Shriner in a Hot Rod

We went to the Shawnee Days parade yesterday. I tried practicing my panning technique with the shriner cars. This one came out the best. I got pretty good focus on the car and decent motion blur of the background, but it could be a lot better. Nothing else was going fast enough to try this effect. Alayna was excited to see these little cars because they look just like the hot rod on one of my t-shirts.

Butterfly at Powell Gardens

Powell Gardens is a local botanical garden that also puts on an annual butterfly festival. I took this picture in their full-time butterfly conservatory (as opposed to all the temporary ones they set up outdoors for the festival). After driving in the air conditioned car, however, it took about 30 minutes for the camera to acclimate to the humidity and let the lens clear of fog.

How Much Is That Spider In The Window?

Actually, I don't want to know. This little guy was sitting on the window so I tried to get a macro shot, albeit without a macro lens.

Mallard

Would you believe that even this picture of a run of the mill mallard was taken at the KC Zoo? Something tells me I need to try other locales. Trish bought a family pass this year and we intend to use the daylights out of it, so the zoo is apparently going to be my primary photography haunt for the time being. If it gets me additional practice, I'm okay with that.

Lioness at KC Zoo

Standard shot of a lioness at the Kansas City zoo. There was a highly reflective pane of glass making this difficult, but I've tried to tweak it out.

Dan Zanes at KC Jiggle Jam

Kansas City's Jiggle Jam is a two day music festival for kids. They have all the usual balloon rides, games, activites, food and drink - but also two stages of acts that appeal to young and old. We couldn't stay late enough on Saturday for They Might Be Giants, but we did stick around on Sunday for Dan Zanes.

Ever-cooperative Meerkat

Meerkats provide an interesting photo opportunity. They hold perfectly still and let you get very close, so that's great - but they all do the exact same pose every friggin' time. I've taken this same shot about 200 times.

Orange Weaver Finch

This finch was in the aviary at the KC Zoo back in 2007. It turns out that it is the same type of bird that my sister had for 18 years. I just didn't remember hers ever appearing this spectacular.

Friendly squirrel

The only cooperative animal during out last visit to the lake was this squirrel who sat perfectly still on a branch and watched me trying to get pictures of birds.

Cheetah at KC Zoo

This cheetah was lounging in the sun up on a hill in its enclosure. It was very windy and I had great difficulty holding the camera still at 300mm. Not as sharp as it could be, but pretty decent.

Hummingbird In Flight

When I first started trying to photograph the birds at the lake, they were far more cooperative. I expected them to get used to me after a few sessions, but they seem to have gotten more and more wary. This picture is from September of 2008. I had hoped to improve upon it, but have had no luck with this year's assortment of hummingbirds.

Pileated Woodpecker

We took another trip to the lake this weekend. This female woodpecker was just about the most skittish and uncooperative bird I've ever seen. She would not approach the feeders if humans were visible inside the house. It wasn't until we sat down for dinner that she deemed it safe to approach again. Fortunately, I had my camera close by and was able to get a few shots before she took off again. I dislike pictures that show the feeder and/or other man-made stuff, but with a bird as flighty as this one, you've gotta do what you've gotta do.

Whale Shark

We visited the Georgia Aquarium in hopes of getting good pictures of their whale sharks. Unfortunately, the big fish did not want to cooperate. They preferred to stay at the top of the tank, making it difficult to get anything other than belly shots. This individual made a single pass towards the bottom of the tank and this is the best image I could get.

Back Flip

Yikes. It's been almost a month since my last update. I guess that means I'm out of ideas. Fortunately, we are heading to the Georgia Aquarium next week, so I hope to have some Whale Shark pictures to post. In the meantime, here's another action shot from our Lunch With Shamu.

Temple of Kulkulkan at Chichen Itza

The most prominent structure at Chichen Itza is the temple of Kulkulcan. In Spanish, this step pyramid is known as 'El Castillo'. During the Spring and Autumn equinox, the stepped corners of the pyramid cast shadows that look like serpents. The pyramid is actually built atop an older one, completely encasing it. A tunnel has been dug so you can actually go inside and climb up the stepped face of the older, smaller pyramid. Shortly after we visited, they stopped allowing people to climb El Castillo, as folks kept falling down and dying.

Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu

This is the standard tourist picture from atop Machu Picchu (Old Peak), as taken from the vantage point of the watchtower I showed a few posts ago. The peak in the background is Huayna Picchu (Young Peak). If you look super close to the summit of Huayna Picchu, you can see additional Incan ruins. The view of Macchu Picchu from that point is not very common, but I will post a picture soon. The climb from Machu Picchu to the summit of Huayna Picchu is particularly heinous and terrifying, but we made it.

Oh shit!

One of the competitive events at the National Balloon Classic is the bean bag drop. Balloonists receive a bean bag and then head out into the countryside in search of an ideal launch site. The idea is to pilot their balloon back to the main field and drop the bean bag on a bull's eye target. Once upon a time, one of the pilots came in super low and managed to drop his bean bag directly on target. Unfortunately, as he was frantically trying to regain elevation, he whacked a Porta-Potty that was sitting in the landing field (for pilots to use before and after flying) and knocked it over. Well, that tragic event has become a thing of legend and is now part of the contest. Not only do you need to drop your bean bag on the target, but if you can knock over the Porta-Potty there is an additional cash prize. As you can see, we had a winner.

Lemon Sorbetini at Trevi

For my birthday, Trish and I went to Las Vegas to enjoy the sights, sounds, eats and drinks. We don't gamble at all, but Vegas offers so much in terms of engineering marvels, cultural opportunities, and amazing dining. Our favorite afternoon pick-me-up is the Lemon Sorbetini at Trevi (in the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace). It is essentially a lemon drop martini with a scoop of lemon sorbet added.

Guard House at Machu Picchu

High above the main plaza at Machu Picchu stands this small structure that served as a watch tower. The view is stunning and is the vantage point from which most Machu Picchu travel posters are shot. After we finished climbing all the way up here, a rain storm came rolling through the Andes. It made for great light and provided much exercise as we dashed back down the mountain (two weeks after our visit, a tourist was killed by lightning here in a similar scenario).

Poor Little Bunny

At the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park, they turn poor little bunnies loose in the lion enclosure so the cats can keep up their hunting skills. This wouldn't be so bad, but they do it in plain sight of all the kiddies. We got there about ten minutes after the bunny release, so Alayna didn't have to witness it. The nice part is, they have excellent vantage points set up for getting pics of the lions.