Around the Houston area Bald Eagles are on the rebound. I had the opportunity to photograph them once while I was at the Shiloh Battlefield, but I had trouble finding the nests around town, but just before I had back surgery that changed
I found a nest in Houston and saw an Eagle up in it, but it is in a woods and the sight lines for the capturing the birds leaving and returning to the nest aren’t very good, but I am going back this weekend and give it a try.
I have noticed over the last year that the time spent on my website is down. Last month, 75% of the people who came to the site stayed less than 30 seconds, so I decided to redesign it, but since this isn’t a money maker, I didn’t want to spend over $1,000 to pay someone to do it for me.
I use Adobe Dreamweaver for my website and Adobe Lightroom for my photo galleries (no they don’t pay me to say that and I bought both products), so I know a bit about how to do a website but I am weak on design. I found a site on-line where I could download free website templates (like the one on my new index page) and make changes to fit my site. It is working. The number of pages my visitors are looking at are up.
I started the website to promote my novel Courage on Little Round Top, but over the years, it has become much more popular than my novel. While I get visitors from all around the world and over a 100 a day to my website, book sales fall far short. I would be so happy if just 5% of those who visited my site bought my book. I am hopeful that once the ebook version in on Amazon, Apple Books, and B&N.com sales will pick up soon.
I had back surgery in January which is keeping me away from the battlefield this winter. I would like to do a calendar of my photographs but I really need some winter pictures with snow on the ground. I hope I will be able to go next year.
On a side note, Shiloh has something that Gettysburg is missing, a nesting pair of bald eagles. They setup the nest right next to a main road and they are very easy to watch and they don’t seem to mind the company.
My novel is now available as an ebook through Smashwords Ebook Publishers. For those who visit my website or read my attempt at doing a blog, I have setup a 20% discount off of the $5.99 price. The promotional code is QG29U.
Since it is now an ebook, I have included links to my photo galleries and to Google maps for those who want to learn more about the battle and see first hand what things like Little Round Top and Devils Den looked like to the soldiers who fought there.
This past spring I updated to the Nikon D7000 which is a full frame digital camera. It has way more features than I will ever use, but it is well built and gives me the flexibility that I need as well as a much improved focusing system.
I am going back to the Wings Over Houston air show this year and I am looking forward to taking advantage of my new zoom lens too. Those photos will be up on my thomaseishen.com website along with the pictures I took of the space shuttle fly over at Houston’s Bush airport last month.
I am excited about taking this new equipment to Gettysburg and spending a week capturing the battlefield again.
I fell in love with the Battle of Gettysburg through the novel the Killer Angles. Unfortunately, life has taken me to Texas, so getting to Gettysburg is expensive. With a dry summer, I didn’t expect the fall would be as colorful this year, so I decided to skip this year.
I am hoping for a snowy winter so I can get make a trip to complete my view of the four seasons on my website. If not, then I am planning on going in the spring to catch the flowers on the battlefield.
In the meantime, I have teamed up with Juliana Love to provide daily update photos of the battlefield.
