White Rock Lake at Dusk, Part 2

So, today, I'm back with photos from my trip to the south side of the lake. It was getting a little later, and closer to actual sunset when I got around to this side of the lake. And, there were lots of clouds. But, some cool photos were captured, in my opinion, nonetheless.

That's downtown over there.

My goal, after driving through over here one night and viewing exquisite combinations of sunset and skyline, was to get something of the two. This shot, above, is the only one I thought was remotely worth including. There were just too many clouds over by downtown. It was sort of blah and gray. So, I moved on to other subjects.

First "other subject" - the sunset behind trees. The tree above was so symmetrical in a lot of ways, it makes a nice shadow.




Then, we have this one - I like this one a lot - this is a favorite set-up of mine - the tree on the side of the viewfinder, leaves at the top, "framing" the photo. I have one I took in Agrigento with an Olive tree and one of the Greco-Roman ruins in the "frame". Someday, I'll get my Sicily photos up here to share with you. Maybe it can be an one year anniversary post!

These colors were lovely, don't you agree?

I'm not entirely sure what the pretty-colored plant is. I thought maybe it was a Confederate Rose bush? Maybe it's just a weed. If you know what it is, please let me know. Then I can stop the endless Google-ing.

South shore near the spillway.

This photo was one of my favorites...the water was like glass, so I got a lot of reflection in the lake. Hard to believe that less than 15 feet from those trees was rush hour traffic, whizzing by. I'll stay on this side of the trees any day, thank you very much.



Tall grasses are native to these parts, take little watering, and look fabulous. I have some in my front flower beds at the house, if you'll remember. I'm a fan of the tall grasses, and native planting in general. I'm also a fan of these shots of the tall grasses, up close and personal. However, I'm not sure if I like the one below in color or in black and white better.

Color.

Black and White.

Which one do you prefer? Maybe I should take that black and white one and play with it a little more - add grain or distort it a bit. Then, maybe black and white would win.

These photos remind me of a story from 7th grade art class. I had this teacher who I could never please. I tried so HARD to please her. I'm not an artist - this could be why she wasn't pleased with me. But EFFORT should count for something, no? I worked so @*#($&@ hard in that class to get positive reinforcement from her. Never got it. I tried and I tried. I asked for help, I stopped at every step to make sure I was getting it, I sought out her advice and counsel. She had little to no time for me. And, she never smiled or got excited about a thing I did.

So, I eventually decided to stop trying. We were working with crayon and pencil pastels the day I stopped trying. I remember purposefully deciding to no longer try for her attention or acclaim. I drew haystacks in a field with my pastels. Silly, scraggly lined haystacks. THIS, the art teacher LOVED. The haystacks I carelessly drew on my 11 x 17 paper. THIS, she ooh-ed and aah-ed over. THIS drawing, she entered into the school art fair. And, this drawing of crappy little haystacks won it's category and was displayed in the superintendent's office for a while. The one I didn't work hard on. The one I didn't care about. That's where my hard-to-please 7th grade art teacher found her muse. In a lot of ways, this story is a microcosm of my life. You know, in the way that everyone lives the life of Charlie Brown at one time or the other? It was a Charlie Brown moment. But I digress. Back to the lake.

There is also a hike/bike path bridge on this side of the lake - a couple of them actually, but I only photographed this one. It's smaller, and on a "corner" of the lake, making it very picturesque with all the foliage surrounding it's ends.

Bridge near Garland Road.

Side of the bridge.

Other side of the bridge, with a nice reflection included.

Then, I turned my attention back to that waning sun. The clouds gave me something to shoot at, even if they were a tad on the thick side.

Sunset over toward downtown, with a little pink.

Another pretty one.

Closer in of the pump house, on the other side of the lake.

The winner for my favorite sunset photo.

I love this photo - it's straight from the camera - nature at it's best. Beautiful. I actually tried to make it better with my software, and the original won out.

After I caught the last bit of the sun creeping through these clouds, I drove on down the road, behind the Dallas Arboretum, and took a couple more shots of some lovely trees.

Tree one, across from the back of the Arboretum.

Pretty "orange" tree grove, inside the Arboretum.

That there fence is the back of the Arboretum. ("That there" is a proper way to refer to the placement of something in Texas. Don't correct my English. Or Tex-ish. "That there" is the way I prefer to refer to the location of the fence.) It's meant to keep non-paying riff-raff at bay. I stole this shot of the trees anyway. They were just too pretty not to capture.

By this point, I was pretty much losing all the rest of the sun. In fact, I lightened that "orange" tree photo quite a bit in post-production to actually get the color out of the trees. It was getting dark. So, I packed up the camera and headed home. But, before we leave this post, just for good measure, let's look one more time at my favorite sunset photo.

Ahh, there we go.
Now don't you feel better?
I do.

