Where Horses Run Free...

I've been seeing small groups of horses for the past month or so. More than I had seen for about a year or so, but only 6-8 horses at a time. Today, my wife called me in the morning and told me where she had seen a huge group of 20-30 horses really close to the highway. I figured they would be long gone by the time I headed for home in the afternoon.

Sure enough, by the time I was on my way home, I saw a few horses a ways off the road, but only 3 or 4 of them. I stopped to take a few pictures as they were prancing around and kicking up their heels with a bit of horseplay.

Then, I got back in the car and started to merge back into traffic when I glanced a little ways ahead and got a surprise. On the other side of some trees that blocked my view from further back, was another group of horses. I don't know how many horses it takes to become a herd, but I am pretty sure this qualified.

I counted about 24 in this picture alone and I would have had to put my wider angle lens on my D60 to get the others in the picture. Some of them were only 20 feet away from the fence until they saw me get out of the car when they backed off a little. Some of the closer horses kept a close eye on my and the other people that also stopped for a closer look.

It was great to see that big of a herd roaming free. I hope to see them on a regular basis, but I know it will probably only be for awhile before the roam off in search of better grazing. Feel free to take a closer look by clicking any of the pictures for a bigger photo or click the link to see the rest of the wildlife in this gallery. I think there are some good shots there, but I would love your feedback with a comment or a "thumbs-up" or "thumbs-down" on the photos.

The weather was good for these shots. While it would be nice to have a picturesque blue sky, the overcast sky provided a nice soft light with no troublesome shadows to fight with. Clouds make excellent diffusers.

So what is the most exciting thing you've seen on the way home from work? Leave me a comment here or holler over on Twitter.

Roadrunners

One of the birds I have been wanting to catch ever since I got my Nikon D60 last year is the roadrunner. Not an impossible goal since I live right smack in the middle of the desert which is his habitat. Every time I have seen one, by the time I get out of the car and over to where they were, they are gone.

A few weeks ago, my Dad told me that he had seen some roadrunners near his house, so the next time I was over there, we took a different route on our way home to drive by where he had been seeing them.

As soon as we turned down one street, I saw a couple of shapes run across the road. Everyone else in the car saw them too and everyone was wondering aloud "Were those roadrunners?".

As we got to where we had seen them, I slipped the car into neutral, rolled the windows down, killed the radio and air conditioning. I had my camera out and ready.

Not the best picture I could hope for, but the best I got before they both jumped a 5 foot fence and were gone. I will keep looking for another chance to capture this speedy bird. In the meantime, feel free to stop over in my animal photo gallery and take a look at some of my other pictures.

So are there any elusive targets on your list to see or photograph? Leave a comment here or say something over on Twitter.

Salsa Festival

I live in a fairly small town. It has upsides and downsides. The closest hospital is over 20 miles away and the closest CostCo or Sams Club is almost as far. These things make it a bit of a challenge at times.

The other side of the coin is the small-town feeling that we seem to have. When I went out for a run this morning, everyone I saw smiled and said "Hi" or "Good morning" regardless of whether they were also running, walking their dog or on a bike ride. It just feels like a friendly town most of the time. This is true right down to the local festivals and other city events including the Salsa Festival.

There were many local merchants with small booths showing off their products as well as a few with bigger displays to draw more attention.

It isn't a Maricopa event unless the wind is blowing. You can sure tell by looking at these flags that the wind was pretty strong. It felt good though since it got up around 80* F today so the wind made it feel nice.

There was also some salsa there. There was another area for all the competitors in the salsa contest. They had samples out and everyone that came by could vote on their favorite salsa. Some of the entrants were area restaurants and others were individuals.

Later on in the afternoon and evening, the concert stage would be jumping with three different groups scheduled to perform.

I was not there for too long, but I did enjoy talking to people, snacking on some food and browsing through the vendor booths. I met some more great people including folks Tony and Jessi (EDIT: now I got the names right) in the 8523mine booth who I had seen online on Twitter before.

Well, that is my small glimpse into a local Salsa Festival. Were you there? Please add your comments here. Do you have a local event you enjoy in your area? Please tell me about it.

Customer Service & Workshop Review

Workshop Review

I recently attended a photography workshop, David Ziser's "Digital WakeUp Call Tour 2009: A New Dawn". It was easy to sign-up and find with their great web page. I almost missed it because there was not a sign-up for an email reminder, but fortunately had put a reminder on my Google Calendar with a reminder email a few days before.

