It helps tremendously as a photographer to have a final product in mind when making images.  My Mom likes physical prints that she can display in her home, generally 11x14 for the walls, and really prefers having images she can group together.  This was what I shot for on Sunday, the first and third images are on the way.

There is a small group of muscovy ducks that lives in the neighborhood lake, and they generally approach anyone who stops.  There was one duck who was mostly underwater with another on top of her.  "They're fighting! It's gonna drown!"  The ducks were not fighting.  Ah, memories.

On the way back I got my best stuff of the day, some long exposure dashboard shots.   

We wound up back in downtown Baton Rouge, and stopped for a few minutes at Happy's on 3rd Street.  Caught this one looking out the window from our booth.

The event was also held in honor of James deBrueys, a facial hair enthusiast and all arounnd great guy from New Orleans who went missing while at sea a few months ago.  His family was in attendance wearing t-shirts emblazoned with a graphical representation of his moustache and beard.  That logo made it's appearance on the Best in Show trophy.

Now that the links are out of the way...

Participants competed in five categories: Full Beard, Moustache, Freestyle, Fake Beard (the girls), and Sh*ttiest Beard.  The winner of that last category was awarded with a new razor.  And now, on with the photos!  I also have a Facebook Gallery posted, and the full gallery with over 600 images HERE.

The judges confer.

The four category winners line up to compete for Best in Show.

Facebook Galleries: Walkaround Party Pics and PHOTOBOOTH!

If you've never had a photo booth at a party, and your friends like being silly, I highly recommend it.  It's pretty much just a camera with a flash or two and a cable release so photo subjects can click their own.

Some of my favorite shots...

The concert was put on by student group Up Til Dawn LSU partly as a celebration of the letter writing campaign, and partly to raise money on it's own.  Serrano's Salsa Company hosted the event on their parking lot, and generously pledged 50% of sales for the evening to St. Jude's.  Music was by local bands The Botanist and The AutoPilots.  Several patient families were on hand, including a few kids who had been successfully treated for leukemia at St. Jude's.  By the end of the night, these college students had raised over $3000 not including any direct donations as a result of the letter writing campaign.

I wanted my photos to have a different look from anyone else's who might have been there, so I set up several small flashes around the parking lot and used my Pixel Soldier radio triggers to make them fire.  Shot the entire event with a 35mm lens on a full-frame camera, and a 50mm lens on a cropped sensor body (wide and telephoto).  With this setup, both cameras were able to utilize all 4 of my flashes in the area.  Yep, I lit it like a wedding reception.  Wireless range was not an issue at all, but I did get quite a lot of phantom triggering.  Maybe the band or PA company's equipment was operating on the same frequency?  I'd never seen it before, but firing the flashes at 1/4 power or lower,  it wasn't really a problem.

Anyhow, here's some of my favorites from the night.  More can be seen in my Facebook gallery HERE.

Wait, there's only one dude involved in this charity group?  That guy is a genius, kudos Sir.

Mostly, I rested that day.  Clouds began rolling in, along with a HUGE influx of people looking for campsites since Spring Break had just begun for many in the vicinity.  The next morning I started packing up at 6am, and there was another photographer waiting to take my campsite.  He generously helped me carry my bin to the back of the truck, and I showed him some of my prints from the day before. 

I hit the road and headed for San Antonio.  My parents had brought my nephews over there for Spring Break, so after a much-needed shower we went downtown to see the Alamo and get some dinner.  It was a nice, but brief visit.

Got up early Monday morning and concentrated on getting back home to Baton Rouge.  I did take the back roads between San Antonio and Houston for one big reason.  Shiner.  Had to stop by the brewery, which has mid-day tours (and free beer!) every day.

From there I boogied back to Baton Rouge along very familliar stretches of I-10 and under white overcast skies.  So there you have it, 4000 miles and 3 National Parks in my longest solo road trip to date.  I had a blast, and kept expenses low by tent camping and only eating in restaurants about 5 times out of 36 meals.  Oh, and by only buying 5 gallons of gasoline in the 4 days I was in California. :)

Made some bacon, then fried eggs in the bacon fat, my most favorite breakfast made better by the view.

Cleaned up a bit, got dressed, and made for the trailhead to McKittrick Canyon.  Much of the canyon was bought in the 1920's by geologist, naturalist and oil baron Wallace Pratt.  He had a cabin built there in 1931 as a summer home in which he and his family lived part-time for about 30 years.  In 1957 he donated his land there to the NPS, which would become a large section of Guadalupe Mts National Park.  The "easy" part of the trail about a mile past his house is approximately 7 miles round trip.  Over golfball-sized river gravel much of the way.  Wear sturdy hiking shoes if you go, you do not want a sprained ankle out there.  I also recommend hiking staff if you're not particularly sure-footed.

Too bad I was out of hiking shape, that 7 miles round trip was pretty rough.  Washed my hair in the sink at the trailhead and went back to camp.  Decided to try again for some star trails, so I pointed my camera to the north... this is roughly a 45 minute exposure.