Stone Wall
My Humble Abode 
May 27, 2004 - Thursday

I've been keeping an eye out on this spot for about 2 weeks now waiting on a  perfect day to take this shot. Fortunately today just happened to be the perfect day. As I have learned, evening sunshine seems to provide the best neutral light for photographs than any other time of the day. With that in mind, I made it a point to make time to get to this spot and take a few shots as the sun peeked in and out of the cloud cover.


 

Sharpies Galore
Living Room Table
May 26, 2004 - Wednesday

I borrowed a bunch of Lisa's markers to use as my photo of the day. I did not realize Sharpie made them in so many different colors. I guess you learn something new everyday. I should be receiving my new Canon 550ex external flash unit tomorrow via the Fedex guy. It will definitely make these type of shots much better.


 

Candlelight
Living Room Table
May 25, 2004 - Tuesday

I decided to mess around with my S400 for a little bit since I haven't shot anything with it in over a week. These are some candles that I have on my living room coffee table and I decide they would make for a great subject. I definately plan to shoot a little more with this camera this week so consider this one of my firsts.


 

My Trusty S400
My Makeshift Studio
May 24, 2004 - Monday

This image is of my little Canon S400 digital camera. This is the camera I carry on my hip anytime I go anywhere just in case there is a picture to be had. Since my G5 is a little large to carry around I decided to order one of these little guys from ebay simply because of its size. Unfortunately this camera does not have full manual controls like my G5 does but I guess I have to sacrifice something in order to get something of this size.


 

A Busy Day - Part 2
All Over Houston - Again
May 23, 2004 - Sunday

This morning we decided to drive over to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to visit the Cockrell Butterfly Center. The Butterfly Center is a stunning living exhibit that showcases hundreds of live butterflies in a manmade rainforest environment. The center originally opened in 1994 and is believed to house over 1,500 butterflies.

Before walking into the self contained rainforest environment visitors first walk through a small insect display. The display contained Plexiglas cages that house many different insects and spiders. This is where we saw a nice little freaky looking Walking Stick. These insects are very creepy looking.



We walked around inside the butterfly exhibit looking for different subjects to take pictures of. It was pretty tricky to try to implement the things I learned yesterday in class here on live animals because they were not still long enough to adjust all of my manual settings and such. Oh well, these two guys were nice enough to sit and pose for me while I played with my cameras settings.





After the Cockrell Butterfly Center, we headed east on I-10 and then on a whim decided to trek over to the San Jacinto Monument located in La Porte, Texas which was a short 45 minute drive away. The San Jacinto Monument, stands at 570 feet as a dedication to to Heroes of the Battle of San Jacinto and all others who contributed to the Independence of Texas. Inside the monument is the San Jacinto Museum of History chronicling the events before, during and after April 21, 1836, the day Texas won its independence from Mexico.



To give you an idea of the height, The Washington monument in Washington D.C. is 555ft tall and the San Jacinto Monument's observation deck is at 489ft. The observation deck looks out onto the Houston Ship Channel which is a major U.S. artery for importing and exporting goods. On the upper right side of the image below you can see the U.S.S. Battleship Texas. That is the next stop on our Tour De Texas trip for the weekend.



The Battleship Texas stands proudly as a World War I veteran. The New York Class battleship now serves as an education floating museum, delighting and educating many visitors each day. The ship is 573 feet long, has a displacement of 34,000 tons and was commissioned March 12, 1912 and was decommissioned in 1948.

Lisa and I were lucky enough to be in time to take a tour of the ship with John, a seasoned tour guide. John gave us an entire tour of the ship which lasted close to 2 hours but was so interesting we lost total regard of time. Jon took our group too many places on the ship that was off limits for visitors in general and shared many stories that he has gathered from various veterans that he has had the privileged to speak to were actually stationed on the ship at one time.

I did not get a chance to take many photos at the battleship since the long weekend had obviously taken a toll on my cameras battery and decided to give out just as we got on board the ship. It was my fault for not charging it up after yesterday's long day. Oh well, lesson learned.



To say the least we had an extremely busy weekend in which we learned a lot about nature and especially our state and countries history. This is by bar the most jam packed, event filled weekend both Lisa and I has ever had. Who knows what we will have on tap for next weekend!