All posts by The Gray Bull

Novice photographer using Canon gear. I tend to like photographs of urban scenes. My other interests include casual blogging and travel.

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Blog Posts

Snack Time!

on August 3, 2020

I don’t usually take photos of animals, so I rarely post a photo of an animal. Yesterday provided an opportunity to make an exception to this behavior! I was in my home office, when my wife told me to look out the window at a small fawn. It was eating some leaves at the edge of the backyard. I grabbed my camera and as quietly as I could I stepped onto my deck. These animals have fantastic hearing and this one immediately heard me. I just froze for a minute or so and it went back to eating. I managed to fire off a few shots before it ran off. This is the best of the group and I decided to title it “Snack Time”.

Blog Posts

A little fun!

on July 24, 2020

Most of us are starting to struggle with finding activities to keep us busy during our COVID-19 lockdown. I am no exception. Yesterday I was talking to one of my granddaughters about some old movies I enjoyed and King Kong came up. She had never seen it, so we talked about it for a few moments. Later, I looked on-line and found some old movie posters from the 1933 release of this film. In many ways, it was a shocking film for its time period! This gave me an idea to have some Photoshop fun to spend some time creating a fun photo. I decided to use the newest skyscraper symbol in New York, Freedom Tower, in place of the old symbol, the Empire State Building, as when the film was originally released. Here it is for your viewing pleasure. Now go on-line and view the movie. I know I will!

Blog Posts

John Lewis R.I.P.

on July 19, 2020

Solitude on the Potomac

The Lord I my shepherd;

There is nothing I lack.

In green pastures he makes me lie down;

To still waters he leads me;

He restores my soul.

He guides me along right paths

For the sake of his name.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

 I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

Your rod and your staff comfort me.

 John Lewis, Rest in Peace!

Blog Posts

Finger of Fate

on May 31, 2020

All the discussion about how our lives will be different after Covid19 and how we should get ready for the new normal is on every news show! It seems all we hear about is the future and what will likely change. The item that most disturbs me is the potential loss of privacy with “contact tracing”. Currently, the government of China is already advancing more measures to track their citizens, but I would expect that from a totalitarian regime! But what about our democratic forms of government? It seems more people are getting comfortable with the idea of doing the same thing in the U.S.A. That sounds more like 1984 by George Orwell than I like to think about. Okay, enough of my political rant!

This did give me an idea for a photograph. Here is a view of my take on contact tracing. Every time we use our index finger, it will send a signal to the “cloud” to trace our every move. Just a little Adobe Photoshop fun, but it could come to pass……hmmm!

Future Fate

Blog Posts

Suburban Lake at Sunset

on May 20, 2020

This blog post will continue with the theme of finding photo opportunities near home during our Covid19 induced shelter-in-place regulations. I was feeling the need to take a short drive just to break the tedium and remembered seeing a site that I thought might make a good photo. It is only about 15 minutes from my home, so it seemed to be a reasonably short though not an essential trip! After checking one of my apps for sunset times and location and I grabbed my camera, tripod, and car keys. I took some shots right before sunset and several afterwards. The photo below is the one I chose to post. I took the liberty of over saturating the colors with Adobe Lightroom just to see how far I could push things.Suburban Lake at sunset

 

I hope you are staying healthy and finding some photography opportunities at home or nearby! Please come back to www.cestlavie4me.com to view more of my Covid19 photos.

Blog Posts

Fading City

on May 6, 2020

The COVID19 Pandemic is keeping most of us from going out to continue our photography hobby. This means we need to find some other activities or get creative with photography outside of our tried and true routines. As I was watching a television show, and there are very few worth watching, a clip was run showing how deserted New York and other major cities looked. It was a very surreal scene, but it did give me an idea.

I proceeded to open my Adobe Lightroom catalog to find some cityscape photos I had done in the past along with some photos with trees and a few with clouds. These photos were then composited with Adobe Photoshop to create my version of a Fading City. Hopefully, our urban areas will come back to their former vibrancy but there is guarantee of that! We may all get used to an unexpected difference in urban life after COVID19.

Fading City

Hopefully, you are finding some creative outlets for practicing your photographic hobby. Please come back to visit www.cestlavie4me.com to see what shelter-in-place photography project I attempt next time. Stay healthy and keep shooting!

Blog Posts

Suburbanscapes

on April 13, 2020

In keeping with the theme of finding photographic subjects in or near your home as we shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic, I managed to take a few photos in my neighborhood this past week. The so-called Pink Moon occurred this past Tuesday night. Unfortunately, it was a cloudy night in my area, so I had no photo opportunity for the Pink Moon. On the other hand, I did have a beautiful, colorful sunset that evening. Here are three photos from my neighborhood that I am classifying as Suburbanscapes.

Stormy Suburbs

Pastel Sky

Suburban Sunset

Shelter in Place

Suburban Sunset

Heavenly Glow

I enjoyed taking these photos so much that I have decided to try to photograph more Suburbanscapes near me in the future.

Wednesday was a clear night, so I took multiple photos of the nearly full moon. Below is a composite photo of the scene I saw that evening.

Suburban Moon

Suburban Moon

Hopefully, you are also finding interesting photo opportunities in or around your home and neighborhood during this strange time in our lives. Stay healthy and come back to visit www.Cestlavie4me.com.

 

 

 

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