tjavery

This photo was taken on a ranch in the Texas hill country, northwest

of Austin. The buck was following a doe that had wondered off into

the high grass, and he would occasionally lift his head and sniff

the air. The scene is backlit by a sunrise, and was shot just a few

minutes after the sun popped over the horizon.

The peak is Cerro Castellan in Big Bend National Park. The white and

red rocks are the result of volcanic activity long, long ago

(geologically speaking). This area is very interesting, and is

covered with this ancient volcanic ash and bassalt. The wirey plant

in the foreground is an Ocotillo.

A reddish egret at Bolivar Flats Bird Sanctuary (just north of

Galveston, Texas). I low-crawled on the beach up to the water line

while watching this egret stalk fish in the shallow water. The egret

would hop, jump, and flap around in attempts to get the prey.

I was standing in the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon when I took this.

The Chisos Mountains are on the horizon, and the water you see is

the Rio Grande River snaking out of the canyon. The US is on the

left, and Mexico is on the right. The plants that frame the shot are

called Ocotillo, and their wirey stalks are covered in hard spines.

I woke up really early at a backcountry campsite, quickly broke

camp, then made it to the canyon in time for sunrise. Hiking in the

dark was fun and the sunrise was definitely worth it! :-)

This is a very early (~5am) sunrise in Acadia National Park. (I'm

from Texas, so I'm not used to sunrises that early :-) The photo is

a blend of several different exposures that attempt to capture the

very wide dynamic range of the scene.

This was taken on my vacation to Italy in April 2004. This was also my first serious use of my DSLR. I carried a small pocket-sized tripod, and used it on the floor of St. Peters to take this shot. I used ISO 100 to keep the digital noise and file size to a minimum, and stopped down to f/8.0 to get a good DOF and sharpness.

I know St. Peter's has been photographed a million times before, but this is my shot and is special to me. I walked around under the main dome for quite some time before I found a composition that I liked. I also had to be patient and wait for other tourists to clear out in front of me :-)