Recent Galleries

Congress Bridge Bats - 7/23/2009 : Taken from the Northern shore of Town Lake in Austin, Texas.

The final leg of my bike route this summer was clogged with people watching this event every evening.  By chance, I arrived on the far shore of the bridge right as the bats started flying out.  While I think the whole idea of thousands of bats living under this bridge is pretty cool, the actual event itself that people stand around for hours waiting for is pretty anticlimactic.  It's just this steady stream of bats for a few minutes then they're all out.  You just kind of stare at it for awhile until that "so THAT'S what a lot of bats flying around looks like" and then you're done.  About the closest you can get to interacting with the process is standing under the stinky part of the bridge, right in the middle of the bike trail.  This idea is far more popular than perhaps it ought to be.

Congress Bridge Bats - 7/23/2009

wendigo

Taken from the Northern shore of Town Lake in Austin, Texas. The fi ...

Updated: Jan 03, 2010 12:03pm PST

Town Lake Kayaking - 7/11/2009 : Taken from the surface of Town Lake in Austin, Texas.

I bracketed this entire set, but I ended up trying something new with HDRSoft's tone mapping plugin for Photoshop rather than the traditional (at least for me) HDR via Photomatix Pro.  All the brackets were handheld, so there's a certain amount of sharpness lost in combining these that really takes away from the resulting image.  To be able to achieve similar results from a single RAW means keeping things crispy.  As it turns out, even on a brighy and sunny day like this one with harsh shadows, you really can captulre almost everything in a single 16-bit RAW.  I caved and switched to HDR on only one image that had both very light sky and dark shadow.  See if you can figure out which one!

Town Lake Kayaking - 7/11/2009

wendigo

Taken from the surface of Town Lake in Austin, Texas. I bracketed t ...

Updated: Jan 02, 2010 12:29pm PST

Shoal Creek Trail End - 6/14/2009 : Taken at 31st St. and Lamar Blvd. in Austin, Texas.

This inconspicuous intersection was the halfway point for my daily bicycle ride for a few months.  This place feels as uniquely Austin to me as anything downtown or by the lake.

Shoal Creek Trail End - 6/14/2009

wendigo

Taken at 31st St. and Lamar Blvd. in Austin, Texas. This inconspicu ...

Updated: Dec 31, 2009 10:57am PST

Barton Creek Greenbelt - 5/13/2009 : Taken on the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin, Texas.

A day hike into the Greenbelt.  I'm pretty sure I had my tripod, 'cause there's no way these pictures would be nearly as sharp otherwise.  I think this was my final JPEG set before I switched to taking RAW, and the colors were pretty frustrating. Good riddance to that bad idea!

Barton Creek Greenbelt - 5/13/2009

wendigo

Taken on the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin, Texas. A day hike in ...

Updated: Dec 31, 2009 10:21am PST

Shoal Creek Trail - 5/10/2009 : Taken along the Shoal Creek Hike & Bike Trail in Austin, Texas.

For a period of time this summer I was riding this trail every day.  I started carrying my camera with me after awhile, and grabbed a couple of interesting scenes along the way.

Shoal Creek Trail - 5/10/2009

wendigo

Taken along the Shoal Creek Hike & Bike Trail in Austin, Texas. For ...

Updated: Nov 01, 2009 11:10pm PST

Barton Creek Greenbelt - 10/26/2008 : Taken in the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin, Texas.

Barton Creek Greenbelt - 10/26/2008

wendigo

Taken in the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin, Texas.

Updated: Mar 29, 2009 11:48am PST

Shoal Creek - 5/31/2008 : Taken along Shoal Creek in Austin, Texas.

The Waller Creek expedition went so well we decided to have another one up Shoal Creek.  We started at Town Lake and made it to about 9th Street before we ran out of steam.  I bet this is place is pretty interesting to watch after a big rain.

Shoal Creek - 5/31/2008

wendigo

Taken along Shoal Creek in Austin, Texas. The Waller Creek expediti ...

Updated: Nov 28, 2008 12:57pm PST

Barton Creek Greenbelt - 5/25/2008 : Taken in the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin, Texas.

An afternoon hike through the greenbelt yields a number of photo opportunities.  All of the HDRs in this set were taken hand-held.  It's so nice to be able to make usable brackets without lugging around a tripod.

Barton Creek Greenbelt - 5/25/2008

wendigo

Taken in the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin, Texas. An afternoon ...

Updated: Nov 23, 2008 6:14pm PST

Waller Creek - 5/18/2008 : Taken at Waller Creek in Austin, Texas.

Waller Creek - 5/18/2008

wendigo

Taken at Waller Creek in Austin, Texas.

Updated: Nov 16, 2008 11:46pm PST

Downtown Alleys - 5/18/2008 : Taken in downtown Austin, Texas.

On the way back to the Waller Creek expedition, Gary and I decided to cut through some back streets downtown in search of some interesting pictures.  Nothing like a good ol' sunset to help out with the lighting.  Everything here is HDR, as usual.

Downtown Alleys - 5/18/2008

wendigo

Taken in downtown Austin, Texas. On the way back to the Waller Cree ...

Updated: Nov 16, 2008 3:16pm PST