White lightning

Hey, it's all fake, but fun. I was just playing around with Photoshop following some tutorials. The sky started out as a real cloud shot, but the white lightning is pure fantasy.

--steve buser

Lighting, photoshop, weather

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Rain high

It's fun to watch the rain sweep across the city and the sky go dark during the day, from the relative safety of a high skyscraper towering over the Central Business District of New Orleans.
--steve buser

New Orleans, downtown, rain

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Hope your day is a French Quarter Day

Another fun day in the French Quarter, nuff said.
--steve buser

French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana

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Cultural climb

At the corner of the Plaza D'Italia in the warehouse district of New Orleans, a shear wall and neatly restored bluish building serve as foothills for the Harrah's Hotel mountain a block away.
--steve buser

Plaza D'Italia, New Orleans, Louisiana

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Starry plaza

From high above, this is the plaza on the Canal Street side of Harrah's Casino. That isn't a statue in the middle --it's someone walking slowly across. Notice the shadows are stretching out across Canal Street and toward the French Quarter as the evening tones down the colors.

Canal Street, in early times was to have a canal running down it to connect Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River. But, it ended up being a just a wide median. Or, in New Orleans parlance a "neutral ground." Actually,one could say it was THE "neutral ground." It separated the French Quarter from the cultures on the opposite side and acted as a natural and neutral barrier.
--steve buser

Harrahs Casino, New Orleans, Louisiana

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Something new, something old, something lives on

One of the amazing things about downtown New Orleans is the juxtaposition of the new and old. I guess that is pretty common in most cities. But it really seems to fit here. Old buildings are hollowed out and refit with modern comforts, but they keep the same old faces pointed outward. New building spring from empty lots or where old buildings have lost the will to keep living. And together, they make a old city live on.
--steve buser

downtown, New Orleans, Louisiana

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Come on, let me see you shake your tail feathers

If you're hanging around in the water all day, sometimes it feels good to just get out and giver your feathers a good body shake.
--steve buser

NewOrleans, Duck, feathersPowered by ScribeFire.

Straighten them up so you can fly right.

If you're going to fly, you better have wings. That means you better have your feathers on those wings all line up and pruned well.

It may look like these Ibis at Lafreniere Park in Metairie, just outside of New Orleans, are picking for insects, but more likely they are just straightening their feathers -- not the one on the right, picking up a crop of feathers and laying them back right.
--steve buser

Ibis, Lafreniere Park, Metairie, Louisiana

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Take a walk on the Park walk

This was the group setting up for the start and finish line for a charity walk a year or so ago at Audubon Park. I love this little pavilion that looks out over a grove of ancient oak trees. Or, you can look out the back of the pavilion to a the lagoon at circles in the center of the urban park.
--steve buser

Audubon Park, New Orleans

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Sharing dreams

This is what happens when you visit Papa and Nanny's house. They have a grown a little since I shot this picture, but the results are still the same -- a kid has a limited amount of energy (I know this is hard to believe but it is true.) Even New Orleans can't keep a kid awake for ever.
--steve buser

kids, sleep, New Orleans, Louisiana

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I'm walking in New Orleans

There's a more residential side to the French Quarter in New Orleans. It's not all just tourist shops, bars and restaurants. There are a significant number of houses, condos and apartments. It's a pretty exciting life -- you're able to catch a lot of festivals and fun and just walk home.
--steve buser

French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana, festivals, music

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I don't like the looks of him

Hey, I agree with you. Totally. You're right. I shouldn't even expect you to be here still.

But, just hear me out okay? Please?

I do agree with you.

I agree that I have posted too many of these creatures lately. I know it can get boring to see the same old dragonflies just sitting there posing.

But I only show you this one to ask you this question -- Is this guy making fun of me?

Seriously, is he?

Because if he is I will walk back over there and beat the bushes, every last one of them until I find him and all his brother and alll. and I will... Okay. Okay. Let me go.

Okay, I'm okay, I'm settled down. I just don't like his ilk making fun of me. I'm sensitive about that kind of thing.
I'm okay. I'm sure. He's probably dead by now anyway. Lockjaw, I hope.
--steve buser

Dragonfly, New Orleans, Louisiana

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Pirated space

It is only a block long. But, if bricks could talk. Pirates Alley, in the middle of the French Quarter by St.Louis Cathedral. Pirate's Alley next to the Church? New Orleans.
--steve buser

Pirate's Alley, New Orleans, Louisiana, French Quarter

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Concrete defense in City Park

There were a few ducks, geese and a Great White Heron wandering around when I shot this photo of the Hellenic pavillion at City Park. None seemed to present threats that would require a lion for protection.

I suppose that the lion is this there to defend, concretely, the ideas, presentation and themes that come alive in this lagoon-side facility.
--steve buser

City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana

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Shadowing stranger -- Yellow-crowned Night Heron

A young Yellow-Crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax violaceus) stops to check me out, as I wandered up on his dark shadowing nook of the lagoon in City Park, New Orleans. I think he was more after the shade than trying to find good eats.
--steve buser

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron, birds, New Orleans, City Park

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Fishy followers

Walking along the shore of a small pond at the hospital in Mandeville yesterday, I noticed a school of these small fish following me.  When I stopped they would line up along the shore a couple feet out.  

When I moved -- sat down, or got up -- it didn't phase them.   When I threw a piece of grass or a leaf into the water, they thrashed toward it.  They had obvious become used to being fed from the shore.  But when a car door slammed about 50 feet away, they were spooked.  Though it only took them about 20 seconds to get up enough nerved to return.

Several hours later when a violent thunderstorm filled the pond quickly and was bending trees to the ground with its windy strength, I was thinking about how their thoughts were running
--steve buser

Mandeville, Louisiana, weather, fish

That magic moment

One morning at the lakefront, a blue heron soared by adding magic to the moment.
--steve buser

Lake Pontchartrain, Blue Heron, birds, New Orleans