Austin is a great place to live. I live in one of those rare places that where ever you are in the world you can be speaking to a local & when you tell them you live in Austin Texas, the very predictable response is some variation of “I’ve heard that’s a cool place”. It’s true. Great city, great music, even the buildings are pretty cool. Today’s photo is of the interior of the Austin City Hall. Pretty cool space.

I was out photographing some of beautiful Texas wildflowers the other day and ran across these tiny white flowers with a nice blue Bluebonnet background. I was trying to find their name but did not have any luck. Any ideas?

I’m used to taking photos of things that stand relatively still. Buildings don’t move at all, & most of the people I’m photographing are not really moving around much. I renewed my respect for sports photographers when I had the opportunity to photograph a NASCAR race up close & personal. Virtually EVERYTHING is moving & moving fast! The cars zoom past at nearly 200mph & the pit crews are sprinting to minimize the amazingly short time the cars stay in the ‘garage’. Here Kurt Busch gets a set of four tires & fuel during his 10 seconds or so in the pit.

Here Dale Earnhardt Jr speeds past. I was tracking the car as it moved & the movement you see in everything else happened in 1/250th of a second.

I (finally) got out to try and capture some of the spectacular wildflower displays of 2010 when Beverly & I discovered this ranch near Chalk Bluff Texas. Bluebonnets & Indian Paintbrushes covered the gently rolling hills as far as you could see. After taking a few images we took the blanket out of our trunk & had a picnic under the huge oak tree near the center of the photograph. The weather was perfect & the scent of wildflowers filled the air. It really does not get much better than this.