Hyatt Hill Country Dusk

My original plan for today's post was going to be a couple of shots that I took while touring the Kennedy Space Center, in honor of this morning's launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour (which, while I am disappointed that I did not get to see it live, based on photos of the launch, the low clouds made the prime photography window VERY short so that would have had added some disappointment to witnessing the launch). I took these shots last night and was really impressed with how they came out so I decided to share them today at KSC/NASA photos will wait a few days!

The first shot was taken after a long journey (about 2134 jelly beans *) from my back door to the back fence line, which borders the 6th fairway of the Lakes Course at the Hyatt Hill Country Resort. When I investigated the cause of abnormal barking by our three vicious attacks dogs (Pomeranian, Chihuahua, and Pug), which turned out to be our neighbors in their backyard (which, for whatever reason, still causes the dogs to go bonkers), I saw the sunbeams bursting through our own low cloud cover and rushed to get my camera. This was actually the first set of bracketed shots that I took. I took a few more but none captured the sunbeams as vividly as this photo so I settled on this set for processing.

Lakes Course Sunbeams

Canon 60D, on tripod, 3 bracketed shots (-2,0-2), EF 17-40mm f/4L (@40mm), Aperature f/8

The second shot is the entrance to the Wild Oak Ranch, which is part of the Hyatt Hill Country Resort. I have wanted to take a shot of the entrance for awhile (especially since the flowers have started to bloom) but never really had a good day to take the shot until yesterday, which was just the right amount of cloud cover, relatively calm winds, and actually having some time to set up for the shot. I took this shot on the corner of the sidewalk bordering the entrance after taking several from across the street. I decided that I liked this angle the most and processed it. I might end up working on the across the street shot at some point, but there is something that I just really like about this shot but I cannot put my finger on exactly what that is.

Wild Oak Ranch Entrance

Canon 60D, on tripod, 3 bracketed shots (-2,0-2), EF 17-40mm f/4L (@17mm), Aperature f/8

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view the photos that I have posted in various sizes. Thanks for stopping by!

* Roughly 35 feet