September Sunset

Totally on the lookout for sunsets at this time of year.  It must be the air temperatures or something.  I just find the sunsets at this time, and sunrises for that matter, to be unbelievably vibrant.

All aboard

Well, this time instead of just tracks I'm posting an actual train.  Not a people train, but it looks to be more of a grain train. Driving around in corn country here, you see alot of these stations.

Ghost Train

A little early, but Halloween is coming.  If there is such a thing as a ghost train, I think these are its tracks.

Gangs of.......Crystal Lake

Yes, its sad but true.  We have our share of gang activity around here.  But, if you don't bother them, they don't bother you.  They usually stay on their turf, but when they don't, it gets ugly. Or beautiful. Depending on whether you like a good T-bone.  I got away from this gang, but I gotta be careful.

Oh, yeah, also, I'm celebrating tonight since today I had my 10,000 hit on this site. Not bad for 55 weeks of snapping and blabbering,  Thanks everyone for visiting.  I wish I had a prize for my 10,000th visitor, but I actually think it was me since I was able to do a screen capture of the 10,000th hit.

Midwestern Fall

Slowly, but surely the change is coming.  The fields are bright yellow and the trees are getting a tint of red.  It won't be long now until the landscape is one big painter's palette.

Take advantage of it while you can

Not too many days left to sit in the sun and catch some rays and hopefully catch some fish.  Looks like this guy is on the program.

A Surprise Party? For Me? Aww, You Shouldn't Have

You know what folks?  In my busyness of the month of September, I totally missed an important anniversary. No, not my wedding anniversary.  I've learned my lesson there.  It was actually the 1st anniversary of the Evilbear Photography blog on September 3rd.  It hit me early this morning that I had to be coming close to being a year.  I took a look at my archive, and sure enough, it was 1 year on the 3rd.  To celebrate, I decided to head out in the darkness to do some shooting.  Great morning for photos.  And I actually found a surprise party waiting for me in a place I never expected.  I was driving a busy road that I've driven about 1000 times before and never saw anything to catch my eye.........until today.  There was a "surprise party" of about 20 or more white herons all just waiting for me to show up with my camera. (And here I though they didn't particularly care for me sneaking up on them with my trigger finger ready).  Well, it seems they got together just to give me a magical shot.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get them all to stay still long enough to catch them all.  But, they did grace me with some good shots.

Early morning catch

No, not fish.  Although, I should have thrown the rod in the car since it was a perfect morning to throw a line in.  Just an early morning September sunrise on a lake not far from my house. Luckily it was early morning since I had to "sneak" into someones backyard to get this shot.  It was worth the chance.

Accept it

This changing of the seasons from summer to fall so far has been tough this year.  Don't know if its age or just the fact we had such a perfect summer weather wise.  Anyway, I've decided to just except it and put pretty pictures of winter in my head to get me psyched.

Abridged

Yes, the title of this post is correct.  I looked it up.  The meaning is "shortened by condensing or rewriting". Well, I'm not rewriting.  I'm revisiting an earlier shot.  I went out to shoot tonight, but it seems I'm having a hard time adjusting my timing with the changing of the seasons.  Man, it gets dark early already.  So, I dug into the vault tonight and played with a shot from a trip to Iowa last spring. 

Kansas anyone?

Best thing about holidays is being able to get out of the house early and do some shooting.  Lighting is different in the morning and the skies pretty unpredictable.  Here is an example I came across Labor Day morning.  Still not really sure what it was in front of me, but it passed thru quickly and never heard anything about it on the news.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course.........

Been a busy week, therefore, the lack of posts.  I've been shooting, but haven't had much time to go thru my shots or post.  Anyway, I joined a camera club this week.  Should be interesting.  Monthly meeting.  Bimonthly competitions.  It'll be nice to be critiqued by strangers instead of the usual suspects of friends and family, although, I do love the comments.  I got some new digital darkroom tools to work with on my photos so that once I get past the learning curve I should be able to upgrade some of my shots.  Tonight is a shot taken this weekend where I used some of the aforementioned tools. 

The Last Dance

We knew it was coming.  We tried our best to prepare ourselves for it.  It was discussed numerous times over the last week during evening dinners.  We joked about it in a way to prepare ourselves for the day it happened.  We started a countdown to ease the pain.  We created a different scenario in our dreams at night hoping our dreams would come true.  But it was all for naught.  The Crystal Lake Beach officially closed for the season anyway.  The warning signs were coming.  Colder nights, winds picking up, holiday weekend, etc.  So, yeah, we should have been mentally prepared.  But, when you do the final swim of the season and sit back and wait for the sun to drop below the horizon, and you hear the final lifeguard whistles blow their last "toot", it hurts.  It really hurts.