Landscape and Scene Photography

Road Trips = Road Time = Sunsets

Well I just can’t help but look to the sunsets now days and wonder what’s in store.  Being on the road a little helps to satisfy that wonder and here are a few cool sun shots from the road over the last week.

Post Texas Sky Line 2010

Just a simple little shot I took last night coming home…looking over Post Texas

Silver Clouds over Sundown

If you didn’t look because you were too tired from work and just went inside to end your day I looked for ya!  The clouds were really really cool yesterday.  They were even cooler a few minutes before I took this but I had to go et my camera and things changed a little by the time I got back out.  Awesome works of arts God…you rock!

You drive by it and never notice…

Look around you folks…God has so many wonderful things for us to see in the world if we just take the time to notice.  We drive by things and never take a second look to often of those beautiful scene’s He has put before us to hang up on our mental walls…you just have to slow down a little bit and let yourself notice them or better yet force yourself.  Some people just see a dead cut harvest field with a old beat up farm house in the background…I see it and say where is my camera I have to have that shot.  Shoot it now folks…it may not be there tomorrow!

Images By Moonlight Jan 30th 2010

20 degrees…snow and ice everywhere. I’m layered up in 2 shirts a pullover and my jacket along with PJ pants under my jeans my wool socks hat and gloves just to give me an edge.  I do this encouraged by my buddy Don Carpenter seeing as the moon was it’s brightest this morning that it ever will be for a long time to come.  I went out with no idea of what I’d find but I did have in mind I wasn’t going to look for shots with the moon in them…not directly anyway.  I concluded my trip around 3am to head home and see what I got…enjoy folks.

Some of these images will be in my STOCK GALLERY on the main site if you see something you like and might want a print for yourself.

All images are bigger with just a click…

I saw this and said wow before I took it

One Shot Wonder – Heavy Fog Over Ropes Texas

Coming back from a Basketball game late last night as I was driving I turned my head and saw this in my mind.  So I took a picture.

If you have a good screen you can see the stars top right…very little Photoshop in this one guys.

The photo is linked to a large copy just click it.

Catch My Drift – Merry Christmas Eve 2009 and Snow Pictures

Be safe be merry and most importantly just believe.

Sundown Sunset and a Bus

Just a simple composition I saw unfold before me.  First I the sunset…wow.  Then I  the Sundown City sign…cool.  Of course finally here came the bus…so I got out of my car sat on the side of the road and took it.  Kinda cool…I thought for spur of the moment.

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“The Fly Out” Levelland Texas Lobo Lake 2009

Few words can be used….but this is in Levelland TX folks!

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Ice Ice Baby…duda duda dudududa….

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Ok I just aged myself.

Anyhow someone asked me if I had taken any icey shots in Sundown the other day.  I did.

It’s Snowing…Dec 1st 2009 Sundown Texas

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I just had to do it…took the kids to school this morning and drove around for about 30 minutes just to see what I could find in it’s newly coated color of white.

Thanks for the text Jobeth – Fall Trees and Morning Fog in Sundown Tx 2009

My wife tells me a got a text this morning from a friend of ours talking about the low fog tipping the tops of rigs and a full moon still being out.  Well I missed the rigs and took some shots at the Sundown Golf Course in place.  With a little Photoshop assistance and about an hour of time here is your end results for the fall trees and low level fog.  It could have been better if I had been up earlier…but that would be more amazing than the photographs themselves.

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Moonrise 9-9-09

Simple enough…I’m coming back from Midland after a Bridal Shoot and as it nears midnight I pass through Lamesa.  I’m driving a long and just glanced over my shoulder to see something that just looked bizarre.   The moon was rising but it almost looked like a sunrise.  I had to take some shots.

Just something I thought was kinda cool!

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Clouds in Motion

Man…I walked outside last night right around sunset and the clouds just look amazing with the light breaking through them and causing the clouds to just explode out of the sky.  I missed most of what was catching my eye with the camera but I did get a little sequence over about 30 minutes which was just something cool that I wanted to try and see what would happen.  What I did was set up on a tripod and programed my (Nikon D700) camera to shoot 1 frame every sixty seconds.  I had my Nikor 18-200mm VR mounted so I could shoot wide.  This sideshow was the end result showing off the works of the one true ultimate artist and creator in action (not me) …enjoy!

Back Country Trip on a 4 Wheeler

I hopped on my brother-n-laws 4 wheeler the other day to see what I could find off the beat and path.  The day at conclusion tallied up about 35-40 miles going around the middle of nowhere on the edge of Sundown TX.  Took a few snaps of interest and will probably have more later to add to the list.  The trip lead me to meet some great folks at the end of the day in which Mrs. Hill actually caught a catfish for me to take a shot of.

Photographing Levelland TX at Midnight+Lightning

If you are anything like me you drive by things, places and stuff that sticks in your mind and rings that little bell in your head that makes you say to yourself…”I wonder what that would look like”  I’ve been doing just that every evening I’ve turned down College Ave off of 114 in Levelland.  SO…I was coming home from shooting a baseball game in Sudan and when I came to the intersection I had to stop and really see what it would look like.

This was the end result with the camera mounted on a tripod set at a 15-30 second exposures and f8-22 with ISO at 200.

