Louisiana Visit

Very recently I traveled to Homer, Louisiana with Catherine and her sister to visit their grandparents. Having never been to the state for any reason besides a weekend trip to a casino or just passing through on the way to Florida, I was not really sure what to expect. Well, except for the many stories I have heard from Catherine.

I of course ventured with my camera at my side, safely packed away in my new ThinkTank side bag. I will have to go into more detail of that new purchase at a later date. I thought I would share with you, a few of my favorite photographs of the few days I spent there and try to tell you an experience I had surrounding that particular one.

The first picture is something I have been wanting to try ever since I received the Canon 2x Extender for Christmas, but have yet to have a chance around my house. At Catherine's grandparents they have a small bird feeder, just outside the back door. This made for a great spot to catch birds without scaring them away. I never considered myself much of a birdwatcher, but with a 400mm lens at the end of my 40D it is hard not to be.

Louisiana Visit, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

Catherine's grandma love's cats, I can not even tell you how many different cats I saw this weekend. This one in particular is named Bootsie and is one of the few that I could actually remember the name of, well other than Big Guy. They really enjoy getting to walk around the back yard and chase the birds away when I find a Blue Jay or Cardinal within my sites. Other than that, they seemed very shy and avoided me for the most part of the trip.

Bootsie, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

Catherine's cousin is a flower farmer. She has a Masters degree in Horticulture and one of the most amazing flower gardens I have ever seen, even though she claims it wasn't at its best. This is one of two photographs from this garden I decided to share, mostly because I love the lines and the bokeh that are shown. The only thing this garden seemed to be missing is a patch of Blue Bonnets. When you don't see just a few of those in a flower garden in the spring, you know your not in Texas anymore.

A Bokeh of Flowers, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

This one feature of Catherine's grandmas backyard was one I have seen in many yards, but this time it was different. Since I don't have a fancy fish eye lens, I didn't have a fun way to capture just how big and wonderful her yard was. Putting the 70-200mm lens with the 2x Extender on my camera, I stood as far back as I could and snapped a few photos. Can you find me in there?

The Backyard, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

During our trip, the girls gave me the grand tour of downtown Homer. They enjoyed joking about how it only took 20 minutes to see the whole town, including a stop at the Sonic for drinks. They told me that a bypass was just built before downtown and that has caused many of the shops here to close down due to lack of traffic. I didn't take to many photos downtown, but this is one I found to be entertaining.

1920 Waffle House, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

The second of two photographs from Catherine's cousins flower garden. I enjoy taking these kind of photographs the most because it's different. It shows you a vantage point of something that you normally don't get to see. Overall it is probably my favorite photograph of the trip.

Bug Eyes View, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

Only two more photographs, are you tired yet? I will go ahead and wrap this up for you since they are both flower shots. Really not a whole lot to say about these other than these are just a couple of the many wonderful flowers Catherine's grandma has planted in her yard. I was very impressed with how much work she must put it to keep them all so neat and beautiful.

A Flower, pink this time, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

Flowers are hard to name, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

Well, thats the end. Quite a few pictures in one post, by far the most I have ever done. I have a couple of big projects that I am working on, each involve quite a bit of web coding and I hope that I will be able to share the results with you soon!

Coconut Cream Pie

During my most recent trip to Austin, which happened to fall just after my brothers birthday, Catherine baked him a pie to celebrate it. It just so happened to be his favorite pie in the whole world, a coconut cream pie. This was interesting to him for the main reason that he had never had a cream topping on it before, just a meringue topping. I think it came off as a huge success, especially since we decided to double the ingredients for the whipped topping!

I have been trying to convince Catherine that she should start her own food/cooking blog, I think it would be a fun way to share all of the great treats that she makes for me! But until that happens, I just wanted to share with you the results with a couple of my favorite photos that I took of the finished pie.

Coconut Cream Pie #1, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

Coconut Cream Pie #2, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

Just in case you are curious, the recipe is based on one that can be found here:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Coconut-Cream-Pie-107115 Enjoy!

CO 2011

Just recently had a photo shoot with Jake. We wanted to get a few shots on the football field, but it was taken by...well European football. So we went after a few photos in the hall of the school and got some pretty good shots. Not a whole lot to this shot, just an off camera Canon 430EX with a shoot through umbrella just about 3 feet in front of him to his right.

CO 2011, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.

Under the Capital

On my most recent trip to Austin, my sisters Challenger baseball team was recognized at the Texas House of Representatives. While there we got a tour, which I am sure for the kids, was quite fun. For me, it was really just trying to find a chance to lay down my tripod and snap a few photos before we had to move on to a new location.

I managed to get a few good photos and this one was on my "must take" list that I had in my head. In all the visits to the capital I have had, I have never been in the expansions underground. I thought it was an awesome chance to try for an HDR Panoramic and I think it came out pretty nice. A little bit of color fringing, but thats what happens with a stock lens when you push the f-stop up.

Under the Capital, originally uploaded by griffithgreg.