72 posts tagged “arizona”

Gosh why does Vox behave so badly?  Anyway today was a red letter day for me.  Well it started out badly in that the renter didn't call yesterday or this morning to tell me when they would be ready for a walk through of the house..oh and the laptop repair person didn't call either.

Then around noon the laptop guy called to say his daughter was sick and he couldn't meet me today.  Hmm wonder if the dog ate her homework.  Anyway we are to meet tomorrow with my fixed laptop *crosses fingers*.  Sometime later I looked out the back door and saw something large and dark at the birdbath.  I checked closer and wow it was a Harris Hawk!  This was a surprise as I've not seen them this close to the house before.

What to do, what to do?  Let's see...grab the camera?  Of course stupid!  I had the 70 - 300 mm lens on so I was set.  Took a little time to check setting...AV, ISO 400, 4,5 F, manual focus, drive mode continous, ...*ready teddy*.  Oh now there is the approach.  I confered with hubby and we decided to try a front door apporach and sneak around to the back.  We charged out the front door and startled 3 Harris Hawks out of the ironwood tree.  Yikes that wasn't good, did the backyard hawk leave?

We went back inside and there he was just sitting in the birdbath.  OK now I was getting brave, if I had the camera set maybe I could get a least one or two photos of the hawk flying away.  I inched open the back door and crept out.  I wasn't sure the hawk was still in position as I hugged the back wall.  A quick look left verified he was still there!  I took a few photos and he didn't spook.

I got a little braver and took a few steps forward and sneeked a few more photos.  Now picture this, I creep down low and head for the rocks that boarder the back proch.  To keep a low profile and get a better position for taking photos, oh yes I kneel in the rocks!  Now this is the ultimate sacrifice, pain, pain, pain. 

Can you imagine, heer is me all 5', short, fat, 60+ year old woman, creeping, kneeling, taking photos and talking to myself as I go!  What a site.  I continue until I'm aobut 6' from the hawk and now I can see that he has he foot in the birdbath.  Oh so not only do we provide homes for the bats, thistle for the finches, sunflowers for the cardinals, doves, sparrows, quail and nectur for the hummers, we have a wading pool for hawks!  What a hoot!  Oh maybe we need to consider the owls next...wonder what they need?

Back at the hawk safri, I keep getting closer and finally he flies to the top of the chicken coop.  Chickens coop that has no chickens.  Good think as they would have had heart atacks with a hawk on top of their home! 

I decide that several thousand photos are enough and hobble back to the house.  Now I will spend the rest of 2009 downloading and editing the photos from this afternoon. 

Here are few that I did look at tonight.  Only the one with the tail in the birdbath was been cropped.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a great day and I sure was lucky that my renter and the laptop guy didn't come through...do I hear National Geo calling?

I'm going to use some of the photos I took of the Lee House in Benson for this Quest.

I just love this old house and all the lines of the wood and the piers, doors and windows, they all have different lines.

Here is a photo of the side porch taken from the front of  the house.  The light was bad yesterday as it was overcast and very windy.  I shot this photo in manual mode, 500 shutter speed, F8, no flash, hand held, 80 mm. Lines here are the roof line is a diagonal line, lines on the chedar shinges on the front of the house, lines of the wood that covers the house, lines of the porch supports, lines of the back window and the trees next to the house.  I like how the lines of the porch supports and the walls of the house lead your eye to the window at the back. 

 

This is a photo of the porch on the little guest house on the Lee property.  If you look closely you can see the roof supports aren't straight any more.  I like how the lines of the porch fram the farm house in the distance.  I did this photo in black and white as it deminished the house to the right and the car parked next to it.  Here the lines lead your eye back to the farm house.

 

Not this is just a fun photo of an old set of bed springs inside the Lee House.  Some one had painted them purple.  I did some work with photo shop and change the color a little.  But I thought this is a good example of a lot of lines, straight, crossed and round lines.  I changed the photo to black and white and added a purple filter.  I think the color photo took away for all the lovely lines in this picture.  

 

This photo of the proch support has both straight and curved lines.  I like have the wood has become deeply wrinkled with age and that the nails have pushed out from their beds. Even thought this photo has strong straight lines of the wood grain and the wood floor, the curve of the round piece of wood near the bottom of the post draws your eye.  

 

Even thought this drawer pull is framed by the green straight line and all the straight lines in the cracks of paint your eye is drawn to the top curve of the drawer pull.  The eye will ignore the straight lines and go for the curve or diagonal line first.  Keep this in mind when you are composing your photos.

