Rick Budde      
 
     
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Best Photos of 2012 
Posted: December 31 
 
These photos represent my choice of the best photos I have taken this year. 
 

 
 
 
St. Louis Zoo 
Posted: December 03 
 
I was itching to get out with my camera as the weather is really nice for this time of the year... 70's today. I decided to go to the Forest Park Zoo after meeting a friend for lunch in The Loop. 
 

 
 
 
Chicago 
Posted: November 11 
 
I was in Chicago over the weekend following my Lady Bears volleyball team as they competed in the NCAA Regional tournament.

While in the Chicago area, I wanted to drive into the city for some photography. "The Bean" is located in Millennium Park. It is a large stainless steel artwork shaped like a bean. It reflects the shapes of the various buildings and their surroundings... in this case people.

The weather was overcast and it was drizzling the whole time I was there but it was still an interesting sight to see.  
 

 
 
 
UAA Championship - Emory University
Posted: November 02 
 
This weekend was the UAA Conference tournament hosted by Emory University. The Lady Bears wound up losing to Emory, 3-1, in the championship match. 
 

 
 
 
Senior Weekend 
Posted: October 27 
 
This weekend was Senior weekend for the Lady Bears and our last home matches of the regular season.  
 

 
 
 
Shaw Nature Reserve 
Posted: October 24
 
This was my first ever visit to the Shaw Nature Reserve. Unfortunately the fall colors were mostly past prime, but this is a place I will definitely visit next Fall. The colors in the photo above are not too shabby. 
 

 
 
 
Forest Park 
Posted: October 23 
 
Since Fall colors are about at their peak, I decided to visit Forest Park this afternoon. 
 

 
 
 
Saturday Photo Trip to Augusta Missouri 
Posted: October 20 
 
I decided to take a drive to Augusta MO in the hopes of catching Fall colors at their peak. The leaves were pretty close to peak and I had a good day.

I went to the Montelle Winery where there were lots of folks enjoying the wonderful weather, the Fall colors, a great band and, of course, a glass or two of wine. Oh goody. I get to take photos of pretty women.

After the winery, I drove around the area looking for some other photo ops. I was able to get both landscape and detail photos of Fall. I missed on my attempt at some old buildings as I was shooting into the sun when the sun was too high in the sky.

I moved on to the Busch Wildlife Area, drove the loop road and stopped at a number of the lakes. The above photo was taken about one hour before sunset. I post processed this in Lightroom 4.2 using some presets from Matt Kloskowski.

All in all a good day of photography! 
 

 
 
 
Smokies Trip 
Posted: October 14 
 
Just returned from an excellent photo adventure to Great Smoky Mountain National Park with my good friend, Mike Margulus. The Fall colors were not as far along as we had hoped but we got some good shots. 
 

 
 
 
Georgetown Kentucky 
Posted: October 07 
 
On the way to the Smokies, we saw a sign promoting a visit to Georgetown, KY. We decided to try it out. We found this old house and worked it for some photos. 
 

 
 
 
St. Louis Zoo 
Posted: September 28 
 
I visited the Forest Park Zoo today with my Canon 1-Dx camera and my 500 mm f/4 lens to see how that combination would work together. I absolutely love what that lens can do. It captures colors perfectly and it has great bokeh. LOVE that bokeh. 
 

 
 
 
St. Louis Zoo 
Posted: September 23 
 
I visited the Forest Park Zoo today with my Canon 1-Dx camera and my 70-200 mm f/2.8 lens with the 1.4x TC. This is a great lens combination as a walk-around. I use it for most of my people photos

Pictured here is a Red Panda. He/she is a relatively new arrival at our Zoo. It is not out very often but well worth it when it is. This is a 16% crop (i.e., I cropped 16% of the photo leaving 84%) from the original photo.

The new Sea Lion facility, Sea Lion Sound, is just fantastic. You can actually walk under the pool and see the seals swim by you. Neat stuff! 
 

 
 
 
St. Louis Zoo 
Posted: September 18 
 
Visited the St. Louis Zoo today. Nice weather. 
 

 
 
 
New Camera 
Posted: September 07 
 
This morning I invested in a new camera. I purchased the Canon 1-Dx at Schiller's Camera in St. Louis. This is Canon's new top-of-the-line sports camera. 
 