White Rock Lake at Dusk, Part 1

The other day I decided to head out to White Rock Lake Park, which is a stone's throw from my home, to take some shots of the setting sun. This lake is a gem of the city, in my opinion, and I hope, if you don't know much about it or think it's overrated, that I can inform or change your mind. The night I went out to shoot, there were some nice clouds in the sky - perhaps a few too many for the best sunset shots, but I think I got a few nice ones nonetheless.

Today's post is photos taken on the north side of the lake, off East Lawther, near Big Thicket and the boat docks.

Bike/hike trail bridge near Mockingbird Lane.

The first thing I came across was this beautiful bridge. It was installed in the last couple of years to move bike/hike traffic off of Mockingbird Lane, where it had gotten fairly dicey for folks to ride or walk. It spans the north side of the lake and is just great. It was highlighted this evening by the streaks of white in the sky, I think.

Another shot of the bridge, from slightly below.

This bike/hike trail is a paved path, recently made wider and safer with these bridge and other improvements, goes around the lake and then north in several directions. The lake trail alone is 9.33 miles of pavement and scenery smack dab in the middle of the city. S and I avail ourselves of this path regularly. It's wonderful.

I wanted to see what else was around the north side of the lake, so I started walking down toward the boat clubs. There were some gloriously colored trees along the banks. I took a few shots of these trees.

Beautiful leaves with the blue sky.

But none came out as beautiful as the one above, in my opinion. I really like how the yellow-orange leaves sit against the blue sky streaked with white. I hope you like it too.

North shore of lake looking back towards Mockingbird Lane.

Right where I found those pretty trees, I turned around and realized the sky was even nicer, a few minutes later, and pulled back a bit from that bridge, which is now in the distance. I know I've said before that clouds can make all the difference. And they do in this photo!

Male version of mystery bird.

As I headed on toward the boat clubs, I spotted three of these birds on the side of the road, foraging in the leaves. At first, I thought they might be turkey vultures. But, at closer glance, I decided that wasn't the case. The back side of their bodies look almost like Mallard duck feathers. There were three males walking along, together, but separately, right near Big Thicket.

Female version of mystery bird.

Then, a little further down, on the same side of the road I came across these two lovely female versions of the mystery bird. Or, at least, that's what my 8th grade biology education led me to believe - they look similar, but these birds are more cloaked in the colors of their surroundings. They must be the females.

After a great deal of searching on the Internet - I've ascertained that these ducks are some version of Muscovy ducks - which are at times domesticated.

In the lake, there were mallards and this version of a duck swimming together. This is the female - she is brown - there is just so much back light in the photo it is hard to see that. The males were black with white features on the face. I think, after my Internet searching, these ducks were Mergansers, Buffleheads, or some sort of hybrid duck as discussed in the link about the Muscovys.

That said, I really like how the water looks like molten metal up above - like liquid mercury or glass or something. I like that photo very much, in spite of (or because of?) the duck floating there in the middle.

A close up of some of the boats.

I finally made it around near the boat clubs. They are picturesque to me, just sitting there. There was one sailboat out and about while I was photographing. But, none of the photos I took of it really struck me as "share-worthy."

And it was getting a bit later, so I began to see the hue of the sun against the pollution - the pretty pink hue we see in the big city as part of our sunsets. Yes, that's pollution being lit up by the waning sun. Or, at least, that's what I've always been told. So, I did a little searching and found this article which points out that this is at least partially true. A plus for pollution, I guess. Prettier sunsets.



After visiting the boats, I walked back to the car and drove over to the southern edge of the lake to try to catch the sunset as it went behind the downtown skyline. I'll share my success or failure of that little venture in tomorrow's post.

For more information than I could ever offer about the lake and the park - check out this site. There is even a tour of all the important landmarks and a history of how the lake came to be. It gives me lots of ideas for more photo taking in the future, right next to home.

Simple Gifts

As we all know, the economy is horrible. And, the holiday season is upon us. Black Friday, however black it may or may not have been, is behind us, as is Cyber Monday, and some of us still have presents to forage.

I think it's important to remember that simple gifts - gifts that give a little of yourself and aren't fussy or expensive or overly commercialized - are often the most cherished. And, they often cost little to nothing monetarily.

Even Oprah is on this band wagon this year. Her annual "Oprah's Favorite Things" show was instead all about how to have a thrifty, meaningful Christmas. It got me thinking, some of my favorite holiday memories and gifts given to me have been just this sort of thing.



A few years ago, my brother Steve's family gave me this photo tower. It is one of my most favorite gifts ever - just pictures of his kids in all kinds of different settings. I love it. I've thought about updating it several times to new photos, but then I think, no I like it just the way it is.




When I was in Indiana in August, Steve gave me and others the gift of his guitar playing. He's really getting talented on that thing, and shared his talents with the rest of us. I appreciated hearing this gift very much.