 

One last photo.  This is a photo of a figure of a lady that was in the Lee House.  The figure is done in a triangle shape, which forces your attention to the face at the top of the triangle.  There is also a curves in the back the arms the neck and the in legs.  Notice all the dust on this old lady, she needs a serious dusting.  Of all the things I saw in the Lee House this is the one thing I would like to buy.

 

I had some fun with some photos this weekend and did them in black and white.  These photos were taken last weekend at a Mounted Shooting Clinic.  I went and took tons of photos.

First one I changed to black and white and added some noise and a sepia filter to make the photo look old.

 

 

Here is the original, Ron loves this photo as he said he doesn't have anything like this.  His girl friend Daria said it looks like an old fashion greeting card.  And yes he does have sunglasses on, he has had eye surgery and can't be outside without sunglasses.

 

 

Ron's horse Captin is a black and White paint in this photo I changed to color to black and white and I think Captin then became the focus of the photo.  I think the black and white photo makes Ron and his horse look like they just stepped out of the 1880s.

 

Here is the same photo in Color.

 

We rarely have fog in Tucson.  It had rained Thursday and Friday so there was moisture in the sand and this morning we had fog.  Here are some photos I took.

 

I don't know if this was a drop of rain or fog on this old cholla cactus.

 

This is a photo of a big blue agave in my front yard.  When they are wet they get very blue.

 

This photo is of my neighbor's yard and two mesquite trees in the morning fog.  Can you see the clumps of mistletoe in the trees?

 

This is my road to the east.

 

Rain or fog on a Palo Verde tree branch.

 

I had so much fun on Saturday afternoon with a new Flickr friend Val.  We went to Catalina State Park on a photo shoot.  I had never gone to the park without my horse!  It was fun to hike around on foot and see things at that level.  Also a blast to be with a fellow photographer and share the photo ops.  Mostly I was on visual overload and there was lots of eye candy.  Here are a couple of the photos I took on Sat. in the afternoon light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sure had a great time!  I'm so lucky to live in such a beautiful place!!!

After my call from NPR I was excited to take some photos of this evening's sunset and hoped to get some of the almost full moon.  I dashed off to the 100 acres to see if I could get a photo of the moon with and a saguaro cactus. I parked my RAV in the road and hiked to a great looking saguaro with nice arms and waited for the moon to get in the right position.  Here is what I got.

Can you see the moon peeking inbetween the saguaro arms?

 

Then as the sky darkened I got this photo.

 

Then I finally got the shot I was going for by the clouds caused a ring around the moon. So I was disappointed with this photo but l did like the drama of the lighting.

 

The I turned around to see the sunset and it took my breath away.  I had to reset my camera and tripod etc. but here is what I saw.

 

I walked forward tthrough the desert watching for snakes and critters to get a closer photo of this magical sunset.  And I got this photo and the colors in this photo are very acurate.

 

I live in the most wonderous place!  As I was taking these photos it was as if I was the only human in the world, it was just me the sunset, the desert and a few birds.

I left this wonderous landscape to drive home.  As I passed an ancient Palo Verde tree I startled a great horned owl into flight.  This day was wonderous for me and I hope my photos will sprinkle some of this magic on you all!

Some of you know that we had to put our Crunchie down in October.  I have been looking for another horse to keep Winn company without any luck.  I called my friend Silke and asked if she had a horse I could rent for a while.  Silke offered us Pilar.  I used to ride Crunch with Silke and Pilar.  So I know Pilar and have always liked her.  Pilar is a Spanish Barb horse that is directly related to the horses that come over from Spain with Father Kino.  They are very hardy little horses that do very well in the desert.

All week Hubby readied the horse trail and truck.  He checked brakes, changed oil and leveled fluids.  I cleaned out the trailer and helped hubby take out one of the dividers in the trailer.  My friend Silke leaves her horses free in the trailer and we wanted to give her enough room to move around in our trailer.  We have a three horse trailer so Pilar would have the same room allowed for two horses. 

We got up early Saturday morning at 5:00 am and feed the dogs and Winn.  Off we raced for IHOP for a senior breakfast then down I-10 to New Mexico.  Silke moved to Silver City, New Mexico, about a 4 hour drive from our house.  We had an enjoyable drive and I had hubby pull over so I could take some photos of Texas Canyon.  Texas Canyon is located between Benson and Wilcox, Arizona.  We usually just drive though without stopping.  But I wanted to take some photos of this very unique area.  The surrounding area is grass land and mountain ranges. Texas Canyon has many unique and interesting rock formations.  I wasn't happy for the photos as I was using a 90300 mm lense that doesn't works as well as my 70-300 mm.  That lense isn't working and needs to go to the camera shop for repair.  After taking these photos this weekend I will be taking that lense in right away!

