Photographs and Memories

I took my first pictures with a 110 camera back in the mid 70's. Not a great camera just good enough. The quality of those pictures was about as good as the first digital camera I bought. I did get some pretty good photographs and fell in love with photography. My next camera was a Pentex 35mm. I took hundreds of pictures of my first son, many of my wife and pictures of every relative I found. Eventually I found out that if I wanted a real good composed photo I had to ask people to sit, stand, walk, run or do something, three or four times while I changed setting on the camera. I also learned that taking candid photos of people captured some of the most emotional photographs I had ever taken. I also learned that taking photographs of landscapes and animals was easier. With animals you just have to follow them around till they do something worth photographing. With landscapes you have to wait for the right light or climb up or down to get the best angle.
These pictures I took at the Maverick County lake in Eagle Pass on a December morning in 2005. I got up real early and hurried to the lake before the sun made it over the horizon to look for areas to photograph. It was chilly. I walked around the lake looking for the best side to shoot from.
Once the sun made it over the horizon I was ready. The sky's colors were vivid and their reflection on the water made for some great pictures. There were ducks in the water and they were very cooperative in swimming into the right areas to be photographed.

I enjoy these moments by myself, when I can think and capture time in a single frame. The early morning light hid most of the trash making the lake look very clean.

I spent many day when I was young at this lake. We use to come fishing here. I don't remember catching any thing worth keeping but it was still a lot of fun. The lake seemed bigger and had more water. It was also a lot cleaner. At one time they even had paddle boats that one could rent and peddle around the lake in. I remember hearing every so often of someone drowning in the lake. It may still be the same now, you know how people use to show up the day before Easter Sunday and sleep on the picnic table all night just so they could have one the next day.
Anyways, on this day I walked around the lake and took about 90 photographs. Most of them I deleted after viewing them on the computer. I kept about 30 of them. I spent about 3 hours taking pictures. By the time I got ready to go home the sun was way up in the sky.


This was the last photo I took. When I got there I had a jacket and gloves on. By the time I took this picture I was down to my T-shirt. It was going to be a warm December day. Yeah, a typical winter day in Eagle Pass. I don't know if I could ever move back and live here, but I sure enjoy visiting.