This cute guy’s (or girl, it’s difficult to tell from this angle…) ancestors were no doubt partially to credit for us having National Parks. Theodore Roosevelt visited this area to hunt buffalo (bison actually,) when he was young and fell in love with nature. Later during his presidency he created the first National Parks to help protect and prevent development of our unspoiled lands. It was quite a new and controversial concept.
We recently attended a wedding in North Dakota. As first time visitors we really had no idea what to expect. We were quite pleasantly surprised by beauty of the badlands. We stayed in Medora which happens to be the location of the South Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This guy (and many of his cousins) greeted us as we made a morning drive through the park.

Katz’s New York style deli has been a fixture in Austin for over 30 years. For many in Austin Katz’s was the ‘go to’ place after closing down the bars on Austin’s 6th Street or Warehouse district. With it’s parent company recently filing for bankruptcy protection & rumors that they may be looking to move from their iconic 6th street Austin location, I thought I’d better grab a photo of this long time Austin landmark before it disappears like so many others.

Here is yet another view of the Austin Skyline from the Long Center for the Performing Arts. (Can you tell I like this view of Austin?) This photograph was made the same evening the I shot the Austin Skyline Panorama. (You can see that photo here.) When I photograph I virtually always do multiple angles and perspectives of my subject matter. Due to time constraints, I generally only retouch one of the images immediately to post. Later it’s always fun to go back through my files after some time has past to mine another photograph. It’s interesting how an image that did not jump out at me during the first pass will really stand out during a second look. This image was like that. When I was browsing through my photographs for my (sometimes) daily posting I found this shot of the Long Center. It’s hard to say, but I may like it better than the original Panorama.

In the pans of Botswana there is a somewhat surreal place called Kudu Island. If there is a destination that is truly in the middle of nowhere, this is it. It’s as though your 5 hour drive in what absolutely must be a four wheel vehicle has transported you to another planet. From the top of this rock outcrop you look beyond the alien looking Baobob trees to see miles of pure white pans as flat as a slab. If you ever have the opportunity, it’s worth the trip.

Ok, by special request, here is another Botswana Image… The sun was going down as we floated down the Chobe river in the Chobe National Park in Botswana. (Actually, the other side of the river is in Zambia.) It’s a great time to observe wildlife because they tend to go down to the river in the evening.
By design, I do not have music play when you open the site. You may however feel free to whistle “Elephant Walk” as you view this image.

I truly wish I had been taking copious notes of all the various wildlife we saw during our Botswana safari. In particular, I wish I had notes on what all the birds were. For the ornithologist among my readers, please feel free to post a comment as to the name of the birds. In case you are not aware, you can click on the image to go to my Flickr site & choose “All Sizes” to see a larger version.

Victoria Falls is a stunningly majestic place that I found virtually impossible to capture properly in a photograph. The good news is there are some great viewpoints, the bad news is it rains 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year around the falls. Due to an unusually long rainy season the falls were creating major rainstorms during my visit. Despite the photographic challenges, it was an amazing sensory experience to stand across from the falls & feel their thunder & be soaked through by the rain on a beautiful sunny day.

I’m back… Beverly & I just spent the past couple of weeks discovering Botswana Africa with what began as a couple of guides, three friends & family & eight strangers & ended up as a group of  fifteen friends. The trip was very cool, both literally & figuratively. As I am writing this it occurs to me we were able to be in all four seasons in two weeks. We left Austin in the spring, arrived in Africa in the fall, left Africa in the winter & arrived in Austin in the summer. Needless to say, we shot thousands of images during our adventure. I can’t wait to start sorting & processing my selects. I’ve done a fair amount of traveling but I have never been anyplace remotely so removed from civilization. We would drive for hours down four wheel roads (really just tracks) and never see another vehicle. It was an amazing adventure we will never forget.

One photographic tip from my first Safari; You are going to wish you had a longer lens. Typically my favorite lens is my 14-24 f/2.8. and my ‘long’ lens is a Nikon 70-200 f/2.8. The great majority of my photos were taken on the 200 end of my long lens & the great majority of those will need to be seriously cropped. Our guides were shooting with 400mm lenses (on their cropped sensors that’s actually 600mm equivalent) and most of their images will need to be cropped as well.