jlbissette13's photostream

I can't believe Texas is one state. For one thing, it's huge. But more importantly, it really is (to me anyway) at least two distinct places. Eastern Texas was terrible. I have a video of crossing the bridge into Port Arthur, Texas, which is right on the border of Louisiana, and it looks like something out of a post-apocalyptic horror movie. There are industrial buildings everywhere, with smokestacks spewing smog non-stop. I got lost in Houston multiple times, and San Antonio definitely was not any better. But the moment I got to about Del Rio, everything changed. It very well could have been my imagination, but everything was just better. The people were nicer (except the Border Patrol, me and them had some issues), the scenery better, the weather was more comfortable, it was crazy. I guess there is no explaining it; west Texas is just amazing!

This is a picnic area beside the Pecos River in Texas. It's about 100, 20 second exposures stacked in photoshop. I think it was about a three-quarter moon this night. I didn't do any light painting, but there may have been a couple of lights around the picnic area (I don't think so though).

Here is a picture I took back in January. It's an old abandoned house in Silk Hope, NC (at the junction of 87 and Silk Hope-Gum Springs Road). I can't remember how many shots I used for the star trails, but I think it was somewhere around 60. The green was lit using a mag light with a green lens and the red door was lit using a red headlamp. The house is only about 15 or 20 feet from the road, and cars kept driving by and lighting it up with their headlights, so I had to scrap a lot of shots I took that night.

I haven't gotten my camera out of its bag for about two months now, but hopefully pretty soon I can get out and shoot some more pictures. I have a lot of shots I need to edit from my trip, so hopefully I'll start posting pretty regularly on here again. Anyway, I hope everyone's having a great day; thanks for stopping by!

I spilled a tiny amount water on my laptop awhile back and never could get it to turn back on. Just about all my pictures from my trip were on there, and I didn't have them backed-up anywhere. The stupid thing is I have about 2 TB of external hard drives, I just always forget to transfer everything to them. Well, I finally got around to taking the computer apart to see what was wrong, and couldn't find anything that looked messed up at all. But when I put it all back together, it worked perfectly! I have no idea what made it start working, but I sure am glad it did.

Anyway, this is the Coquille River Lighthouse in Bullards Beach State Park, outside of Bandon, Oregon. I loved it!

I just got back to North Carolina, and I have to say, I'm glad to be home. I had a blast, but sleeping in the back of a pickup gets old after 3 months. One thing happened on the trip that I wasn't planning on. For some reason while I was in Socorro, New Mexico I had the sudden urge to get a puppy. So I drove to the animal shelter and picked one out and adopted her. She is insanely awesome! She's just a mutt, but I think she's got some Australian Cattle Dog and some Pit Bull in her. Needless to say, after I got her my time spent taking photographs dropped dramatically.

Anyway, this is the beach in Yachats, Oregon. I spent a week in Yachats and I absolutely loved it! It had a great small town feel, and the coast here was incredible. The only problem was that it rained everyday I was there except for the day I left. But oh well, at least there wasn't crazy tornadoes like there was back home!

I stopped by White Sands National Monument in New Mexico the other day for the sunset. I had actually made up my mind to skip White Sands, but the forest service road in the Lincoln National Forest I was planning on camping on decided to hide from me. I just couldn't find it. Why do they put the road numbers on the Motor Vehicle Use Maps, but put the names of the roads on all the signs? It's enough to drive you crazy. I ended up saying forget it and just driving on to Alamogordo, which is right beside White Sands National Monument.

Anyway, I ended up going to White Sands, and it was phenomenal! It wasn't crowded, it didn't have a bunch of concrete walkways everywhere, and you could just strike out across the dunes wherever you felt like it. I loved it! And the sunset that evening was beautiful! It looked like the clouds were going to be too thick for a good light show, but right at the last minute the clouds parted and the sky exploded!