Bring in the New Year!

A new year is always an adventure. Old things to finish. New things to start. And a world of things to try.

This morning, I saw developing, what ended up being a fantastic sunrise. I had intentionally not brought my tripod as I have been wanting to do some experimentation in high-speed, grainy shots. Bringing my tripod with me would have only tempted me into cranking down my ISO and going against what I wanted.

BUT, I saw this sunset, and WANTED my tripod. So, I did the next best thing - found a vertical I-beam on the back patio and leaned up against it. "Poor man's tripod," I've always called it. Well, I think it worked, and I'm pretty happy with the shot. Don't get me wrong. I took some high ISO shots of this scene as well and I plan to put them out on the web site this evening.

As is the norm for me now, I bracketed the shots and will do some HDR work as well. I'm interested to see what grain does in HDR - will it suck toes (no offense to people who like to suck toes) or will it be a new adventure for me and send me off in a different direction for a while.
We had a rather uneventful New Year's Eve - probably old age setting in. But, our New Year's Day was restful and we lounged around the house. No shots of those days as nothing really happened.

I'm planning a day trip soon to get some of this wonderful Texas landscape I keep hearing about. I haven't decided where to go, but it will be either north, east, west or south of Austin. Heh.