Deer Dodging in the Gap...

This weekend was the eighth annual Buffalo Gap Food and Wine Summit. And, even though I'm not a wine drinker, this is a really cool event. They always bring in some pretty big name chefs who make some amazing food. Last year I was out there most of the day on Saturday, this year, I covered the Friday night dinner too. While all of the events are pretty spectacular, this one is really cool. It is a six course dinner for a couple hundred people. I ended up hanging out in the "kitchen" with the chefs. And, by kitchen it was a horse trailer (it was clean and really cool, didn't look like any horses had ever been in it, but at the same time it screamed west Texas) that was backed up to the big tent that was being used as the dining room. When the plating started of the dinner it was a really impressive sight to see all of the chefs working in unison to plate all the food quickly, uniformly on to a really pretty dish. I wish I could have stayed to see how all the other courses were done, but I had to get back to make deadline.

On Saturday, I had two different event to cover, the wine and cheese seminar in the afternoon and the Cowboys Cuisine & Cabernet dinner. The afternoon seminar was interesting, but since I don't drink wine, I wasn't really into how to pair it with different cheeses... though I am a big fan of cheese. The evening dinner is pretty much the signature event of the weekend. Lots of big name chefs from across Texas come in and do some really cool things and I have to say the whole event smells amazing!

When shooting food events like this I try to show the people enjoying the event. But, at something like this, the food is almost as big of a star of the show. So, I usually end up shooting a lot of detail shots too. Especially since most of the time the presentation of the food is just as good as it tastes and smells. Plus going around and shooting all of the food tables you learn some crazy things, like the Dude, Sweet Chocolate people who made a chocolate mousse with tobacco, kumquat marmalade and foie gras. I know, sounded weird to me too, but from hearing all the people raving about how good it is, they must have done something right.

So, how does the deer dodging in the title fit into this? Well, it has nothing to do with the event except when I was driving back from Buffalo Gap on Saturday night, cruising along at 70mph I look i the road and see two deer walking across the highway. There was no way I was going to be able to stop in time, plus I'm sure the car behind me would have ended up in my back seat had I slammed on the brakes anyway. One of the deer was on the shoulder and the one behind it was just across the center line in my lane. Basically, I only had one choice and that was go right between them... so that's what I did, hit the gas, swerved her to the right and split right between them it was tight, but I made it through, I'm just glad I have a small car, I doubt anything much bigger would have fit.

Spending the Night Staring at the Stars...

This was kind of a last-minute idea. While I was captioning the mud bog photos I was looking in the paper's calender trying to find the proper name of the event and ended up coming across the calender item about the star gazing party at Abilene State Park in Buffalo Gap. I had actually shot one of these parties when I first came to Abilene, but none since. In fact, it had been so long that the last one I shot was done on film. So, this was kind of cool, since now I had a camera that I was confident enough in to shoot with and could make some nice images. I got there a little before the sun had gone down to talk with the members of the Big Country Astronomy Club and get a few shots of them setting up. I kind of knew the shots I wanted for the main photo, something using a long exposure that showed the sky and all the stars.

As the sun started going down the crescent moon was just about to set people started to line up at the telescopes to see the moon, which with these really big telescopes made some beautiful visuals. Star parties are best when the sky is dark, so a new moon or a couple of days after with minimal moonlight are best, so the little bit of time with the moon was just sort of appeasing the folks before the sun totally set. However, it also made for a really nice photo since while I was standing there a dad was lifting up his little girl (above) to look through the telescope.

Now, if I wasn't that interested in the event I probably could have left then. However, the astrogeek in me wanted to see some stars and planets. I actually took astronomy in college and did really well until it got to the physics par, luckily I didn't have to do any physics here or measure the distances between galaxies. It was just looking through the telescopes and shooting photos. And, once it got really dark I pulled out my mini tripod and started shooting some long exposures. It was pretty late by this point and I'd shot quite a few others up to this point. The good thing though was a lot of the people were gone. And when I saw this kid sitting at the telescope for a few minutes I set my camera on the ground and shoot a few of him using thirty second exposures. It got me just what I was looking for, the kid in the foreground with a nice bright sky full of stars in the background (top), the person walking by with the red flashlight that made the red streak was just sort of a bonus.

Tour de Gap

The Tour de Gap is one of the few reasons I don't mind getting up at the crack of dawn. It's always a lot of fun and lets me shoot a sport that I only get to cover once maybe twice a year. Which is different from a lot of the sports I shoot. Because I can't have a "bad game" since I only get one shot, and then have to wait another year. Luckily, I get three plus hours to shoot the race which allows for plenty of shots, and multiple locations. This year's race had the same route as last year, so I was able to mentally recount some of the better (and worse) places to shoot from. So, while I got a few shots that looked a lot like last year's I was able to shoot of the others I thought I could work better again. I was happy with the results.

Tour de Gap...

There aren't many things I don't mind rolling out of bed before 10am for. The Tour de Gap is one of the few. What made it worse this year is I went out the night before and played poker with some friends (I finished fourth, the top 3 were in the money!). So, getting up is hard enough working on only 4 hours of sleep is only worse.

Well after downing some carbonated caffeine during the 20 minute drive to Buffalo Gap I was feeling a little more awake once I got there. I try to get there about 20-30 minutes before the races start in hopes of finding some riders doing some prep work. This year wasn't as fruitful as in years past, but there is always plenty to shoot during the race.

The course changes every year, this year the 70 mile course had a big loop and another smaller loop to make up the course. As usual I rode with the rides on the full course, at least during the first loop. After that I went and hung out at the finish line. I'm glad I did leave early though, that's when I found the shot of the sheriff's deputy directing traffic as the riders came into Buffalo Gap. It added something nice that I hadn't found .