 

You can tell the size of the rocks in the background as there is a cement picnic table just in front of the large rock in the background.

 

On Tuesday, my hubby pointed out that our night blooming cereus was blooming again.  I checked out the flowers but they were starting to close.  I have taken a lot of photos of the night blooming cereus but I usually taken them in the early morning when they are still open and I have some natural light.

I decided to get up early before sunrise this morning to get some photos of the flowers.  I got up at 5:00 am and stumbled outside and soon realize that I would need a flash.  I attached my flash and got to work.  It was fun taking flash photos outside in the dark.  I was lucky that I could bounch the flash off the white walls of my house.  That gave me some good lighting.

Here are a couple of the photos I got this morning.  This one is of three flowers blooming together.  You can see how dark my what house is behind the photo.

 

Here are a couple of close ups that I used my 500 lens on.  I like the first two as I took then without a flash and used a handheld flashlight.  The photos were too orange so I used photoshop elements 6 to change the color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of more photos taken with my 80-300 mm telephoto on marco setting.

 

 

I had a ball this morning and now I'm up late waiting for the 9 blossom to fully open tonight.  I've seen photos of them in full bloom and I would like to get one tonight.  I do have a problem since I've been up since 5:00 am and I took a benedryl earlier I might fall asleep.  Other problem is that is it raining and there is some wind so right now I can't take any photos waiting for the weather to clear up and for the flowers to open.  Needs to happen soon or I'm going to have to turn in for the night. 

I know I can't be judged for this but I had so much fun taking photos of the house and the building around it.  WOW, I could feel LaidOutInLavender whispering in my ear...take this angle, take this photo, oh over here, no go there.

then hubby said to get out as I was going to be arrested.  The place was posted but all the posting said that John Lee had to stay off the property.  Since I'm not John Lee I thought it was OK to take photos..right?  Then hubby found a sign saying the place was an  historical building so he thought I was going to get into trouble for sure.

Normally I would never go on someone's property to take photos but this place was far to good to pass up.  I just kept taking photos while hubby sweated.  I'm posting the three best black and white photos that I took today.

Side porch of the Lee house.

 

Front door of the Lee house.  This house was very fancy..we attrached the attention of the caretaker Frank.  h

He said this house was built in 1906 by the Lee's and it is being restored.  

 

OK now LaidOutInLavender eat your heart out!  This is the back porch of the house next door to the Lee's house.

Now here is the best news of all. Frank said the house is in great condition inside and is full of antinque furniture...Oh the signs that said that John Lee had to stay away were because John was trying to steal the antique furniture.  Anyway Frank doesn't know it but he is about to become my best friend.  he said that next time we come he would open up the house and I could take photos of the inside.  Be still my heart!  I can hardly wait until next weekend!  The guy that bought this place bought the whole block minus on corner lot for $250,000.  OK it is across the street from the railroad tracks but it is so cool.  Stay tuned for more photos of this Benson treasure.  

I belong to the County Line Riders of Catalina horse riding club.  Today, Mary Jane hosted a ride out form her place the "Broken Pipe Ranch."  Weather was perfect...well maybe a little hot towards the end of the ride.  But no wind this morning.  We gathered together and rode out from Broken Pipe Ranch a little after 9:00 am.  There were 8 riders and all the horses got along great...that is always a plus!

Here are two photos of some of the group before we left.

 

 

Look at that little girl her name is Gaby and she is 10!  Her horse is bandit and she is a 21 year old mare.  The gentleman to her left is her grandfather Bill.  The guy on the black paint is Ron.

 

 

Here is Ganilla and and Mary Jane getting ready to ride.

We had a great ride up and down hills and through washes.  Saw a couple of other horse back riders and several bike riders.  In one wash there were two deer resting.  The deer just watched us pass and didn't move from their shade.  As we were approaching Boken Pipe Ranch, I looked down and it was if the ground was moving.  At first I thought it was forgs moving about.  As we got closer, I could see that it was baby quail chicks.  They must have been newely hatched and we scared them so they were running around in front of us.  So cute!

When the ride was over, I took a photo of Winn all dressed up.  Photo is at a strange angle as i was  holding on the reins so he was close to me.

 

After the ride Mary Jane treated us to nice cold water mellon and drinks under the shade.

 

Nice ride with great friends...lovely way to spend a Mother's Day morning!