The Lord blessed me with some more awesome Lightning photographs….updating this topic with them on 7-30-09.
If you would like copies of any of these photographs please call me directly 806-891-0378

See the Levelland News Press Online

for a view of some of these photos on the front page of the Sunday paper





Sundown Texas Lightning Photography 2009

I was given information that this photograph along with a few others actual got some airtime on Channel 11 KCBD in Lubbock Texas.  Did anyone have it recorded on July 22nd 2009?  I didn’t get to see it!

How it happen…

I’m up late last night going through photographs from the 12yr old Cal Ripken State Tournament in Littlefield and it’s about 2-3am when I hear the crack of lightning.  I thought to myself that I couldn’t get so lucky two nights in a row with lightning photographs…could I?

Well…I snapped on my Nikor 50mm f1.4 to my Nikon D700 and took off to see what would happen.  I got out and looked all around Sundown trying to find the most likely spot to get lucky.  It was coming down hard around Hobbs but seemed to far off…then I looked back toward Brownfield and Ropesville and the sparks were flying hard and heavy.  I found a cool spot to setup and waited.


If you would like copies of any of these photographs please call me directly 806-891-0378

I have added a few others to the list from 7-29-09.




HDR (High Dynamic Range) Imaging

This will be a running topic for HDR imaging that I will add to as time goes on.  HDR is a process that lets us see things we other wise wouldn’t have noticed in a standard edited photograph.   Some of these photos are very very vivid while others will be just slightly more highlighted.  I hope you  enjoy these HDR photographs as much as I do.

Photographs of Lightning Littlefield – Levelland Texas 2009

Man what a light show!  I was coming home from the Allstars Allstate Baseball games in Littlefield and God started showing off big time for me.  I tried getting shots like this the other night but couldn’t get it as the storms were just to far off.  I was right in the middle of them tonight…fantastic stuff!

If anyone has an interest in obtaining copies of any of these photographs just give me a call.

1 – 8×10 for $20.00

Rainy Day Photos of Sundown Texas – “A 30 minute drive around town”

Most of us when it rains seem to pull ourselves indoors into our shelters.  We assume we are missing nothing when it rains.  I felt this assumption today myself when I was sitting at home watching it rain outside and watching my wife play Guitar Hero and then my kids playing with their hot wheels.  I had no clients to go and see about insurance nor did I have any Baseball games or Motocross races to shot photographs of.  So I made the kids put there toys down and threw them and the dog in the car leaving the wife at home with her booted foot elevated and fresh batteries in her wireless controller.  It didn’t take long for me to see somethings of interest and as we rolled around town slowly with the rain lightly misting we put the windows down to enjoy the fresh rain air and light mists of on our faces as we drove around town.  I popped off about 64 frames with my 18-200 f3.5 lens on and I have found favor with 8 particular photographs.

Enjoy them…they were all shot within 30 minutes of each other and within a 1 mile radius.

If you have an interest in purchasing a copy of any of these photographs please contact me directly 806-891-0378

My favorites were from the cemetery  and stadium scenes…what are yours?

Sunsets in Sundown Texas – TX – random pictures of the Sundown area

Well I figured since I’m living in Sundown now that I’m probably gonna catch a lot of sunsets over here.  The first part of this topic will contain a few shots I took off of 1585.  It’s just a few things I thought were interesting.  The funny thing about this set of photographs is that my family and I were coming back home from Levelland after shopping and I just happened to glance over at this old building as we passed by it on 1585.  The sun was hitting it with some serious rays and I had to move fast to get any of it in my camera.  So I rushed home and unloaded groceries as fast as possible then grabbed my gear and took off!

These were the highlights of the series…


30 seconds on the golf course

Well these photographs of the Sundown Golf Course started off as an attempt to capture some lightning off in the distance.  Unfortunately that plan didn’t workout to well as the lightning was to far off and covered by clouds and haze.  What I did get however was still kinda cool.

These are straight out of the camera with zero manipulation to the images.  The back light for the grass being so green was a street light about 40ft behind me.

30 second exposure/f4/iso400

Leveland Tx. Photographs of Misc Structures

On a night about 2 months (6-24-09) ago I strolled around Levelland looking for something to standout and say “Take my picture”.  Well gladly nothgin ever did that but I found some interesting structures and scenes just before sunset that day.

Enjoy my playtime shots.

Nikon Contest Winner 2008

Nikon had a contest a few months ago of which the theme was “Moving moments”.  Well I entered about 20 pictures of things like tee-ball…splash downs on slip and slides…kids with big grins you know stuff like that.  Well one night I was testing a setting about an hour after sunset and went to a Pump Jack to take a long exposure shot with moonlight as the primary light source.  I took a few…I liked them…but it was no big deal to me.

Well my wife saw the picture and told me I should put it in the contest.  I didn’t think so…but I did it anyway.  Well low and behold out of over twenty thousand pictures entered that silly little Pump Jack got into the last 120 finalists.  I couldn’t believe it…a pump jack!  So long story short that picture got into the finals and even into the semi finals to boot and ended up winning me a new Nikon D60 setup.

My wife is worth listening to every once in a while after all.

Here is the link to the contest with Nikon:
Contest Link