World Pentax Day – Day 2

The second day of World Pentax Day (weekend) dawned late (for me) but the sun was shining and the sky was clear – mostly. The first thing I noticed (something I had missed in all the rain of the last couple days) was the trees starting to sprout new little green leaves with all the promise of an early Spring. The winter has been very wet this year but generally mild and the cold weather may indeed be over.

Merlin, the most domestic of domesticated cats was enjoying just hanging out (and a little attention from me) on this warm sunny Sunday as I was snapping a couple overhead shots of the newly discovered greenery.

Alas, the good weather did not last so that was pretty much the end of my photographic adventures as the clouds and rains returned with a vengeance.

World Pentax Day – Day 1

Day one of World Pentax Day (Saturday, Feb. 23) was almost a wash out – literally! As you can see from these photos the weather was less than cooperative, and a death in the family had us driving most of the day to attend what turned out to be a truly inspirational funeral service.  The day long rain and thunderstorms did take a break at times allowing us to stop on the way home for a few shots like the one above at the Biloxi Lighthouse.

As you can see above we weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the break in the rain to snap a few photos.

We also made a quick stop (during another brief break in the weather) to visit the family cemetery, pay our respects and take a few more pictures.

 

Carefully avoiding the puddles and trying each step to make sure we didn’t sink into the mud while keeping the cameras protected from the rain and drizzle is no fun. Having truly weather sealed cameras AND lenses would help some but I think I have may have turned into a weather wimp in my old age – a fair weather photographer. If I had not had to be out and about yesterday for the funeral anyway I likely would have just stayed inside. Of course the hay fever or sinus affliction I was suffering from didn’t help motivate me.  In any case this is really a World Pentax Weekend so I called it a day and headed for the closest eatery – then home, hoping Sunday would be better.

Technical notes:   All the photos shown here were taken with the Pentax K-01 shooting with the 40mm f2.8 lens. The last one with a little Lomo filter effect added in post processing to bring out the color and make it more interesting. Once I realized we would likely be rained out I didn’t see any reason to bring out the ZX-30 or any of the other film cameras I had originally intended to use for this occasion. I really hate shooting partial rolls of film and then having to wait even longer to see the results until I can finish it off and I have already admitted I am too cheap to process anything less than a full or nearly full roll of exposed film.

Speaking of Wildlife…

Once and awhile you’re driving around and something “catches your eye” and you just have to stop and take a picture or two…

Here (above) we have a horse – a really big life size bronze horse, behind a fence, so it can’t escape I suppose. That’s what first got my attention. Then I stopped and started looking around in the fenced “yard” beside a big white building with “ANTIQUES” painted in black letters across the side.

It was a Sunday afternoon and they were clearly closed or I would have gone in and looked around to see what else they had to offer but as you can see above just the inhabitants of the yard were pretty intriguing.

I thought the boy on the bike (above) was kind of cool. I mean who doesn’t need a bronze boy on a bike in their yard?

 …and the bronze alligator was killer! If you want to keep people out of your yard paint this thing green and set him out there somewhere.

With this stuff in the yard outside I can’t even begin to imaging what they might have inside but I definitely want to go back when they’re open for business and see.

All of the photos above were taken with the Pentax K-01 through the 28-80 zoom at f7 to f9 and 1/250 to 1/400 with ISO @ 100.