Brenham Bluebonnet Photoshoot

Sometimes you get handed a really crappy day.

It started with going to bed at 2am and getting up at 4am to meet the Northwest Houston Camera Club at the Chappell Hill Sausage Company at 8:30am. That is not too unusual. I often find it impossible to go to sleep when I know I have to get up early the next morning. I had set the alarm for 5am but when Janet got up at four I knew there wasn't any need to go back to bed for less than an hour.

Outside of the short night everything went extremely well until about a half hour or so into breakfast when Janet decided that the activities did not meet with her approval and that the day was over. From then on it pretty much was. She decided to exit the Sausage Company on her own.

We drove into Brenham for a bathroom stop and then drove out to Hussman Road, I thought to meet the rest of the club. After hanging around for a half hour or so I decided to check out some cemeteries in the area since I'm not much of a bluebonnet shooter and with my torn rotator cuff I find it very difficult to get down for low shots, difficult to get down, impossible to get up. My knees have been shot for years but I have always been able to rely on my arm to fill the gap. Not any more. My plan had been to photograph photographers.

The cemeteries was pretty unexciting. I thought that Washington County would be prime territory but on about the twelfth one I called it quits with considerable help from Janet. She was already unhappy with me for not heading home when she wanted so while I was out shooting the cemetery she decided, I guess, to walk home. She got as far as the back of the car and as you might expect ended up on the ground. Fortunately it was at the only well kept cemetery that we visited because there was no one around and I could not get her up. Then an elderly couple drove up to tend the family grave and between the three of us old folks, with difficulty, we finally got her in the car. I am not sure what I would have done if they had not arrived, although, Scarlet, I entertained the idea of leaving her there. You know, it works for dogs and cats, why not for cantankerous old women? Okay, not really but at that point I was pretty frustrated.

We decided to drive into Brenham to eat and then head to Houston. In Brenham she decided she wasn't hungry. With several resent examples of her refusing to eat after we got into the restaurant and ordered I decided not to waste the money. At Hempstead she decided that we could eat. Well, she decided that we could eat until we got into town. Again headed for Houston.

Then she decided that she was not going to wear her seat belt. After stopping at least ten times, some in some pretty precarious spots to rebuckle her I ended up holding the seat belt latch where she couldn't release it. That did not make her happy. Coming into Houston, I was driving with my arm with the torn rotator cuff, somewhat painful, holding on to the seat belt, fighting her off from trying to either get to the latch or slip the seatbelt over her head and trying to drive in very heavy traffic. I could not wait to get home.

I had left for a photoshoot without the one piece of equipment that is absolutely essential, my Hoodman Loupe. Without it I cannot see the LCD during daylight. So, needless to say, even though I did not take many photographs, those that I did take were pretty pathetic. I got maybe six keepers, well keepers from the standpoint that I hated to delete all of them. And even those required a lot of post processing to qualify.

So right now I am in a blue funk. What I had hoped would be a fun day of being in the country turned out to be anything but a fun day. I am just glad we got separated from the rest of the club so that we did not ruin their day also.