Tag Archives: Flash

CowParade Calendar – October – Blazing Bovine

Today is October 1st, and if you have my 2012 CowParade Austin calendar, you probably flipped over to October, saw a very colorful cow, and headed on over to my blog site to see what the story is with the cow named Blazing Bovine, which was painted by Doug Naugle.

If you “dig” this cow, then you might also enjoy visiting Doug’s web site, which has the URL of “Dig Doug’s Art” in it, or you might want to check out his Facebook page.

On Doug’s web site, he says this about his art: “With my acrylic paintings, I like to create patterns out of chaotic lines while letting my subconscious be the guiding force. With bold bright colors and stark contrast the images buzz with electricity. The outcome of my work is like lightning striking the canvas and electrifying the soul.”

Blazing Bovine was on public display here in Austin, TX during August through October 2011 on the west side of South Congress Avenue, between Gibson St. and Elizabeth St. at Guero’s Taco Bar.

Unfortunately, I really don’t have much of a story to tell about my experience in photographing this cow.

This was the last one of eleven cows that Dad and I photographed on the morning of September 10, 2011. As a result, we didn’t get to Blazing Bovine until 11:30 AM, and the cloudless Texas sky had the direct, harsh sunlight doing some serious blazing of its own.

Reminder: You can always view any photo at a larger size by just clicking on it. You will then need to use your browser’s “Back Button” to return to my story.

This cow was positioned near the edge of a very busy sidewalk, with parked cars very close to it. The photo above was taken from the west side, and so this is the shady side of the cow. I did use my Canon 580EX II flash on top of my Canon 5D Mark II camera to take that photo. You can clearly see how close the parked cars were to it.

I was determined to get a photo of both sides of this cow, so I struggled around a bit and finally got my tripod positioned down between the parked cars and took this next photo of the sunny side of the cow.

Even though I was still very close to this 8 foot long cow, I did manage to back-up between the parked cars far enough to get my 24-105mm f/4.0 lens zoomed out to 55mm. (I was trying to avoid the perspective distortion that occurs from being too close – and using a wide anlge lens.)

The photo above was the one that I used for my calendar. Why did this cow end up as “Miss October”? Because the color scheme seemed to be a Halloween color scheme, with the strong blacks and brilliant orange.

In the bright sunlight, it is difficult to really see the picture on the LCD on the back of the camera, so just in case my first photo wasn’t exposed optimally, I went back to the other side of the cow. I dialed the flash exposure compensation down by -2/3 of a stop, and took this photo.

There is nothing appealing with having all of those parked vehicles immediately behind this (or any) cow, so I just made sure to get a photo of the plaque before we packed up our equipment and headed home for lunch.

We had only been there for 10 minutes, and I had spent the majority of that time simply waiting for people to get out of my way. Even then I never really got what I thought was a “great” photo of Blazing Bovine, but in the end, I did think that the photo that I took of the sunny side of the cow was worthy of being in my CowParade Austin 2012 calendar.

Thank you for reading my blog. I you would like to leave a comment, just click in the “Leave a Reply” link immediately below, or on the cartoonish “word bubble” way back up at the top of the post. Thanks!

Welcome to Beatrice, Nebraska

On Sunday, September 2, 2012, Barb and I drove to northern Oklahoma to spend the week with my Dad, his brother, and his four sisters that all met in the little town of Beatrice, Nebraska (which they grew up near). It was on Monday, which was the Labor Day holiday here in the U.S. when we finally made it to Nebraska. This short post just shows only 8 of my favorite photos from that day.

The Mid-West of the United States has experienced a severe drought this year, and we passed through several regions that looked like the entire crops were a failure, but when we stopped to take the photo above at the state line, it was sprinkling lightly.

The vast majority of the photos that I took on this trip were of my family members, but I will keep those to an absolute minimum here on my blog.

Beatrice, Nebraska is right at 780 miles (1255 km) from our home in Austin, Texas and the drive took us just under 13 hours total.

Here is a photo of my Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Jerry’s back yard. The lush, soft, green grass seems so much nicer than what is grown in yards back home in Texas. Love those tall trees, too!

Reminder: You can always view any photo at a larger size by just clicking on it. You will then need to use your browser’s “Back Button” to return to my story.

Aunt Jeanette seemed awfully proud and amused that they had brought the old outhouse from their previous home to their new home, which they moved into about a year and a half ago. I just had to get a few photos of that old outhouse…

I was just trying to get an semi-interesting composition of the wagon wheel with the outhouse, when this little squirrel decided that he needed to check out what I was up to!

I’m not sure when Aunt Jeanette acquired an old outhouse to be used as a yard decoration, but it had to have been at least 40 years ago, because they had it in their old yard when we used to visit them when I was just a kid in school.

Aunt Jeanette does a nice job of keeping the old outhouse decorated. And no, it has never been used for its original purpose (at least not for 50 years).

After my Dad’s brother, Uncle Jack, took us to dinner at a local restaurant, we went by to visit his new home at the Assisted Living Center.

Uncle Jack had moved there in the last couple of years, and so none of us had seen it yet. I took more than a dozen photos inside, and it is a very nice place. I have decided to only show this one of my Dad, Robert (on the left) and his only brother, Jack (on the right). Jack is 88 years old now!

For the photo above, I used my Olympus FL-600R flash unit on top of my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera, and pivoted the head upward so that the light would bounce off of the relatively low white ceiling.

As we were leaving Uncle Jack’s place, and still standing around in the parking lot, I noticed that the sun was setting. I jogged across the parking lot to hastily snap this Sunflower Sunset photo. It seemed to symbolize the American Midwest as a very fitting close to a fun day of travelling.