Not too long ago my wife & I had the opportunity to spend a little time in Mount Gretna PA visiting family and taking photos of the surrounding area. In the mornings Sudy would fix an amazing breakfast before we left on our days outing. Then every evening upon returning, she would seemingly effortlessly throw together a dinner feast. Sitting in the kitchen window overseeing all this culinary preparation was this Bonsai tree. I’m told she has been caring for it for about 15 years. One morning the sun was hitting it just so and it called out for me to grab my camera and try and capture the moment. As you gaze at it’s glowing leaves, I would love for you to imagine like I do the scent of hot cinnamon rolls baking, fresh coffee brewing & the laughter of good friends & family.

When I was shooting Eilya’s family portraits I came up with some suggested settings for her parents portraits as well as settings for her two sisters & little brother. Eilya was pretty specific where she wanted her portrait taken. Eilya wanted to be photographed sitting on her tire swing. It was perfect.

One of Austin’s Icons is the Broken Spoke Dance Hall. Willie first played here back when he wore a crew cut & sport coat. Bob Wills played here, as have many many more country legends before & since. What I love about the Spoke is, it really hasn’t changed in the 45 or so years folks have been two steppin’ across it’s wooden floors. Regardless of if you are a fan or not of country music, you should stop by the Broken Spoke when you are in town & drink a long neck & feel history dance by. If you are interested, you can see another photo taken at the Broken Spoke (here).

Few rooms in the world are as awe inspiring as the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles just outside Paris. My family visited Europe when I was 16 and I still recall this room during our Paris visit. The day I shot this it was dreary & raining and I believe many of the tourist that perhaps might have been walking the wonderful grounds on a more beautiful day, were hanging out inside instead. I would love to go back and arrange for an hour or two of shooting before the crowds arrive.

Sometimes you just have to take the shot…. My wife and I visited Butchart Gardens as part of a tour booked through a cruise. It was one of those tours where you pile into a bus and they take you to a place for two or three hours, then you get back on the bus & return to your ship. The ship wants to leave on time, so the bus wants to leave on time, so you had better be on the bus… Not surprisingly I was trying to get as many shots as possible it our little window of opportunity. Just as the bus was about to leave without us, I saw this coy pond & decided I had to have the shot. My wife went on to the bus. (She went ahead, possably to insure she didn’t also miss the bus, but I like to think she was stalling the driver while I did my sequence of five exposures…) The good news is, I did not have to walk back to Texas, and I was able to capture a bit of the essence of these amazing gardens. I want my garden to look like this! Around 100 years ago Jennie Butchart, the wife of a Portland Cement magnate, decided to turn their exhausted quarry pit into a sunken garden. The original garden was completed in 1921 Today, over a million bedding plants a year are used throughout the gardens and over a million visitors visit Butchart Gardens annually. It’s well worth the trip.

I’ve done several post showing various photos of the Texas Capitol (here). This one is actually inside the Capitol looking down at the floor under the Rotunda. If you look closely, you will see the Texas DPS officers that keep an eye on things standing on the ground floor. To their credit, they have always pretty much left me alone while I photographed this beautiful building.

Springtime in Texas means wildflowers. And Me, , I’m feeling like spring. The sun is out, ok, it’s 39 degrees outside, but there is a gentle breeze, it just feels like spring is around the corner. Very soon flowers will start to bloom along the Texas roadways. With all the rain we have had, hopefully, there will be lots of wildflowers. And, perhaps in the next few months, I’ll have some great wildflower shots to post. We shall see…

It’s getting more & more difficult to find an ‘iconic’ image of Austin Texas. Not too long ago you would photograph the Austin skyline from any hill and be able to include the Texas Capitol & the UT Tower. Now unless you are shooting straight down Congress Avenue the Capitol is obscured by all the new construction. I had a fellow photographer tell me that the Frost Bank Tower (The tall building to the right of the Capitol) is the ‘new’ Austin icon. Me, I still like the old traditional Capitol.