Trestle at Night

An old train trestle on the Trinity River near downtown Fort Worth by night.

I had hopes of catching a great sunrise with the trestle and downtown but it was not to be. However as I was working on a star trail image I was able to get this image. The light on the camera is creative use of my trusty headlamp.

Downtown on the River

Here is downtown Fort Worth from along the Trinity River.

The two branches of the Trinity River meet right by downtown Fort Worth. The Clear Fork comes in from the southwest and the West Fork (pictured here) comes in from the northwest and they meet right at the bluff that Fort Worth was built on.

This view is about a half a mile up the West Fork from the bluff on a morning of cool blue light in the sky.

Early twilight on the Trinity River. I was out walking on the ledges of the river on a summer morning listening to the river running over the rocks.

As the first early light started to creep into the sky I started a long exposure to capture the hint of color and motion of the water.

The light levels were low and I think I went with a two minute exposure.

Plains and Mountains

A closing view from my El Paso trip. I had spent the day up in New Mexico and in the afternoon as I was driving back to Texas I kept watching these mountains. The tall horn peak with snow on it drew my attention. I knew it had to be photographed-the vast open grasslands with that peak beyond were a great image right out of a hundred years ago.

I found a turnout and made an image. Later I found a windmill that I was also able to work into an image with the mountain(posted before).

So I make this my parting image for this trip.

New Mexico Open Range at Dawn

Another image from a morning in New Mexico. This was taken somewhere along the road north of Deming.

The hint of the road in the image makes me think of being on the open road. In the middle of a hot August the high plains sounds mighty nice, but it is still a few weeks until Labor Day and my next road trip west.

So I'll just look at the road and the open range and let my mind wander.

Post 100! El Paso Sunset

This is my 100th post on The Traveling Camera! I was not sure I would have 100 images or for that mater more than 2 or 3 interesting things to say. I found the 100 images, still not sure about the interesting words. But here we are at 100. Thanks for reading.

This image is a sunset in El Paso. I was in town on business and walked out of the office just after 5pm to see what looked like a great sunset in the making. I headed for the edge of the Hueco Mountains. I was hoping I could get a little bit of elevation. In twenty minutes I made the first hill as the sky turned orange. I found a side road, parked, and dashed up the side of a hill in wingtips. Note-wingtips are not the best shoes to climb desert hills or to step in snow with, but you do with what you have. Luckily I had my camera in the car because there would not have been time to go back and get it.

I set up the tripod pushed on a lens, a focused by eyesight to what I thought was infinity just to make an image before the light faded. I got it. Refocused with the loupe. Made another and the light faded rapidly. This snap of the camera came after that, he view is of the first hills of the Huecos, the distant Franklins, with the lights of El Paso and Juarez.

Wow, what a sunset and a quick afternoon was gone. I began to notice the cold more and the darkness fell quick. I packed up everything and slowly made my way down the hill to a warm car and supper.

Hope to have you here when we hit 200.

-D

Rock House Ruin

A rock ruin east of El Paso. I saw this ruin from the road and had to stop. It is literally in the middle of no-where. There is nothing around it either naturally or man-made except a modern blacktop road. But this structure looks older than the road. Or at least it looks from the early days of automobile travel.

I am not even sure what the building was. The two rooms look too small to be much of anything. It is such a long way to EL Paso or Van Horn that I wonder what it could have been.

For me on this day though, I liked the view it had toward the distant Guadalupe Mountains. I lined up an image where I could frame the house and the distant Guadalupes into the frame. Made a couple of images to be sure to get the exposure right and not have hot spots on the rocks.

Then it was back on the road looking for that next location.

Out in the Muck

On a cold clear morning I left El Paso at 4:30am and started driving toward the Guadalupes. I could see countless stars but nothing that even looked like a cloud. As I drove I thought about possible places to go for early light. I ended up stopping at the salt flats west of the park. Dawn was getting closer so instead of photographing east into the sunrise, I decided to look southwest toward the Black Mountains and the Sierra Diablo. With any luck, I would get nice pink and blue glow in the west.

I started walking across the flats and found that it was really mucky. The recent snow and rain has made a mess of the flats and it was pretty yuck walking. It would even be worse for a place to put the backpack down. I normally bring a little folding table here but since I flew out on business, I had nothing like that. So I decided to try as little balancing act and put my pack on a fence rail. It took a steady hand but I got it to balance. It also required a light touch when getting things into and out of the pack, but as you cab see in the pic-it kept my pack muck free.

With pack safe and secure, I was able to set up the tripod, camera, and make the image. The light was subtle and just a hint of color. I made only a few before ol' Sol made his appearance and with such harshness the camera was put up really quick.