Short of shore

The tide has made getting to the dock a little harder. A couple of sea gulls reconnoiter the situation. Perhaps, the shallow water between the pier and the land gives them a good feeding ground. The scene is a couple months back in St. Bernard Parish at Bayou Bienvenue -- just down river from New Orleans.

I had a little digital darkroom fun with this one (again, click on the image to enlarge it to get the full effect) --first I auto white balanced the shot which made it brighter. I then used the auto color enhance in Gimp to give the colors more zip.

Lastly I ran it through the Cartoon2 filter I downloaded into Gimp's Script-Fu/photo effects scripts. The Cartoon2 filter gives you two sliders -- smoothness ( I toned this way down to a 2) and colors (I bumped this way up to 24).

Before I did all that I cropped the original image way down to get it to the focus of the shot. Here's the original image:

-- steve buser

Butterflied shrimp

Butterfly nets
Another shrimp boat from the Bayou Bienvenue area, out east of New Orleans. Note the nets hanging high on either side of the boat. Those are butterfly nets. They hang out and down just below the surface of the water. The purpose is to catch shrimp swimming along the surface, usually with the help of a out-going tide.

That's opposed to the other kind of nets which drag along the bottom of the lakes, scooping up the delicacies.

In 2006, Louisiana shrimp landings totaled 135 million pounds (heads-off weight) and were valued at $144.8 million dockside.

--steve buser

Lagniappe

Today on Pixel Eyed I'm in "High Cotton"

So, I looked around the Daily City Photo pages and came up with these photos that seemed to capture that "high cotton" feeling.

Detroit Marathon: And the Winner Is... -- St. Louis Daily Photo
Did you notice? -- Sydney Daily Photo
Man and his dog. -- Selma Daily Photo

Bayou Bienvenue

This slip flows out into the Bayou Bienvenue area in St. Bernard Parish -- east of New Olreans. You can see the shrimp boat in the center with its net up. The area of swamps, marshes and shallow lakes outside the levee system is an abundant source of shrimp and seafood.

This area along Paris Road also has an assortment of small boat repair yards. Note the house far out in the distance. It's either well built to have survived Hurricane Katrina, or its a new house.

-- steve buser

Other boating scenes on City Daily Photo Blogs today:

Berowa Waters Car Ferry -- Sydney Daily Photo
Guess Who Was Happy -- Joensuu Daily Photo
Reflection -- San Diego Daily Photo
View From My Window -- Rabaul Daily Photo
West Pier Brighton Photo -- Brighton Daily Photo