Gund Barton Creek Bear Pia Flower Fairy Giveaway

Head on over to the blog at Jovialstores to enter this great contest.

The winner will receive this great Pia flower fairy bear.

Pia Flower Fairy Bear from the Gund Barton Creek Collection

Artist Designed by Kelly Mayer. This is Pia Limited Edition. Starry-eyed lil' girl! She is a sparkly cream bear with fairy wings. Over height is 6" Standing. She is hand crafted. Fully disc jointed. French embroidery Thread. Suede paw pads. Simulated Mohair. Filled with pellets. Sits on a silk flower.




There are many great designs in the Barton Creek range which is now discontinued. All are limited edition artist designed bears and we are selling the last few at heavily discounted prices. These designs are aimed at Adult collectors so are Age 12 plus.

Jovialstores also has a large range of Gund designs and plush for children and babies. As well as carrying the full line of Jellycat, Folkmanis and many other designs.

To enter go HERE

African Safari. Texas Style.

Haven't posted in a while, largely because there hasn't been many trips.

A few weeks back, we took the kids on a day trip to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, which bills itself as "African Safari. Texas Style", so we were half expecting the animals to wear cowboy hats or something equally horrific. Fortunately they weren't.

There is nothing like an getting an early start, and this was nothing like it. Despite only being an hour away, we got there early afternoon, with three extremely excited kids. A quick stop at the restrooms, and we set off for the first loop round the park, She Who Must Be Obeyed driving, me armed with assorted cameras and lenses, and the kids hanging out the window.



I took a 200-400mm zoom lens to try and get some decent shots of the animals, which turned out to be absolutely useless when the animals like sticking their heads in your car.



Also learnt that Zebras smell like sweaty horses, surprisingly enough.

First animals we came across were a herd of assorted deer, with a few buffalo and goats thrown in. Didn't have a video camera with me, but watching a buffalo toss a goat out of the way with a flick of its neck was a sight to see. It was trying to eat some food the buffalo wanted.

About half way round the loop, you meet some friendly two legged creatures who like to stick their heads in the car.


We thought it would be nice for the kids to have a bag of feed for the animals each, after warning them that they shouldn't eat it themselves, and hoping they'd listen. If an animal came within 20 yards, Alex would throw a hand-full of food and had run out half way round the first loop. Amy would get all excited as animals approached the car, then when they got too close panicked and backed away. Unbeknown to me however, Katie, being both the eldest and most mischievous, decided it would be humerus to line up food along the window, right underneath the camera lens as I was taking pictures. So I'm snapping away as this ostrich gets closer and closer, filling the viewfinder, then suddenly lunges at me (or rather, lunges at the food that I didn't know was there). Certainly got my attention, so thank you Katie, that will not be forgotten.

At the end of the loop, a trip to the petting zoo was in order.


And that went about as expected. Katie liked feeding the animals, since she had saved some food. Stopping Alex from chasing them was a full time job. Amy was a mixture of fear and excitement, but wouldn't get too close. Oh, and a goat adopted me and kept trying to eat my t-shirt every time I crouched down to take a picture. Every single time.

A couple more loops of the park followed, several hundred pictures for me to sort through, and that's probably the best behaved the kids have ever been on a trip.

Anyone know how to stop the car smelling of sweaty zebra?

Chatsworth House

She Who Must Be Obeyed stole the Nikon D90 from me pretty much as soon as it arrived last fall. She'd never used a DSLR or SLR before that (The Nikon D200 was too big, too complicated etc).

Last October she went back to the UK to visit family, and took the D90 paired with a Nikon 18-200mm VR lens with her. While she was there, she went to the Beyond Limits 2008 Chatsworth and Sothebys sculpture exhibition at Chatsworth House. She took the D90.

This gallery shows the results of her first outing with her first DSLR, a Nikon D90, and is a great example of what this camera can do in the hands of a beginner.

Other than being cropped and resized, most images are posted as shot. A small number had color settings changed.



Full gallery is here at DentonImages.com.

Garden Visitor

Just before Christmas, heard a tapping noise walking out to the car. Turned out to be this little female Ladderback Woodpecker:

More pictures can be found on DentonImages.com

Nikon D3x

Well, after months of speculation and lusting after the new high megapixel Nikon, the Nikon D3x, it's finally been announced. However it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

This video pretty much sums up my reaction:

More on the Nikon D3x at DentonImages.com.

DentonImages.com Update

Major updates have been made to my main site, DentonImages.com. A travel section has been added, as has Compact Flash performance data for the Nikon D200 and Nikon D300, and first impressions of the Nikon D90, a review of the Nikon MB-D10, and news from Photokina 2008 (new CF Cards, new Leica system, new Hasselblad as well as updates from Canon & Nikon) .

You can see these updates at DentonImages.com.

Planning the next trip...

Sometimes miracles happen. Last night, completely out of the blue, She Who Must Be Obeyed turned round and suggested that some time next year, I take a month off and go somewhere with my cameras. My initial response was to ask how much wine she'd had to drink, which was possibly not the best response, but heh.

Turns out she's thinking of inviting out my mother-in-law to come visit from England and spend some quality time with the grandkids. I'm told everyone will be happier if I go off on a trip for a month. I'm not going to object.

Anyway, she did put some conditions on the trip:

• It's got to be something productive - so no sitting on a beach in Cancun. That means I've either got to take some more pictures I can sell, or it has to drive traffic to one or more of our web sites, or something...
• I need internet access at least every few days so I can make sure bills etc are paid (so no backpacking through the Sahara or to one of the Poles I guess).
• I'm not allowed to get captured by FARC rebels (so scratch the dirt-biking in the jungles of Columbia idea), and I'm not allowed to get arrested (or if I am, not jailed, I need to be back home by the end of the month). I'm not allowed to be eaten by a bear. She stressed it has to be something relatively safe. Why she had to emphasise this I have no clue.
• It has to be during school time, I need to be at home for school holidays for the kids (actually, I'd make sure I was there for the kids regardless, they always come first).
• I can't do the African safari, because she wants to come.

The fact she came straight out with these conditions shows that she'd been thinking about it for a while, and also shows to some extent what she thinks of me. Oh well.

Anyway, I'm looking for ideas.

A month isn't long enough to ride the Pan American Highway on a motorbike (it would take me a week to ride to the starting point in Anchorage alone from Austin).

Road trip to Alaska is a distinct possibility (although that's a trip she wants to do as well, so might get some resistance there - she'll possibly try to classify that one as an "African Safari" and exclude it).

Going to Europe is a distinct option - haven't been to a European F1 race in 16 years, and have never been to Spa, Monza or Monaco. Haven't been to Farnborough Air Show for 20 years, so renting a motorbike for a month and touring round Europe between events is very appealing.

I've also always wanted to go to China, but need to research that much better.

I'm interested primarily in Travel (not a city person though), wildlife, and motorsports. Suggestions welcome.