I wanted to share this potential community service oppoortunity.  As you are probably aware, Louisiana has dealt with some devastating flooding recently and this has coincided with back to school time.

As a result, many students there are in desperate need of school supplies.  Please see the attached flyer for more information on how you or your 4-H Club can help out with these relief efforts:

August 16, 2016

The Travis County 4-H Awards Banquet was held last night at the Creedmoor Community Center.  In spite of the rain, it was a successful event.  The theme this year was patriotic and the event was billed as the "Clover Convention."  It was an excellent opportunity to reflect upon our accomplishments over the past year, but it was also a very emotional evening as it was our chance to say goodbye to Cory Hundl, who has served as the Agrilife 4-H Agent in Travis County for as long as I have been here.  However, she is leaving to take a position as the 4-H specialist in District 9.  We wish her all the best in her new position but we are sorry to see her go.  Our county director, Maggie Johnson, presented her with a special plaque to thank her for her service.  Several of the kids also had some words to say about the impact Ms. Cory has had on their lives.  And speaking of the kids, it was also an emotional event for many of them as we saw the passing of the role of Travis County 4-H president from Trent Warwick to Bennett Folsom.  

My role for the event was to be the photographer, and using the experience I gained from the Santa Fe Photography Workshop I believe I was able to do a good job of this.  Here are the highlights of the event as photographed by me:

 Cory has a gift for her leaders.

 Thanks Cory!

 Passing the gavel to the new president.

August 5, 2016

This is the last day of the Santa Fe Photography workshop and it has been a great experience!  I have really enjoyed getting to meet my fellow photographers and learning many new techniques.  Today we learned about creativity in photography and we took a few more photos around the campus.  I practiced by taking a few macro photos:

August 4, 2016

On the fourth day of the Santa Fe Photography Workshop we learned about lighting and we visited the town of Madrid (prounced MAD-drid) to take photos at a site that has been used for various movie sets.  The lighting was all over the place as we had sun, rain, clouds, and indoor lighting situations.  As always, I took plenty of selfies using the tripod and the self-timer.  

In the evening, we went to the train depot downtown and practiced taking motion-blur photos of the trains as they pulled into the station by setting a slow shutter-speed.

Charlie Chaplin inspired selfies:

Motion-blur photos:

August 3, 2016

On the third day of the Santa Fe Photography Workshop, we learned about composition.  In the afternoon we went to Big Tesuque in the Santa Fe National Forest.  I brought my tripod and used the opportunity to take even more selfies.  Here are the highlights: