Park Bracket NAIA Softball

It's spring sports playoffs season. The first round of the NAIA Softball Championships are played at regional sites around the country. Four teams met in St. Joseph, MO

Park University was the second seed and the host for the event. It was the first warm week of the spring and it made for good softball and good photography.

Here are a few images from the action!













California State University San Marcos was the first seed and won the bracket with a 3-0 record. They move on to the Championships in Columbus, GA

Gear: Nikon D7000 w/ 300mm f/4 (and sometimes the TC1.4II); Nikon D90 w/ 70-200 f/2.8

Lots of sunscreen between games !!

Enjoy !

Market Day

One of our favorite Saturday activities is a morning visit to the City Market.

The City Market is located near the original site of the City of Kansas and the river landing that brought the people to the place that became Kansas City.

The Market consists of a square surrounded by buildings that hold commercial vendors, restaurants and the Arabia Museum. Most of commercial vendors are in food related businesses: fruits and vegetables, middle eastern groceries, bakeries, an Italian deli. The center of the square is the farmers market. Prepared foods, local fruit and veggies, arts & crafts and nursery plants are usually available. Of course with spring finally coming to Missouri the local items will proliferate.

It is always a great place to visit for a bakery treat, people watching, and many photographic opportunities. The square and the commercial produce vendors receive the morning light. The shapes and colors and lighting make for lots of fun to be out with the camera.

The following are a few samples of the images from Saturday. Enjoy!











Tools of the Trade: Nikon D7000 w/ Tokina 100mm f/2.8 Macro. Post includes PhotoMechanic, ACR 7, Photoshop 6 and the Nik Collection

Forgotten Images

A couple of the bloggers that I read on a regular basis have been talking about the value of taking the new post-processing skills that you have learned and revisiting an reprocessing images from the past.

That encouragement, along with a new e-book on processing landscapes, led me back to the images from an outing that is almost three years old. Debbie and I took a trip to Moab, UT where big skies, puffy clouds and castle-like towers abound.

These images are taken one evening as sunset approached. The first reaction of some people who have seen these images has been "Monument Valley!" I assure you it is not.

Moab is noted for the arches of Arches N.P. and for the courses of the Colorado and Green rivers in Canyonlands N.P. But upstream from Moab the Colorado valley broadens out for a few miles and it is ringed by these formations. If you look closely in the background of Road to LaSal and A Big Sky you will see the snow rimmed LaSal Mountains (famously seen in the background of photos of Delicate Arch or Mesa Arch and the Washer Woman).

Enjoy the images as I have in reliving the trip while inside on a rainy day.


Road to LaSal

Storm Castles

A Big Sky