The Holidays are here and we All Celebrate. Wishing you Peace and Happiness for the Holidays. My Jewish friends celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, for eight days and will light the 3rd candle in a special menorah today. My Christian friends celebrate Advent and Christmas from today, Christmas Eve Day, then the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day, December 25, 2019, followed by Epiphany, 12 days after Christmas. What a great time of the year! Check the link to how the World celebrates Christmas in different traditions and countries: https://www.whychristmas.com/cultures/

Thank you and the same to you, another beautiful photo. All the best. Milton (Dr. Milton Finegold)

Laszlo led his three-part Landscape Photography Workshop Part 2 at Brazos Bend State Park, Texas from 2 PM to 6 PM on December 14, 2019. During Part 1 at the Houston Center for Photography (HCP), Laszlo discussed with the participants: Landscape Photography -, camera -, lens -, tripod basics and f-stop/shutter speed relationship to bokeh, depth of field and motion blur. During Part 2, field trip to the trails of Brazos Bend State Park, we walked and photographed nature’s beauty along the North side of 40 Acre Lake, Spillway to Elm Lake, then on the East side of 40 Acre Lake. We talked about visualization, composition, isolation and the participants learned from Laszlo’s vision as part of the image-making process. The weather was great and we had a good time photographing together. Part 3, discussion and critique meeting will be at HCP on December 19, from 6 PM to 9 PM. I am sure all of us had a good time and made good images. Enjoy a few of mine.

Laszlo of Naturalperl fine art photography, as Volunteer Emeritus at Brazos Bend State Park, led his free photography hike for “Landscape” on December 7, 2019, from 3 PM to 6 PM. Our group met at the Nature Center, then after Laszlo’s introductory talk about composition and the art of seeing, we slowly walked on the Pilant Slough trail to Elm Lake, then at the east side of Elm Lake back to the Nature Center.

Enjoy a few of my images:

Award winning professional photographer Michael Hart juried and critiqued the Houston Photographic Society’s Print competition in November 2019. My wife Lexi received 2nd Place with her “Window Reflections” image in the Color Gold category. My “Long shadows” image received 1st Place and my “Swamp Forest Dream” image received 2nd Place in the Color Platinum Category. Enjoy these images.

During one of our New York City sightseeing walks, we walked on the main and side streets and found interesting the multiple reflections of the high risers’ huge windows. I wanted to show the location and the function of the buildings.

We hiked deep into the wind-combed gypsum sand dunes at White Sands National Park, looking for something simple, quiet, and only Nature-touched areas. I found interesting these water waves-like formations contrasting with the long shadows of the grass. I just relaxed when I clicked the shutter and made my carefully composed photograph. This color image was the reference shot of my black and white photograph on a large format 4×5 film.

Looked for birds on my “Through the Lens” photography hike at Brazos Bend State Park, TX,  when I found this quiet and peaceful spot of the Pilant Slough, near Elm Lake. I liked the bluish shadows of the Spanish moss and lichen-covered trees in the foreground, but I found even more interesting the Fall colored leaves on the trees behind them. I used a telephoto lens to compress the distance and an f8 aperture to make the leaves sharp but isolated from the foreground.