Texas wildflowers 2010 part deux

The year 2010 in  Texas had the best display of wildflowers I have ever seen. Unlike this year (2011) which produced virtually no wildflowers due to the severe drought which we are still experiencing along with triple digit daily temps.

This image was taken near Poteet which is south of San Antonio on some little country road. I realize the sky detracts from the image but there isn’t much I can do about that except to crop it out but I wanted the old rusty chair and the house to be included. This was shot with the TL 120, hand held.

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church


Some people say the interior of the Ammansville painted church is the color of cotton candy. Others say it is the color of Pepto-Bismol. Any way you look at it, the church is a pale, rosy pink. Legend has it that an unknown itinerant artist painted the walls of Saint John. Upon completion of the work, he vanished, never to be seen again.

The present Saint John’s is the third church to be built on the property. The first church was destroyed by a hurricane in 1909. The second church burned to the ground eight years after the first one was destroyed by a hurricane. A person recalled in a phone interview working in the fields and seeing the black smoke come up from the direction of the church. Everyone dropped their farm equipment and raced to the church. Folks were able to save some of the statues, but the rest of the building was lost to the fire, which was so hot even the church bells melted. With two churches destroyed in such a short time, one would think the community of Ammansville would have given up. Yet, they began the process of planning and rebuilding almost immediately after the fire. The third church was completed in 1919.

David Lee, August 2011

I have taken the liberty of scanning David’s slides so we’ll have something to jog our memories as we leave comments. Any errors in scanning are certainly mine and not David’s.

–John Thurston

David W. Kesner – The Sentinels

These formations in a lava tube are called extrusion spires and were formed when molten lava in the floor was pushed up through a hole. You can see how some of the lava traveled to the top and then spilled out and dripped down the sides. These are over six feet tall and are the largest in the US. Taken with a TL120 on Fuji ProviaF 100. Lighting was from two Vivitar 283 flashes. One was placed to the far left and triggered by a slave. The other was held just to the right of the camera.

Linda Nygren, July 2011

Linda submitted her images at the close of the NSA convention in Loveland. I’ve provided the thumbnail scans to provide a placeholder for comments, but I am unable to add any additional commentary.

–John Thurston, August, 2011

Jim Harp Self Portrait

Shot with a Sputnik  Ilford Pan-F processed by DR-5  Dublin 2006
This was a three to four minute exposure.   You have to look for my face in here, it’s floating in space just to the left of the base of the statue.   I opened the shutter with a locking cable release, walked up to the statue and held a Vivitar 285H pointed at my face at arm’s length and fired it.