March 2000

The long criss-crossing shadow lines formed by the berms in this field and the green grass make this picture pleasing to me. 

The green slime on this almost dried up pond at Shelby Farms was interesting in this otherwise colorless scene.  You would not normally see this pond unless you wandered a ways off the trails around here.  Lots of briers protecting this spot as I found out.

I have heard it said to find the picture in a picture.  The sunset in the top picture is quite beautiful but the close crop at left with a long telephoto lens of the most dramatic part of the scene is striking.

I have tried several times to get these buildings in a long telephoto shot with good focus.  My eyesight is not great and the manual focus on my 300 mm lens is too sensitive to adjust finely.  I got it pretty good this time about 30 minutes after sunset.

This tulip at the botanical gardens was in direct sunlight but that allowed my to handhold the camera with a fast shutter speed and get this sharply focused shot.  I had the white balance setting set on tungsten lighting so I had to really work in Photoshop to correct the color cast and salvage this shot.  It is probably still not the right color but since there is no flesh tones in the shot, you'd never know.

These two trees' blooms and new growth made them stand out so I just stood there and handheld these shots between breezes.

This is a picture of early spring weeds that you see everywhere.  There was no way to get much depth of field considering that I was handholding the shot and the height of the weeds.  I liked the purple color against the green.

Everyone likes this scene of mother and foal.  The sky was rather drab so I eliminated most of it in the frame.  The backlit hair makes this shot great.

Walking on the beach at Gulf Shores AL.,  the gulls swept up towards me and I pulled my camera up quickly to get this shot.

On my 14th floor balcony, I noticed this man feeding the gulls from his hand while a grandfather and baby look on.  It was pretty amazing to watch the gulls sweep down and pick the bread up with their beaks.

A classic sunset beach scene.  I could not see the actual sunset because of the buildings but this part of the sky had the soft pastel colors.  I purposely waited for the ball to be at its height to snap this shot.

On my way out to the beach to get some sunrise shots, I noticed the green colors in this lighted pool contrasted against the blues and pinks of the sky and the classic silhouette of palms.  My friends said this one should be in one of those vacation brochures.

I waited for the surf to recede so as to get the reflected sun on the still wet sand.

The sun was behind the clouds now but the reflections in the wet sand were still working. An underexposed photo adds a sense of peace to this scene.

Just a snapshot but the elaborate sand castle was fascinating.  It took several men all day long to build it.  The technique was interesting:  They dug the trench first, piling the sand up in the middle.  Then they wet the pile to pack the sand.  A small cement trowel was used to carve the entire castle, including the roof lines, steps and windows without drawings or plans.

The same castle the next morning at sunrise.

The colors of the new leaves on this tree were brightly lit by the afternoon sun.  Yellow and blue go great together. I laid down and took this shot on my back.  I did not notice until later that the distant jet was flying over just as I snapped the shot.

Same afternoon looking back towards the tree in the previous shot.  A very different looking scene.  Due to the position of the camera pointed back towards the sun.

Wednesday evening right before worship service, I grabbed this shot of the crosses through the trees with the colorful sunset in the background.  The crosses are lit by flood lights which make the white crosses really stand out at night.

One morning on my way to the Power Breakfast, I stopped to get this shot of the ground fog covering Shelby Farms.

One afternoon while stopped at a red light. I noticed this silhouette of the cranes at the Baptist Hospital East construction site.  I had to carefully frame this shot to eliminate the storefronts and street lights that would have marred this scene.

The colors are great in this photograph.  This was taken with my Coolpix 950 using the Best Shot Selector mode.  I held down the shutter and let it fire off ten frames.  The camera automatically keeps the image having the least amount of camera shake.