They were in Phoenix on Monday and Tucson on Tuesday. Since I had another engagement on Monday evening, I signed-up for Tucson. It was a bit longer of a drive, but I don't mind driving through the desert. I took of a bit early from work on Tuesday and headed down to Tucson.

The workshop doors opened at 5pm and there was a mini-expo with information and samples from sponsors. David had a bunch of photo books of his work and it was really impressive to browse though his work.

The workshop was scheduled to run from 6-10pm and David was on stage at 6 sharp. He was full of information from the very start. He was like the energizer bunny and didn't let up for over two and half hours when he gave us a short 15 minute break. During the break he was available for questions and discussion. After of the break, David picked right back up and kept going till about 10:45.

This workshop was incredible and completely exceeded the promises made on the web page. Not only photography lessons, but business and marketing tips to help photographers maximize there revenue and profit. That is a great way to have satisfied customers.

Customer service for this workshot was outstanding. About the only suggestion I have is that it would be nice if there were a small snack or beverage service other than water. The snack shop on site was even closed by the time we got to a break. Fortunately for me, I had a snack and drink in my car, so I didn't need to drive over to a convenience store and was able to spend part of the break talking with other photographers from the area.

I had a 2 hour drive to get home, so I had plenty of time to start digesting everything I had heard. It will take another month or two to digest much of what I learned, for me it was like trying to take a drink from a firehose. There was just so much for me to learn, so I am grateful for the included DVD for me to continue to to add to my knowledge at my own pace.

Aftershocks

I know that anytime I use my email address to register for an event or enter a drawing, I will likely get email marketing. If the event or drawing is something that interests me, there is a chance that the email they will send also interests me. If not, then I can hope that the business is ethical and will honor my request to stop sending me email.

Given that, I was not surprised to get an email after the workshop form one of the sponsors. What did surprise me was that my email address was on the TO: line with about 8 other email addresses. Most people may not care, but I would usually prefer to not spread my email address to people I do not know. Many (if not most) businesses use programs to send bulk email to individual addresses or at least put the addresses in the BCC: field so that no one sees everyone elses name and email address. This also makes the email cleaner for some programs when reading so you do not need to scroll down to find where the address list ends and the email message begins.

I handled this like I do anytime I see this particular breach of email etiquette. A polite explanation of the common practice and why it is important will usually resolve the problem as this is most often done by someone who is new to email marketing and maybe has not received any training or guidance on this matter. In cases where the source of my email address is clear (like the recent workshop in this case), I will try to include a copy to the organizer so they can help to educate their partners and sponsors.

I received a couple polite replies via email from the vendor apologizing and then letting me know they had figured out their email program a bit better and would be using the BCC: field in the future and thanking me for pointing out the process. That made me glad I had taken the time to educate instead of simply asking to be removed from the mailing list.

I considered the matter closed when Friday afternoon, my phone rang with a phone number I did not recognize. Heck, I wasn't even sure where the area code was from. I answered and was surprised to hear David Ziser on the line. He wanted to apologize for the email issue with his workshop sponsor and thank me for pointing the issue out. That just goes to show that David not only over-delivers on his workshop, but on all aspects of his business including that of his partner. Quite a refreshing change from all too many businesses these days.

If you are in business, you would be well-served to read his daily blog. Even if your business has nothing to do with photography or weddings, the business pointers he gives out can be applied to any business that is interested in their customers. To state a point that should be obvious (but is not), EVERY business should be interested if their customers. David's blog is one of the first I read every chance I get which is almost every day. Google Reader is a great way to keep track of blogs that interest you and save you time by not visiting all the blogs that only update once a week or a couple times a week (like mine) but not missing them when they do update.

Drive safe!

On my way home today, I got stuck in traffic. This is a bit strange since it has been pretty light traffic on my commute the past couple months. Traffic got a bit heavier and then finally was almost stop-and-go. After a ways, I came around a bend and saw a helicopter taking off from near a lot of emergency vehicle lights.


The helicopter gained altitude and headed towards town, probably to a hospital.


As I got closer to all the flashing lights, I only saw one vehicle that appeared to be involved.


Some people didn't want to wait for the road to be cleared and started turning around to take another route.

Just another day on the roads.

A Book Review

A while ago, I saw an offer on Twitter from AdoramaPix to try out their photo books. I had been thinking about making a photo book to show off some of my pictures anyway, so I took them up on their offer.

I first had to decide on which pictures I wanted to show off. Then I had to decide how to organize them. Finally, I had to decide what sizes and page layouts I wanted to use.

I created an account with AdoramaPix. It was very quick and easy and so far no spam from them. It has been about a month since I created the account, so I expect that will hold.

