Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas everyone! This year I took my wife and kiddos to visit her side of the family for the holidays. We had a great time. We arrived early in the week to find about four feet of snow on the ground. By the end of the week the snow had dissipated and all that was left was mud. The majority of the driving portion of our trip was spent in Pennsylvania. I always like driving through PA since that is where my father is from. The state is full of beautiful countryside. We saw farm after farm and the occasional horse and buggy as there are a lot of Amish communities up that way. Here are a few scenes I captured through the car window while my wife was driving.

Farmland:





Abstract: (These were fun to take and I just thought they looked cool.)

The Heavens

The weather report called for snow flurries today. When I looked out of my 9th floor office window at work today, I didn't see any flurries, but I did see this breath taking view of the sky. I thought shooting the clouds in this scene with a mixture of a high ISO along with knocking off a few stops made for a neat effect. (We did end up getting some flurries later this afternoon.)

Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day to all who have served! One of the things I enjoy about being in the military is we get off for all Federal Holidays. Having the day off from work gave me an excellent chance to get out again and shoot some wildlife photos. Here is what i came up with.

These Canadian Geese flew overhead giving me just a few seconds to get this shot off.


I found this guy relaxing on the water.


On my way out of the woods, I came accross this Squirl perched on a stump.

Smoke On The Water

I took the day off of work today to celebrate the second birthday of my twin daughters. Their birthday was actually yesterday, but I could not get off until today. I decided to take the opportunity to wake up early and go back to Huntley Meadows, my favorite spot. I got there just as the sun came up. Today was the warmenst day we have had in weeks. As the sun broke through, I noticed a slight fog on the water. The fog along with the Fall foilage made for some interesting shots.







The Great Egret Finding Breakfast

Ducks on the Water

I took my family to a local park today so the girls could run around. Just before we left we took a short walk along the Occoquan River. The Occoquan river is part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed and flows into the Patomac River. The name Occoquan is derived from a Dogue Indian word meaning "at the end of the water". As we were walking we came accross some kids feeding a small group of ducks. Here is one of the shots I got of them.

Night time in DC

My sister came to Washington DC to visit us a week ago. She asked me to take her into the city after I picked her up from the airport to see some of our national monuments at night. She asked me to bring my camera and take some pictures for her to hang in her new office at work. It has been a while since I went into the city to shoot and we had a great time doing it until my camera battery died. That was a real bummer. Here are a few of my favorites from the night.

Trip To Pennsylvania

This past week we took a trip with my parents to Pennsylvania to visit my Dads side of the family. It was our first trip up there in about 10 years. We had a good time visiting. I did not get a chance to take too many pictures, but I did manage to get this one of my daughter Hannah. After seeing how it came out, I decided to play around with the saturation and color balance to achieve this old fashion look.

Return to Huntley Meadows

My Brother-in-Law Dave and his Girlfriend Heather came to visit this week. We decided to all go to a park so that we could get some fresh air and let the girls ride in their new wagon. We decided to take a trip to one of my favorite spots, Huntley Meadows Park. I wasn't as focused on finding things to photograph as it was a trip to spend time with Dave and Heather, but as always I managed to find a few things to shoot. First off we came across what I believe to be called a leopard frog. I will check this for accuracy and then edit the post if necessary. I was able to slowly and carefully get very close to the frog to get this shot. While I was doing this Dave managed to get a shot of me in action.





Next we came across a Great Blue Heron. As I stopped and observed, I noticed that the heron was moving very meticulously and with great stealth while gradually lowering his body closer to the surface of the water. I realized that he spotted lunch so I waited and anticipated the shot. I took a series of shots which shows him plunging is beak into the water and snagging a fish.







Finally, to conclude our trip, I came across this little guy. It turned out to be a great day. It was good the spend the day with friends and family and I got to see some cool animals.

TREE SWALLOW

Washington

Heidi's family came down last week so we did a little sight seeing. Two of our destinations were Mt. Vernon and The national mall. Mt. Vernon of course is the home estate of our first President George Washington and the National mall is the area of Down town Washington DC were all of the museums and monuments are located. I got one good shot of the Potomac river taken from the path next to the original tomb of our former president. They later moved his body to a different more secure location on the grounds. Washington ran a rather elaborate fishery operation on the Potomac River which was said to bring in about one million herring and shad each year. I also took a few good shots of the fountains in the center of the World War II memorial. We went there at night so we could see all of the city in lights.

Huntley Meadows

We have a state nature preserve that is located on federally protected wetlands near or house called Huntley Meadows. It is actually located near my base infact they back up to each other. We have areas of our base that we cannot desturb because they too are considered protected wetlands. Here are a few photos I have taken of the wild life that lives there.

Black Bird


Red-Winged Black Bird


Downy Woodpecker

FOUL WEATHER

The past few days have been dreary here in Northern Virginia. We had a break between snow storms with just some light rain. I decided to venture out into the woods behind our apartment community to see what I could find. Here is what I came up with.

Juliet, Georgia

Last week my Wife Heidi and I got a chance to go back home to Georgia were I grew up. Everytime I get back down to Georgia I try to take an opportunity to get together with my good friend Evan. We went to one of our favorite spots in Juliet, Georgia. If you are not familiar with this place it is the location of the famous Whistle Stop Cafe from the major motion picture "Fried Green Tomatoes". I actually have a picture of the two of us standing in front of the cafe taken several years ago which I will include in this post.

Well, we headed out before the sun came up in order to get to our destination earliy enough to catch the fog as it rolled in. We arrived just in time.

Once daylight broke through, we began to get discouraged for a lack of anything worth shooting. By mid-morning we began to just drive some back roads when something caught my eye. I told Evan to stop and at that time he caught a glimpse of what I saw. To our surprise it was an small cemetery plot of what appeared to be a family with graves dating back to the 1800s. We decided to go check it out and see if there would be any good photos to be shot from this sight. We carefully made our way through the woods being as respectful of the burial grounds as we could. This really turned out to be the find of the day. While I didn't get any photos of the graves themselves, I shot some unique photos of the antique iron fence and some surrounding nature. It turned out to be a memorable day.