It was Thanksgiving morning. The expected clouds might be good for a sunrise. All I had to do was wake myself up at about 5:30AM and go out to the wildlife refuge with my camera. No problem, I can usually wake myself up at about this time by force of will. At 6:30AM on our… Read More Five Photos
Another sunrise at the wildlife refuge. And another sunrise without much in the way of clouds. It’s a pretty good hike up to this location but it is my favorite location for dawn. Half the time I wake up well before 5:30 AM anyway (thank you recent development of insomnia), so there was not much… Read More Sunrise and Stumps
In the winter time, the wildlife refuge often does prescribed burns to keep the dead vegetation from building up and becoming a fire hazard in the hot dry summers. It looks like they are about to do that at my favorite hiking spot. The part of the wildlife refuge across the road from the Doeskin… Read More 35mm and Sunset
I go hiking at the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge at least a couple of time per month. I always bring a camera, but sometimes I feel that I have taken every photo that there is to be taken out there. I know every trail, every overlook, every dry creek bed, and every hill. I… Read More The Glowing Cactus
Several blog posts ago I mentioned that I come across places that I like but don’t know how to photograph and I keep these places in mind and try to come back to them with new ideas. One such place is a patch of ashe juniper trees with a hiking trail leading through it. This… Read More A Foggy Trail in the Woods
This time of year the sun rises quite late, for me anyway, and this made it easy to get out to the wildlife refuge and hike up to an overlook before the sun crested the eastern horizon. There were sadly no clouds, so there was no predawn color-show to be there for, but I knew… Read More Dawn’s Early Light
There has been a comet called Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in the evening sky lately and I had never tried to photograph a comet before. So, on a clear-sky Sunday afternoon I went to the Warbler Vista section of the wildlife refuge for some hiking with the plan to end up at the sunset deck (which coincidentally faces… Read More A Comet from the Wildlife Refuge
I went for a late afternoon hike at the wildlife refuge with no particular photographic aim in mind. After hearing all the birds and seeing the lizards scamper about, I decided to stop at the park benches and put my longest lens on the camera and walk around with that. I also wanted to take… Read More Lizards and Sunset on the Hiking Trail
I had the day off and woke up at 5:00 AM. Sunrise is at around 6:30 AM and according to the forecast it was going to be a partly cloudy morning before rain moved in later in the day. So, that left me enough time to get out to the wildlife refuge and hike up… Read More Gray Morning, Gray Photos
I have been trying to practice a little wildlife photography recently. And where I live, that pretty much means birds or deer. So, I walked around the refuge on a cloudy Sunday afternoon and hoped for a little light to make it through the clouds. I chose the Balcones Canyonlands Wildlife Refuge because at this… Read More Painted Bunting and Friends
Jason Frels 