Will someone please warn me when I'm doing this silly grin?
Good God!

Over the years, people have given me photos, baked goods, books they picked out especially for me, re-gifts that fit me better than they fit the recipient, dinners, crafts, tickets to shows, events where we did something together, and many more things that were special to me, especially for me. And, many of them didn't cost much at all. And, the memory of receiving such special, simple gifts lasts much longer than the gift giving itself.





I'm sure you can think of times you've received meaningful gifts - meaningful because they were coming from a special person or were given in such a character of thoughtfulness that you remember the occasion with fondness. I'm trying to think of ways I can do this sort of giving this Christmas season. Simple gifts are often the very best.

So, What Did YOU Do for the Holiday?

(Editor's Note: Please note the new header for December. Please also note that it no longer hangs out to the side of the box on the right. It only took me three months to figure this out, but by golly, I've got it now! Thank you. Now on with today's post, and Happy December!)

We had a fairly traditional holiday with S's family. We went over to his parent's house for the Thanksgiving meal.

There was turkey. This year - smoked.

And green bean casserole.

When I was in grad school, one year, one of my study group members, Henry from Shanghai, came with us to S's parents for Thanksgiving dinner. His favorite traditional American food at that gathering was, well, the green bean casserole. He wanted the recipe. And, then wanted to know if you could make it in the microwave. Henry, I SO hope that you're making green bean casserole in Shanghai. Go cross-cultural eating!

There was sweet potato souffle.

And my absolute favorite thing - DRESSING.

Gravy was on hand, for those of you who are into that sort of thing.
I'm not a gravy girl.

And, there was cranberry dressing.

Or, as they are called in this family, BEETS. Once, when S was in grade school, his mom forgot the can of cranberries. So, his dad and he were sent to the store to pick up a can. His dad sent him inside the store with the money to grab the needed item. Well, instead of cranberries, he bought a can of beets. The labels do look similar, especially to a grade-school aged boy who eats neither. So, to this day, every year, S is reminded of this bit of family holiday lore. We pass the beets.

Of course there was also butter.
I know how you like to view the butter.

And I made a dessert - pumpkin.

It's yummy if I do say so myself. There was also a tasty macadamia nut pie. Think pecan pie, substitute the nut.

Alexandra, jazzed up to sit down and eat.

OK, not really. She's too young to be too into Thanksgiving yet. But one day, little girl, you're going to look forward to this feast just like the rest of us.

This photo is also a good reminder that AMATEUR is an important word in this here blog title, not that you don't get reminders of this every day. I had been out shooting photos the night before at dusk. (I'll post them later this week.) While doing so, I fussed with the settings on my camera, trying this and that in the low light. A professional would remember to restore settings before shooting a new subject. I did not, however, so the first few shots I took at this gathering were dark and grainy. In perfect light. Because I had my settings all wonky. Oh well. It's touch and go here at ATE UP AMATEUR, and here's one reason why. I'm sure you can readily tick off several others. So, I'll let you do that on your own in your own pretty little head. Back to the festivities.

Here is my plate of food. Notice the double helping of dressing.

Cheryl opening birthday cards.

It was also, as I mentioned last week, Cheryl's birthday on Thanksgiving. So, she opened cards and presents after dinner. Then, as is the custom at the in-laws, she passed the cards around so everyone could laugh. Funny cards are a regular thing at birthdays around these parts. My family, on the other hand, since we're the sentimental type, try to make each other cry. Yep - we try to find the tear jerker card at the store and hope for the water works. No need to write in and tell me my family needs therapy for trying to make each other cry. It's just how we hang. It's OK - we're down with it.

S enjoying the birthday card.

And Michael and Brooke...

...and Sam.

After dinner, at the in-laws, it was time to take in some football. A very important tradition. In Dallas, people have dinner either before or after the Cowboys play. The Cowboys play every year on Thanksgiving. This year, they won. I might have to take back what I said about the season being over - they're showing signs of life the past few weeks...but I won't hold my breath.

S played with Alexandra...

...and ate his weight in cereal mix.

Sam watched the game very carefully from behind his eyelids.
That darned tryptophan!

And, at some point, we all went outside for some family photos. This is also a family tradition.

Brooke and Michael

Kim and Alexandra, before the family shot.

Kim, Alexandra and Mark

The whole family.

We rigged my camera on a ladder and used the timer for this one. Aren't we clever? And, S had a hard time being seen over all of my hair. I guess Texas is rubbing off on my after all these years.

After these photos were taken, we did very little for the rest of the weekend that bears mentioning. After weeks and weeks of chock-full weekends, this was a welcome change, arriving just before the onslaught of holiday madness that is December. Ours was a nice holiday, and for that, I am very thankful.

What did you do for the holiday? I hope, whatever it was, it was happy.