Fall Colors 2010 Rediscovered

A friend of mine seemed very interested in the fall colors trip I just took and she was sick so I thought I would try and lift her spirits by sending her the link to my Fall Colors 2010 Gallery on SmugMug. But... it turns out, I didn't have said gallery.

"Ok", I thought, "I'll just create one since I have ready access to all the images."

Turns out, I didn't. I had the raw files but not the final images. Lets back up a bit.

In the fall of 2010, I took a trip leaving Leander up to Wisconsin, visited some cousins, and then went on north to the upper peninsula of Michigan. I finally circled back around on the southern side of the peninsula and headed back home. The whole trip took from September 12th to October 15th. I spent the day time working remotely and would get up and do photography in the mornings and evenings often during golden hour or blue hour.

I had two Canon cameras: the 1D Mk II and 1Ds Mk II. And I had a 6cm by 8cm medium format Fuji GX 680 with tons of lenses. The problem is that the camera was starting to get old and its film canister had a light leak so I didn't get many of the images but I did get quite a few.

I even self published a book about the trip that you can see here.

Coming back to recent times, when I went to find all of the images, the medium format images in particular I had only the raw images and not the final processed images I used in the book. Also, the book was published via Lightroom's "Book" module and so my Lightroom catalog should have had all the info about the book but it had none. I assume I started a fresh catalog and never brought in the old catalog from this trip.

To bore you even more, I'll explain that as I've gone through laptops and computers over at least the past 20 years if not longer, I never threw out the old hard drives. I kept them all. A few years ago, I bought a huge storage system (called a NAS) and put all the drives on it, created a program to index everything and find duplicates. Lightroom has a special type of file that it keeps its data in so I could search the NAS for that particular type of file, look at the modification dates, and quickly narrow down the most likely catalog that I had used during the trip and creating the book.

Long story short, I found the catalog and all the edited images used in the book. I added them to my current Master Catalog and published the gallery up to SmugMug. You can see all the images here.

Great Egret Swallowing

Here is a sequence of a Great Egret swallowing a fish. Its sorta neat I think.

Failed Texas Fall Colors 2025 Trip

Well, I tried... and didn't succeed like I hoped.

On Monday November 17, 2025, I took off to find the fall colors in Texas in 2025. There is a state park named Lost Maples State Natural Area which is south and west of Kerrville. I was going to search the triangle from Kerrville over to Rocksprings and down to Uvalde. It turns out that if you look on Apple Maps, there are green areas and light green or yellow areas. Only the darker green areas have potential. The area around Uvalde for example is flat grassland. So, lesson one: narrow the area. I also need to stay somewhere closer to the park than Uvalde.

I got this brilliant idea sometime last week when my anxiety was gone. I mean... completely gone. I had ambition and curiosity and energy. I've not felt that way for five plus years.

But I was waiting on some filters for my drone plus it got cold plus the park's web site said that the colors were still a week or more off so I waited. However, by the time Saturday came, I was feeling ok to good but not like I was a few days earlier. Sunday was the same. I decided to book a motel for two nights Sunday night and left Monday even when I was feeling only 75% or so.

And... more importantly, I made a few mistakes Monday morning it seems. I need to really eat and I need to complete my morning rituals before taking off. As I have a horrible habit of doing, I didn't really eat once I got on the road. I kept thinking "five more minutes". I didn't start off feeling good plus I didn't pamper myself like I need to right now still with this anxiety so I got to feeling pretty bad by the time I got to the hotel. Lesson two: complete the morning rituals. Lesson three: take extra good care of myself when traveling.

I camped out at the hotel, got up the next morning, and drove back home. The weather driving home was less than good so I may not have missed much anyway.

In the process, I got these four images... Ok but not what I had hoped for at all. I had plans to fly my drone and capture some sunrises and sunsets and and and and... Oil well... Live (fail) and learn I suppose.

I hope you enjoy the images.

Four Hyperlapses of the same intersection

I got some new neutral density filters. This allows me to slow the shutter down. In the first example, the shutter should have been 1/2s but the drone firmware limited it to 1/6.25s -- which is weird. But that is why it is under exposed. I used an ND32 filter, f/11 aperture, and ISO 100. This was taken at one frame per second.

Hyperlapse #1

The second has the shutter open for one second with two seconds between frames. This is the 180º shutter that I was trying for. Again, ND32 filter, f/11 for the aperture, and ISO 100.

