Spring is in the Air

So last Sunday, my wife and I decided it would be nice to get up early, have breakfast at our local Denny’s, take a leisurely drive along the back roads around Brenham, and enjoy the blooming wildflowers. This was a great idea except that it was terribly foggy that morning and it was hard to see much beyond the edge of the road as we were driving to Brenham.
Since the conditions weren’t optimal for taking landscapes, I decide to spend a little time practicing some macro-style techniques. I say macro-style because I don’t actually own a macro lens, although I plan to get one soon. I check out the prices at B&H all the time, but I have made a lot of other purchases recently and I really need to pace myself. But I digress...

Anyway, I spent about 45 minutes taking pictures using my Nikon 18-200 mm VR Zoom. I love this lens for everyday photography because of its compact size, versatility, and amazing image quality. One of my favorites from this set is shown below.

It always amazes me how beautiful the wildflowers in Texas can be.

This was one of many images that I made last weekend driving around Brenham.

This was one of my favorite images of the bunch because of the smattering

of Indian Paintbrushes among the Bluebonnets.

After about 11:00 a.m., however, the fog started to burn off and the sun started to shine. It turned out to be a great day and I got a lot of other wonderful images like the one of the bluebonnets above. We also enjoyed spending a little time at Washington on the Brazos, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed on March 2, 1836. If you haven’t been there yet, you need to go. It’s a great place for a picnic, to enjoy nature walking on the trails, or to learn about Texas history at the museum there on site.

Once we were done there, we headed home. If you are interested in planning your own wildflower photo adventure, check out Wildflower Haven. It has a lot of good information about routes to take so that you can maximize your viewing and photographing pleasure. Enjoy!

Some Really Big Prints

For this entry, I wanted to talk about a photo shoot I did a few weeks ago. It was for a new ad campaign for the Texas Turnpike Authority’s TxTag. The Texas Turnpike Authority is a division of the Texas Department of Transportation and they oversee the State’s toll roads. The ad campaign is designed to inform the public that they can now purchase TxTags in the lanes at toll booths as they stop to pay their tolls. It’s an interesting idea that they wanted to promote using billboards in the Austin area. That’s where I come in.

A few weeks ago, working with the Turnpike Authority and Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing, I went out to an actual toll plaza on Loop 1 in Austin and shot the campaign. We started at around 10:30 a.m. and by 11:15 a.m. I had taken over 200 images from every conceivable angle. I immediately went back to the office and edited them, choosing the best of the bunch to send to the art director. By 4:00 p.m. that same afternoon, the talented folks at Sherry Matthews had two mock ups of possible billboards ready for review. The next day TxDOT had selected the one they wanted to use and within a week, the billboards were up. The neat thing about shooting billboards is that the images are HUGE. They are 14 feet tall by 48 feet wide. Those are some really big prints!

From over 200 images, this one was chosen for the TxTag ad campaign.

It depicts a driver pulling up to a toll booth to purchase a TxTag

from a toll attendant. This image is now featured on two billboards in Austin.

One is located on Loop 1 at Parmer and the other is on Hwy 71 near the airport.

In addition to this most recent work, I have done several other things for TxDOT. In fact, my pictures are also featured as banners on some of their web pages, specifically pages for the Loop 49 toll road in Tyler, Texas.