Tag Archives: Dorothy Mladenka

Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde

by dorothy mladenka

  •  All my images this round were taken with my trusty Don Loppified sputnik. Don has done a great job of tuning up the spud. Thank you Don!!! We traveled to Utah & Colorado in September 2011. I wanted to restrict my weight and to have both the spud and the realist in one camera bag. So the TL120 didn’t make it in. I used Kodak film, normally it was the 100vs or 100gx. I hand held the camera (tripod didn’t make it in either) and shot f/22 at 50 shutter speed. Light is natural.  We had extremely great weather, sunny & blue skies. To minimize light leakage I taped up the spud really good using black photographers tape. It is reusable and does not leave the sticky residue that electrical tape tends to do.

This was shot at Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, Colorado.

Days Gone by in Texas

by dorothy mladenka

This was taken with the TL 120 south of San Antonio during the 2010 wildflower trek. Just two old cars waiting to be photographed for the umteenth time. What you don’t see is me literally hanging over the fence trying to get as close to the cars as possible. That is when I wish I had zoom lenses!  Too many Texans have shotguns that they aren’t afraid to use when you trespass. Oh wait, that was in Virginia when a guy came out with his shotgun because I was on his property :), long time ago and another story………

Prince Edward Island shoreline

by dorothy mladenka

Shot hand held with the sputnik using available light. Seems they have the same kind of sky conditions that we have in Texas 🙂

I wanted a different kind of mount so I got out my scrapbooking/card making stuff and cut the mount. I would like to know what you think of it.  To mount I simply put the mask on the spicer jig I use and taped the chips to the black mask. Then inserted the mask into the frame.

Texas wildflowers 2010 part deux

by dorothy mladenka

The year 2010 in  Texas had the best display of wildflowers I have ever seen. Unlike this year (2011) which produced virtually no wildflowers due to the severe drought which we are still experiencing along with triple digit daily temps.

This image was taken near Poteet which is south of San Antonio on some little country road. I realize the sky detracts from the image but there isn’t much I can do about that except to crop it out but I wanted the old rusty chair and the house to be included. This was shot with the TL 120, hand held.

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church

by dorothy mladenka


Some people say the interior of the Ammansville painted church is the color of cotton candy. Others say it is the color of Pepto-Bismol. Any way you look at it, the church is a pale, rosy pink. Legend has it that an unknown itinerant artist painted the walls of Saint John. Upon completion of the work, he vanished, never to be seen again.

The present Saint John’s is the third church to be built on the property. The first church was destroyed by a hurricane in 1909. The second church burned to the ground eight years after the first one was destroyed by a hurricane. A person recalled in a phone interview working in the fields and seeing the black smoke come up from the direction of the church. Everyone dropped their farm equipment and raced to the church. Folks were able to save some of the statues, but the rest of the building was lost to the fire, which was so hot even the church bells melted. With two churches destroyed in such a short time, one would think the community of Ammansville would have given up. Yet, they began the process of planning and rebuilding almost immediately after the fire. The third church was completed in 1919.

Presidio County Courthouse, Marfa, Texas

by dorothy mladenka

This is the original courthouse in Presidio County, Texas built in 1886. It was restored a few years back. Too bad I couldn’t have people in it as it would be more interesting, like a cop taking in a suspect. But this was early on a Sunday morning. I used the TL120. Settings are rarely remembered. Marfa is the town where the movie “Giant” was filmed. Also, it is well known for the Marfa lights, a nighttime phenomena that we didn’t get to witness.

Dorothy Mladenka

by dorothy mladenka
  • Old City Cemetery – Columbia, Texas
    Taken with a TL120-1
  • My Old House!
    Canada, B&W Reversal, Taken with a Sputnik
  • Rocky Mountain National Park Bull Elk
    2009 with a Sputnik
  • Waterfall in Idahoe Springs
    Colorado, July 2009, Shot with a Sputnik

Terlingua, Texas ghost town

by dorothy mladenka

terlinguaDescription   Taken with the TL-120 on a tripod.

 

About the Image   This image was taken through the window of the old school. In the distance is the Catholic Church that still has services once a month. It is called a ghost town but there are people living there and every year they host a famous chili cookoff. Historic Terlingua, in Texas’ Big Bend region is located between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park. Once an abandoned mining village, the ghost town is now the center of a charming desert community. The discovery of cinnabar, from which the metal mercury is extracted, in the mid-1880s brought miners to the area, creating a city of 2,000 people. The only remnants of the mining days are a ghost town of the Howard Perry-owned Chisos Mining Company and several nearby capped and abandoned mines, most notably the California Hill, the Rainbow, the 248 and the Study Butte mines. The mineral terlinguaite was first found in the vicinity of California Hill. Hence the name of the city.

Purple Prickly Pear Cactus

by dorothy mladenka

cactusDescription   Taken on a tripod with the TL 120.

 

About the Image   This image was taken in Big Bend National Park in Texas close to the Mexico border. It was the first time I had ever seen purple cactus! The Purple Prickly Pear Cactus is a member of the Opuntia genus. It can grow to 5 feet in height and has round to oblong purple tinged pads which give the cactus its name. Unlike many other types of prickly pear, the purple variety has few if any spines. The cactus grows in sandy or gravelly soil at elevations below 4000 feet.

Saints Cyril and Methodius Church

by dorothy mladenka

churchDescription Taken on a tripod with the TL 120. These painted churches are in small towns about 1-1 1/2 hour drive from my house. They are quaint and pretty. For this image I had to stick my tripod through a gated partition as you are not allowed inside this particular church. My TL 120 just barely fit through the gate and composing was not easy as I could not see through the viewfinder. The churches still hold services weekly.

About the Image Inside, each is decorated in a profusion of color, with nearly every surface covered in bright paint. German and Czechs immigrants fleeing the Austrian Empire celebrated religious freedom found here in Texas by decorating humble Texas churches with gaudy and glorious interiors. Most of today’s remaining painted churches are second or third church buildings, some destroyed by fire, others, by hurricanes. Of the some 20 painted churches in Texas, 15 are listed on the National Register of historic sites. Saints Cyril and Methodius Church in Dubina, Texas: This sweet little painted church is pretty in pink, with delicate stencils throughout. The banister and newel details are painted faux-finished marble.

Sixth floor museum Dealy Plaza Dallas

by dorothy mladenka

dallas

This was taken with the Don Lopp tuned up sputnik. Shot on 1-3-09. The colors look off to me, too much magenta. The depository is  the left hand building. The 6th floor window is one floor below the top of the structure. The window that Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot from is the square shape window to the right of the row of arched windows.

http://www.jfk.org/

Constructed in 1901, the red brick building on the corner of Houston and Elm streets was known as the Texas School Book Depository at the time of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The private firm stocked and distributed textbooks for public schools in north Texas and parts of Oklahoma.

Following the Kennedy assassination, the building became the focus of shock, grief and outrage. Evidence was found showing that shots were fired from the sixth floor, and Depository employee Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the president’s murder.