Hyperlapse #2

The next two are the same videos as above but with an effect called "mini world" done. The technique is to blur the top and bottom edges which makes the video seem like it was actually a mini world. Sorta fun effect.

Hyperlapse #1 Mini World

Hyperlapse #2 Mini World

Tiny Traffic Intersection

I think I did it! You can make a video of the normal world seem like it is of a miniature scene by adding blur to the outer edges. Have a look!

Sunrise at Lakeline Park

I got a new drone about a week ago and I've been capturing what is called a "hyperlapse" of the sunrise. A hyperlapse is a time lapse with the camera moving.

I've been loading them up toe DJI's SkiPixel web site but I don't like the thumbnail produced when I text the links out. Also, there is no way to add extra stuff to the page like maps, etc. So I'm going to try making a blog entry with a link to the video as well as other stuff I want to include. The downside is, (as George Jetson says "I had to push the button TWICE!!!"), you will need to follow the link in the page to get to the video and then hit the play button to play the video... Sigh!!!

So... here is today's capture. It was diagonally across Muir Lake in Lakeline Park.

Click the image to watch the video

More Bluebirds and Other Friends from Peggy Garner Park

Today we have an Eastern Phoebe, a Black-crested Titmouse, a Golden Fronted Woodpecker, and a lot of Eastern Bluebirds.

I hope you enjoy them.

Mystery Solved -- Eastern Bluebird

Two or three times this past month when I take my walk around the neighborhood, I would see these small birds at a particular spot. They seemed to be the size of a finch, perhaps a tiny bit bigger. They were mostly grey to my unaided eyes but when they flew, there was a hint of blue ... I thought; maybe.

I've gone out with my camera on about four occasions hoping to see them but came up empty each time. Now today, I finally found them.

I thought they were Barn Swallows but both Google Images and Merlin both say it is the Eastern Bluebird. Looking at the differences, the tail feathers don't look like a swallow's. These are my first entries of Eastern Bluebirds in my photo collection. Weee!!!!

Belted Kingfisher and Killdear in Tejas Park

I don't see myself as a bleeding heart liberal but I am honestly concerned and confused with the absense of wildlife in our parks today. I see a new toll road, new houses, new construction, new traffic lights. But very little wildlife.

Tejas Park is along the San Gabriel River just as it feeds into Lake Georgetown. It is a reasonable ways out into the "country". Yet, while I'm there, I saw exactly one squirrle, a kingfisher, and small flock of killdears. My app heard a Carolina Wren and a Chickadee off in the distance which is kind of remarkable given how much contruction noise was present. And that's it.

Oh... well... I did see close to a half dozen small plastic bags that have dog poop in them. That also confuses me. Do the people that do that really think they are helping?

Baby Deer and Friends at Lakeline Park

I went out around noon to see what was active and found more than I was expecting. A family of deer came through with mama and two babies. A Summer Taninger. And a Great Egret.

Doeskin Ranch Trail

I've only been to this place once before and it was a short visit but I like it a lot. Many places have just one type of habitate like dense cedar trees, or grasslands, or scrub. But Doeskin has large old trees, some cedar trees, a lot of open gransland, some scrub, and a small creek. BUT... I still didn't really find much wildlife. The traffic from a quiet two lane road is most of what I heard. My Merlin Bird Id app that identifies via sound came up with only three birds. I'm assuming it is the time of year. In any case, here are a few images. I hope you enjoy them.

Various critters at Lakeline Park

There is still no real wildlife besides the usual critters especially at midday which is when I finally ventured out today.

I hope you enjoy these few images.

Sitting Dragonflies and Fishing Egrets

It was actually yesterday that I took these photos. I went back to see if I could find the moth I found before but I didn't see it. I had discovered a place that had lots of dragonflies so I went there and just sat on a stool taking pictures of those that landed. Then when I was done with that, I noticed a Great Egret fishing so I captured some sequences of it. I hope you enjoy the images.

Found a moth (I guess) feeding on flowers

Today's discovery is a moth (I guess) almost the size of a hummingbird and acting much like a hummingbird except it has antenna so its not a bird. Also photographed some of the usual suspects: dragonfly, flowers, bumblebee, Summer Tanager. And I added in a neat looking half decayed log.