 
 
 
South Fork Teton Canyon 
Posted: September 03 
 
Hiked the South Fork of Teton Canyon, my favorite hike on the Idaho side of the mountains. The leaves were starting to change colors. 
 

 
 
 
Granite Canyon 
Posted: September 01 
 
This was one of my last photo outings of the summer. My visitors were Rick & Dawn Scheussler along with Ray Schulz.

This canyon is not a popular canyon mainly because it is pretty far from the normal tourist areas but I find it to be a particularly pretty canyon. There is also a nice waterfall and a hot springs fed swimming pool to be found.
 
 

 
 
 
Last Music on Main 
Posted: August 16 
 
This photo was taken at the last Music on Main concert of the summer. Music on Main once again had some great music. It also afforded the opportunity to take a good many photos of people... one of my very favorite things to do.

It has gotten to the point where kids come up to me and want me to take their picture. 
 

The band that performed was Young Dubliners.
 

 
 
 
Schwabacher Landing 
Posted: August 14 
 
This photo was taken at Schwabacher Landing. I was there with my good friends Larry & Karen Kotner with whom I went to high school a few years back.

We had been taking landscape photos including the mountains and the sky in our compositions. It was very hazy due to the many western forest fires and we did not seem to be having much luck. We decided to switch to taking flower photos. I happened across a patch of thistle and caught this shot.

By the way, we wound up deleting the landscape photos from that day because, even after some post processing, we were not able to salvage the shots. 
 

 
 
 
Bluegrass Festival 
Posted: August 13
 
Attended the Bluegrass festival at Grand Targhee over the weekend. Great music. Great folks. Lots of fun. Pictured above is my friend from high school days Larry Kotner. He and his wife Karen were visiting.

Some of the notable performers were:

Leftover Salmon, Donna & the Buffalo, Del McCoury Band, Dave Grisman and Infamous Stringdusters.
 
 

 
 
 
Music on Main 
Posted: August 09 
 
Always enjoy Music on Main. My visitors the Quirks (Mike, Judy, Jim and Jacque) joined me for the social outing. 

The band that performed was Carrie Rodriguez.
 

 
 
 
Signal Mountain Lodge 
Posted: August 08
 
My friends the Quirks were visiting. Friends of theirs (and mine) Meryl  & Barb were camping at Colter Bay. After taking Meryl & Barb for a Grand Teton National Park tour, we all decided to have dinner at Signal Mountain Lodge. 
 

 
 
 
Raptors on the Ranch 
Posted: August 04 
This was the first year of this event. I was asked by my good friend Emily Nichols to come take photos. She used the photos I took last year in their promotional and communications literature. 
 

 
 
 
Red Hills 
Posted: July 20 
 
My guests for this hike were Bruce & Betsy Canaga. Bruce has visited 14 of the 16 summers I have had my place in Driggs. We took a hike in the Red Hills east of Grand Teton National Park.

The hills were so red. The clouds were so white and the sky was so blue. Let's call it: Red, White and Blue. Sorry, I couldn't resist that.

As you can tell from the photo above, I got some great photos today. Here is an article written by Mike Jackson about this area. 
 

 
 
 
Targhee Fest 
Posted: July 15 
 
This year's Targhee Fest was great as usual. Great music. Great weather. Lots of folks having fun. 
 

 
 
 
Blue Columbine 
Posted: July 08 
 
I decided to hike into the South Fork of Teton Canyon in search of Columbine photos as they were probably about at their peak. I found lots of flowers. With the Blue Columbine being my favorite, I wanted to try some different approaches to photographing this beautiful flower. 
 

 
 
 
Music on Main 
Posted: June 28 
 
The first of eight Music on Main concerts was held tonight. The band that performed was Blitzen Trapper.

The highlight of the evening for me was meeting actress Daniela Ruah from the TV program "NCIS: Los Angeles". The sun was going down rapidly as I noticed this extremely attractive young lady walk by me. I thought to myself that she sure looked like Daniela. As I don't mind speaking to strangers, I thought I would check this out.

