Category Archives: White Rock Lake Images

Often, I have to sit on the ground or lie down in the grass to get the best perspective for photographs. It always occurs to me that this is the view that little critters in the field have of the world around them. Do they appreciate beauty? I hope so.

In the days since I took this picture, the grape hyacinths have really taken off in other areas around the lake. But I want you to see how small THIS patch actually is, so you can appreciate the importance of a selective point of view. Also, you’ll see that I pushed the post-processing of the image above pretty far (maybe too far). I was trying to isolate the colors in a late-afternoon shot. At that time of day, the light is very yellow, and to separate out the elements as our magnificent eyes do, I had to reduce yellow (increase blue). In any case, I was doing the post-processing on my phone, which isn’t always the best idea!

The red bridge beside Garland Road, just south of the Arboretum, is an excellent place for spider webs. It’s just a little tricky to get the smartphone aimed and focused right.

Wish I’d met Mike on a better day. He usually flies with his paraglider on Flag Pole Hill. This flight at Winfrey Point ended up in a tangled mess.

Today, I met Coco, the friendly lady who maintains these Purple Martin houses. She calls herself the “landlord” of the 24 apartments (on two poles). I’ll try to meet her again when there are some baby birds to photograph.

Possibly “Golden Thread-moss” See second photo (below) for size. These are remarkably tough. I’ll have to “liberate” some for my moss garden if I can find a patch in a location where they’ll never be missed.

At the little-known Morris W. Levy Memorial. It’s a group of boulders and a plaque in my favorite dewberry field.

The Original

I was zoomed in as much as I could on my smartphone (Pixel 3a) when I took the above photo. Even though I had just been watching a flock of blackbirds, I didn’t notice this one flying in and out of the frame when I pressed the “shutter release.” Later, when I went to edit the shot (and crop square for Instagram), I just couldn’t resist my perfectionistic urge to move the bird exactly under the moon. I did that with the cloning tool in Photo Editor on my phone. All of the other tweaking (rotation, deepening of sky blue, extra contrast) was done with Snapseed.

I walked right past this man on one of my hikes around White Rock Lake. But then I turned and asked “May I take your photograph?” I couldn’t understand his response, but he seemed to be saying “Yes.” We soon discovered that both of us speak Spanish, and I learned that he is from Valladolid, Spain. He says that the cat really seems to enjoy riding in this carrier, and it doesn’t tire him at all to carry her that way.

Since my shadow was falling right between him and the bike, I walked back just a little on the path and took my photo from there. Below, you’ll see the original. Late afternoon sun casts such yellow light that I reduced the warmth in order to separate the colors a bit. It’s still too yellow, if you ask me, but you can only push color so far before it looks fake. As you’ll see from the original, the bicycle was positioned too far from the man for an effective square crop, so I did what I rarely ever do: cloned with Photoshop. That’s how I moved the bicycle closer to him. Can you see my error? Look closely at the left handle bar in the photo above. And now that I look more closely, I see another two other errors. Good thing nobody was paying me for this!

Original Photo:

[EDIT 1/31/2020]: I ran into Raul again today. This time he was without cat. We sat on a park bench by the lake about 20 or 30 minutes and talked about Spain (he returns in two weeks), the history of the Moorish conquest of Spain, work attitudes in Spain versus the U.S.A., and unemployment there. He says there’s 20% unemployment (50% among young people under 35, who end up living with their parents as a result). He attributes the lack of enthusiasm for working in Spain to low wages and the fact that everyone is paid the same. On the one hand, it sounds dreary ($1000/month average income), but then the simpler life there sounds attractive. Raul is mid-50s, and is already retired. He says that’s common. He was astonished when I told him I expect to do some work until I’m 70. I didn’t tell him that my Dad was doing heavy-duty theology and writing well into his 80s. More than once, Raul pointed to his watch, exemplifying how the Spanish worker watches the clock. He said many do that right up until they retire, and then — shortly after — they die. My Spanish may be attrocious, but I’m pretty sure it’s a relief to Raul to hear it, even if butchered by a Gringo.

When I encounter little plants like this on January 3, I am at once confused, concerned, and comforted.

A passing motorist politely stopped his car to avoid messing up this photo. When I gave him the “thumbs up,” he rolled down his window and said, “That’s gonna be a helluva shot!” He could tell that the light was pretty special.

Confession: I had waved the motorist on when I saw him stop, and was slightly annoyed at him. “What’s his problem? Does he think I’m casing his neighbor’s house? Is that why he’s just sitting there?” It was only when he rolled down the window and spoke with me as a fellow lover of the light that my jaded assumption was rebuked!

“The Big Stump” is actually named on Google Maps! It’s close to the Bath House (click the image below to see this ON Google Maps):

These two giants are between the parking lot and the creek where Rush Creek enters White Rock Lake.

[EDIT] See the sad update that I posted a month later: Grief Will Always Out.

I took some other photos of this house in November: CLICK TO VIEW

These friendly people call their home “Sunset House” for a very good reason. On one of the more glorious days in Dallas, they invited me to join them on the patio to share their spectacular view of the sunset over White Rock Lake.

I did this selfie using the bright lights illuminating the Bath House. The Google Pixel 3a gave me a version of the shot with softened background.

Thanks, Jon and Erica, for letting me take this photo!

See another photograph of Clematis, showing the flower and an earlier stage of going to seed.

Here’s what my friend Jon wrote when I posted the photo on Instagram: “One spring evening in 1989, I sat on the wall in front of that home with Chris and asked her to marry me. Hard to believe it was 30 years ago.” So, I went back and reshot the house WITH the retaining wall and posted it for Jon and Chris. This time, it was an overcast day, so the light is very different!

Although I often forget it, the most beautiful and magnificent of all I encounter at the lake is my fellow man.

Below is the original image. I’m putting it here to exemplify the sort of thing I often have to do in post-processing to make an image look right. In the original, the sky is much brighter than the subject, although my eyes adjusted to that when I was standing there. For this image to serve well, I had to darken the sky behind the subject, open shadow areas, and increase saturation just a little. That was all done with Snapseed on my Pixel phone.