After choosing the pictures I wanted to include, I uploaded them to the Adorama site and organized them in an album that I called "Photo Book" for convenience.

I started a photo album book and started the wizard to get started by picking size of book and number of pages. I don't know how hard it is to change to a bigger or smaller size or to add or subtract pages.

I had a bit of trouble working with the text boxes, but it seems like it was my problem since it started working. The cover spine text was the most challenging, but once I got that figured out, the cover came together nicely.

I used a variety of layouts, some with but most without text. I decided to do some full page pictures and some pages with a couple of smaller pictures as well as some medium-sized pictures. I used a black background for all pages that were not full-page and I really like the way that turned out.

I also made a few pages as full-sized pictures to see how they looked. I like it, but I think for most pictures, I like the black background better.

There are a few things I would like to see to improve this process:

• Layout guides to help line up pictures throughout the book
• Tools to make editing text easier (popup text editor)
• Quicker email support (took 2 days to get a response) but live chat support was quicker once I found it

I am very happy with the way this book turned out and I would highly recommend AdoramaPix to anyone looking to design a photo book. A photo book is a great way to organize pictures to commemorate a special birthday, trip or just to show off some of your favorite pictures.

Have you used a photobook to show off something? Do you want to try it? It is not that expensive and it is a pretty easy way to share pictures from a trip or wedding.

A New Week, A New Bird

Time again for my weekly Twitter icon change. This episode features a bird from outside my parents house a few weeks ago when we had a family picnic. There were a couple of them and it sure seemed like they were a couple. One had some red and the other was more tan or brown.



I walked through the WhatBird wizard for the one without red and it narrowed the list down to three:

• Lark Sparrow (more white underbelly that the ones I saw)
• Cassin's Finch (red crown and forehead, unlike one of the 2 I saw)
• Botteri's Sparrow (belly pattern solid, unlike the streaked patterns I saw)

I went through the WhatBird wizzard and picked a few colors that were close for a primary color. I got more possibles that way, but they were almost all some type of sparrow. These may in fact be some kind of sparrow, but the ones WhatBird was showing me all seemed wrong for one reason or another.

I am unsure how to identify these guys, so I am turning it over to you folks. I have gotten many good suggestions and pointers from many experienced birders and hope I can keep counting on you for help. Comments here are appreaciated (and easy, no logon needed), but if you want to shoot me a note on Twitter, feel free to give me a shout over there.

Photo Book

I received an offer from AdoramaPix to give their photo books a try. I had been thinking about making a photobook "Best of" collection so I gave it a shot.

I received my book late last week and have been busy showing it off to anyone that will look at it. I have received lots of compliments, and will be taking some pictures and finishing up my review very shortly. I hope to have that finished sometime this weekend, so stay tuned.

Tonight, I am off to Tucson to attend Digital Wakeup Call Tour 2009: A New Dawn workshop that David Ziser is putting on. There still seems to be a few slots open, so feel free to sign up and join me.

Turkey day

No, not the thanksgiving kind of turkey, but one we see a lot around here, the Tukey Vulture. Some people think they are ugly, but they have their own type of beauty. With a red head standing out against their black body and wings, they certainly are distinctive.




Besides their unique appearance, they also serve a useful purpose (part of what makes some people dislike them). By cleaning up after creatures that have ended their lives, they are an important part of the circle of life.

I spotted this one on the side of the road. He was starting to work on a rabbit that had tried unsuccessfully to cross the road. He kept an eye on me, but he let me get pretty close before he took off. I liked the way I caught his wings as he took off.




Click either picture for a larger version or head over to my gallery of animal pictures or any of the other galleries and let me know what you think.

So in which category do you fall? Ugly and disgusting creatures or unique and useful parts of the ecosystem? Leave me a comment here or drop me a note on Twitter and tell everyone else there about it.

First Drops of Boston

After spending a week in Boston, I thought I would have more pictures. Unfortunately, between class (the reason for my trip) and cold and rainy weather, I did not get to see as much of the city as I would have liked.

I did get some interesting shots, including the Old North Church, made famous for it's role in Paul Revere's famous lantern signal.

I also shot a rainy and wet Trinity Church.

I also captured an interesting angle looking up past a corner of Trinity Church to the towering John Hancock Tower vanishing into the rain clouds.

Now, the duties of my day job will require my attention for the next several days as I attempt to catch up from my week out of the office, so I will try to get some more Boston photos up as well as the desert shots I promised from a week ago as soon as possible. If you don't see them soon, shout at me over on Twitter and let me know you are waiting for them and I'll try to get them finished up.

Happy Monday and I hope you have a great week!