Texas Country

There have been a lot of times over the last three and a half years that I have missed the scenic beauty of Michigan. Texas does not have a lot of scenic beauty, but when you are blessed enough to find some, man is it beautiful. I was out west of the DFW metroplex on Saturday. I saw some truly beautiful country. One of the things that you will hear me say if you are a fly in my car when I am out taking pictures is, "I have to get off this road". Yes I do talk to myself when I am driving and its not just in my head either. The true of the matter is though, if you want to shoot amazing landscapes, beautiful sunsets, or nature, you aren't going to find it driving along the highway. My rule generally is, I can't start taking pictures until I am lost, until I have no idea where I am. And so I found myself driving almost 100 miles west to get out to "where the blacktop ends".
One of the things that was so awesome about it was that as I got out of my car, I couldn't hear anything. No traffic noise, no people, nothing except nature. I think that it is in places like this and at times like this that we can truly hear God speak. The still small voice as it were. I saw longhorns, shorthorns, horses, and a snapping turtle. There were wild flowers. I drove through little country towns where everybody knows everybody. I saw people that had never been to Dallas before much less out of Texas. I saw a piece of Texas that I had not seen before, and it was awesome. I felt like a cowboy when the lady at the service station asked me what I was doing up there and I tipped my hat and said, "I'm just passin through, ma'am".
I was experimenting with a new kind of photography that I have not done before. It is called High Dynamic Range or HDR. The idea is that you take several pictures of varying exposures and merge them together into one image. This allows a much greater tonal range than you would otherwise be able to get in a single image. It is pretty facsinating. The results were a little mixed, but I will definitely put some up to show you later. The concept is really cool, it is just going to take some time to master it. We shall see what happens though.
Also, today is my brother Joshua's birthday, so a big happy birthday to him.