Jazz on Ross

The last weekend of May each year, Chase Bank sponsors Jazz under the Stars on the Ross Avenue yard at the Dallas Museum of Art. Thousands of people gather under the stars setting up, often with quite elaborate table settings, enjoying a variety of jazz bands along with their food and wine, starting the last Thursday of May and lasting through June.

Sketching in the Galleries - Onderdonk Landcape with 3 color palette

Tonight our assignment was to draw a landscape in the Julian Onderdonk exhibit using 3 colors in the color wheel triad. I chose an undated painting entitled Landscape with Coreopsis.

Eye 2 Eye - A Paradox

I was going through the images I took in the ACHA weekend cutting horse show searching for good eye to eye communication between the horse and cow and found this image. See if you can find the paradox in this image. I have to note that there is no digital manipulation done to this image other than cropping and fixing the contrast. I have posted other eye2eye images in this Gallery.

ACHA Weekend: Select Images

I took this first image as the rider was riding toward the herd in the Cutting Competition. I was drawn to the composition with the horse, boots and spurs, and the lone black cow out of focus in the herd.


In my review of my behind the scenes images from this show I was drawn to this shot of the lone rider loping in the large roundpen. I thought of Hoppers paintings of that showed isolated figures in urban settings.

ACHA Weekend Cutting - Arena Supervisor

During the past week I have been in the Brenham Texas area, this time photographing the ACHA Weekend at Nueces Canyon Ranch. This little pug was constantly patrolling the arena and trailer areas. After watching him over several days I had the opportunity to quickly get down to floor level and take a photo of him on his rounds. He seems to be looking at me with some suspicion. I was told he belonged to one of the employees and was considered the Mascot of Nueces Canyon Ranch.

Sketching in the Galleries: Julian Onderdonk

I missed last week at sketching in the galleries due to my Bluebonnet Stakes shoot, but returned this week to go back to the Julian Onderdonk exhibit. Our assignment was to pick elements from a variety of the paintings and compose our own drawing. The background tree came from one painting while the front tree and fence came from another. The Windmill came from the same as the foreground image but I moved over to the left. The cactus came from separate painting as did the cliffs in on the right hand side of the landscape.

Bluebonnet Stakes Dog show - Costume Class

The winner of the first costume class was Delila the Biker. She is a year old Wire Jack Russell Terrier owned by Jon and LeeAnne White. This was truly one of the best and well planned costumes I saw.

Bluebonnet Stakes Finals Day Dog Show

Today was finals day at the Bluebonnet Stakes in Brenham, Texas. In conjuction with the cutting, a Dog Show was held during cattle changes and settling. Classes included best dog under 12 inches, best dog over 12 inches, Costume class for dogs, and Costume Class with dogs show by kids. The image to the upper left is Dr. Janet Bowers coaching a Barbara Sparkmans dog on how they were going to demonstrate cutting. The bottom photo shows the "Trainer" and Dog :cutting the the "cow." See more photos of the dog show in this Gallery

Bluebonnet Stakes 2008

Yesterday we had limited age (3-6yo) classes but today was a regular NCHA show. We started with the Open. Yesterday started with overcast so backlighting was minimal, but today we had a bright morning sky that made photographing difficult, even with strobe. I decided to shoot some side shots so I would not be dealing with the worst of the backlighting.
This shot is of Wilds My Thing ridden by Casey Morris and owned by Francie and Bobby Butler. This was one of my best shots of the day.
I have been at the Bluebonnet Stakes in Brenham, Texas for the last few days. Today they were using two arenas and from time to time had to drive another herd across the arena, and I set myself up to photograph this drive.