still a sight to see, though.

Riveting Railroad Reflection

I guess I like making photos of reflections, especially in a fresh coat of shiny paint on the side of a railroad car. This was at the red caboose that used to be Victoria Station restaurant on Morris Avenue in downtown Birmingham, but is now home to kinetic.com, an internet company. The car is red, but appears black in the dark, and the red is the reflection of a traffic light a block away.

Night Shoot Birmingham

Last night our photography small group from church went to one of our old standby locations to shoot light trails from a bridge over the Red Mountain Expressway. I think the stars around the lights are my favorite part of this.

We've done the light trails thing several times, so some of the old timers were looking around for some other inspiration. The tower part of the Sirote Permutt building nearby is interestingly lit by purple LEDs.

And here we go with the "love locks" on the bridges. In Paris, the loony tourists virtually destroyed a bridge with the locks, throwing the keys in the river. At least with the combination lock, there's no key to toss into someone's windshield.

Super Blood Moon Eclipse

For the most part, it was too cloudy to get any really good shots, but here's a quick composite of several shots as the moon exited totality and moved back into the sun. No, the pictures are not spatially accurate, just stuck on a black background.

A little enlargement of one of the composite frames. Not nearly as sharp as I'd like.  I must say, I am unequivocally unimpressed with either the Sony Nex 7's ability to focus in low light, even manually to infinity, or my inability to understand how to do it.

Railroad Park Favorites

Some of my favorite shots from Railroad Park Monday evening.

Sky Afire

Pink Sky on the Water

Flowers Past Their Prime

City Federal Building Reflection

Peter and the Dark Side

This little guy thought I couldn't see him, so he just sat there as I walked up closer and closer.

A little fill flash let me know that he was definitely looking at me.

Up To His . . . In Pollen

Pollinator Extraordinaire 

A Buck, A Doe, and A Fawn Walked Into A Field . . .

It's not a joke, they literally walked into a field.

Yummy!

During our recent trip to Pennsylvania, a gathering of family and friends took place. A good time was had by all, except this fellow.

Birmingham Botanical Gardens

On the last photowalk of the summer semester, our small group went to the Botanical Gardens. Here are a few of my favorites.

Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum

A group of photographers from our church met at the Heart Of Dixie Railroad Museum in Calera, AL last Saturday. Here's the rest of my decent shots. 

Seen Better Days

Lovely Patina on Degrading Paint

Lost Key, Bring Out the Acetylene

Still In Use, But Not Today

Lake Ainslie

Painted Canyons of the Train Car Graveyard

Greasy Bent

Dried Out Wood In the Midst of Rust

Even the Rubber, Paint, and Rust Is Rusting