365.81 Spring Creek Forest Preserve Photowalk

I came across an oddity in Dallas county… the Spring Creek Forest Preserve in Garland TX, of all places.

So Momma and I went out there (all 10 minutes from her North Dallas abode) and wandered around for a few hours.

From the time we left the car (about 9:15am) until we were leaving (about 11:45am), a tent meeting was going on at the horse farm next door. It began with a prayer meeting: scary screaming and wailing, punctuated by cries to the Lord. This was followed by some singing, which I missed most of due to the loud Rock and Roll I listen to so much of the time—and have for such a long time—and partly due to the distance between us and the meeting. And the last 3/4 of the walk we were accompanied by a fire-and-brimstone, scorched earth, come-to-Jesus sort of sermon, the likes of which I hadn’t heard since the early 1990s, and didn’t really believe existed much anymore.

Anyway.

Who would of thought that the City of Garland would support a forest preserve within its borders?

Not me, for sure.

But there it is, stretching from the west side of Shiloh Road to at least Garland Road on the east, with Shrub forming the northern boundary, and Arapaho perhaps 5 minutes to the south.

The light was awful (bright, but completely overcast), and the D7000 performed about as I expected under those conditions. Of course, I can’t really blame the camera for any of it: most of the problems were due to operator error more than anything the camera did or didn’t do.

It didn’t help that I took a 3-shot bracket early on, and then left the camera on bracket mode for the next 50-60 shots, leaving 1/3 totally blown out, and another 1/3 way underexposed, not that the compositions were any good anyway.

I really need to work on my forest-scape composition skills (and probably on my landscape, portrait, macro, abstract, artistic, and every other sort of photographic genre as well). But that’s what the 365 is all about anyway, yes?!?

But the trek was more about having a nice hike with momma than anything else, so the morning was a success, especially since we got somewhat lost on the way back…

So the shot at the top is today’s 365. It was cropped slightly and heavily treated with various Topaz Labs products.

Another shot in the group was HDRified with Photoshop 5 and then treated to Topaz Labs fun even more heavily than the 365 shot.

The others got a variety of exposure, black point, contrast, detail, brightness, saturation, and levels adjustments in Aperture.

All were shot with the D7000 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4. ISO400, f/4, shutter speed chosen by the camera.