March 24 - Missouri Mines State Historic Site

This last Saturday was spent on a long field trip with the camera club. We left Springfield at 7:00 a.m. and by the time we returned at midnight, we had visited Elephant Rocks State Park, Hughes Mountain Natural Area, and the Missouri Mines State Historic Site. It was a long day!

Though Elephant Rocks and Hughes Mountain were fun, I can't say I got the best out of them photographically speaking. But I think I made up for it with the abandoned mine buildings. The odd mix of age and angles were really interesting.







March 20 - Additional Hughes Mountain Photos

I've been working on a few more pictures from Hughes Mountain that I thought I should post. The first picture is a combination of three different pictures (click on the image to make it a little bigger).



I still remember how cold it was up there - Brrrrr...


There is a surprising amount of color even in this bleak landscape.

March 3 - Lunar Eclipse

I drove all over trying to find a nice place to view the moon rise and never did really find the ideal spot. We ended up NW of Springfield on a quiet farm road high on a ridge which gave us an unrestricted view of the horizon. The moon first revealed itself in a very small sliver (most of it was eclipsed at that point) which slowly grew larger as it moved up into the sky.

Here is a closeup of the moon (or at least as close as I can get to it) as the Earth's shadow has mostly moved across it.


The sunset behind me was more interesting from a photographic point of view and I spent quite a bit of time with my back to the moon. The next two images show some of that scene.