My "hook" to start a conversation was that a number of years before I had seen the actor Eric Christian Olsen, her partner on the show, at Music on Main with his girlfriend actress Sarah Wright. Well it turns out that the reason Daniela was in Teton Valley was to attend Eric & Sarah's wedding the previous weekend. In fact Daniela was there that night with Eric's parents and she introduced me to them. It seems that Eric's parents bought an old barn in 2007 which they had converted to living space.
 
 

 
 
 
Bear Lake 
Posted: June 23 
 
I was originally planning a photo outing to the Grays Lake Wildlife Refuge but I missed a turn. As I have been wanting to take a day trip to the Bear Lake area at the border of Idaho and Utah and I was almost there when I discovered I missed my turn... what the hell.

There is a
Bear Lake Wildlife Refuge and wetlands where I wound up taking photos. I got a few usable photos but I would not say the area was worthy of another visit.  
 

 
 
 
Raptor Center 
Posted: June 17 
 
Each Father's Day, Teton Raptor Center in Wilson WY hosts an open house. I discovered this last year and now this is on my annual calendar. They have a number of raptors out in the open (tethered, of course) where folks can view them. The handlers will also hold the birds as folks gather around for a closer view.

At some point, a handler will let a bird fly away and then return on command. Pretty cool!

Pictured above is a Golden Eagle
 
 

 
 
 
Schwabacher Landing 
Posted: June 06
 
Steve & Kathy Odenwald and I took a day to go over to Grand Teton National Park. Of course, we had to visit Schwabacher Landing. Lovely as always.

This photo is of the beaver dam with the snow covered peaks in the background. 
 
 

 
 
 
Sand Dunes - St. Anthony Idaho 
Posted: June 03 
 
I had always wanted to visit the St. Anthony Sand Dunes only about 45 miles from Driggs. We decided on a "down day" from hiking, so Steve, Kathy and I decided that today was the day. Nice area with some nice photo ops. I plan to return someday.  
 

 
 
 
Trip West 
Posted: May 30 
 
I drove out West with Steve Odenwald. This photo is of Crowheart Butte located just southeast of Dubois WY along Highway 287. This highway offers some very nice landscapes.  
 

 
 
 
Compton Heights 
Posted: May 23
 
I can't believe I had never visited this old St. Louis neighborhood. It has some wonderful homes with this probably being the most impressive.

I checked out the Compton Heights web site. I can't believe that they hosted a neighborhood open house just the weekend before and this house was on the tour.

I marked my calendar for next year on the assumption that they host a tour each spring.
 
 
About Compton Heights

 
 
 
St. Louis Zoo 
Posted: May 13
 
I went for a Zoo outing today. I was set up with my Canon 500mm to take photos of the chimps (see below) when an Amish family arrived at my location. This young lady was an interesting subject so I had to get a quick snap of her (paparazzi-style). Believe me.  It is hard to be sneaky with a 500 mm lens!  
 

 
 
 
Missouri Botanical Garden 
Posted: May 05 
 
Went for a photo outing to the Missouri Botanical Garden with my good friend Brian Luenemann The flowers were, as usual, very nice.

I took this photo and several others at the same time. This one came out with this weird effect. I have no idea what caused this effect. If you have any clues, let me know. I would like to be able to reproduce this effect.   
 

 
 
 
Forest Park 
Posted: March 16 
 
Went to Forest Park on a photo shoot with Mike Margulus. Very early Spring to say the least.   
 

 
 
 
Navarre Beach Florida
Posted: January 31 
 
My good friends Dave & Tonya Ferguson invited me to join them at Navarre Beach (near Pensacola) where they spend their winter months. I don't know if you have ever visited the Florida panhandle but it has some of the prettiest sand I have ever seen. 
 

Previous / Next 
 

  candid's of people

 
Bluegrass Festival

  Music on Main

  Raptor Fest
  
  Special events

  Targhee Fest

 
My Approach to candids


TETONS/Yellowstone

  Grand Teton NP

  Swabacher Landing

  Yellowstone NP


STATES

  Colorado

 
Idaho


 
Michigan

 
Missouri

 
Utah


  Wyoming

  Other states


OTHER


  Astrophotography

  Botanical Gardens

  Fireworks


  St. Louis Zoo


FEATURED POSTS


 
Hanksville Utah

  Fall in the Tetons


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