Category Archives: Austin

Austin, Downtown, Events, Lighting, Photography, Sports, Univerisity of Texas

Texas Longhorns vs. Wyoming Cowboys Football Game

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On Sunday, September 2, 2012, Barb and I drove to northern Oklahoma to spend the week with my Dad, his brother, and his four sisters that all met in the little town of Beatrice, Nebraska (which they grew up near). I will probably make a post of that trip in a week or so. This is my explanation for why I didn’t have a new blog post last week.

The day before we left on our 780 mile (1255 km) drive, was the day of the first Texas Longhorn football game of the 2012 season. The University of Wyoming Cowboys were the visiting team.

I have had Longhorn football season tickets every year since 1984.  Every Saturday when the Texas Longhorns will be playing a football game, I go out to our front lawn to put out our spinner. Barb and I truly believe that the faster it spins, the more points the Longhorns will score in their game. 🙂

The University of Texas athletic department has a policy of “no professional cameras with interchangeable lenses”, which has always prevented me from taking a “real camera” – especially a DSLR. I have taken a camera to only a handful of games over the years. The last time I took a camera to a Texas football game, it was when Ohio State University came calling on September 9, 2006 for a night game (OSU won 24-7). The camera was a 4 Megapixel Olympus C-770 Ultra Zoom, and the auto white balance needed lots of color corrections later in Photoshop – due to the color of the stadium lights.

Now that I have the Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera, I thought that I would see if I could get into the stadium with it and a single 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 “kit” lens. I did, and here’s my story.

We usually meet our friend Greg Ringer about 1hour and 40 minutes before the game at the UT intramural fields where we get on the bus that will take us to the University of Texas campus.

The bus lets us off about 4 blocks north of the stadium, where we have to walk past all of the tailgaters.

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Playing with my camera, I ran a few yards ahead, and waited to snap this photo of Greg Ringer and my wife, Barb, as they caught up with me.

The Darrell K. Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium is just ahead, to the south. Our seats are in the upper deck on the west side. That is at the top of the white concrete portion on the right side in this photo.

Before we go into the stadium, we go to the alumni center, which is directly across the street from the stadium.

I rarely drink beer, but I almost always have a Shiner Bock before a home football game.

While drinking our beers, I raised my camera to take a photo of the west side of the stadium, and Greg decided that the silhouette of his hand needed to be in the photo….

After a beer (or two), we cross the street to enter the stadium. They inspect every single bag that people carry in (no backpacks are allowed). I decided that I might look more innocent if I simply wore my camera around my neck, rather that appear to trying to hide it in Barb’s bag with our seat cushions. The kid at the gate did give this camera and the rather long lens a very thorough look, but he never said anything to me. I acted as if I didn’t realize that he might not allow me to enter with it. I didn’t linger around while they inspected Barb’s bag. I kept moving, and didn’t give the inspector any extra time to think about my camera. (If he didn’t let me in, I would miss at least the 1st quarter of the game while I took the round-trip bus ride back our car at the intramural fields.)

We take the escalators up to the 11th floor.

When we got to the 11th floor, we walked over the wall that overlooks the campus. The sun will be setting just to the left of this photo.

We are about 15 minutes earlier than our normal arrival time – as I wanted to allocate a little time to walk around to take a few photos. We walk to the south of the upper deck (which is on the right side of this photo), and look down onto the field from the northwest corner of the stadium.

The field, and our seats (in the upper deck to the right) are already in the shade, but the seats on the east side of the stadium are still in direct sunlight – a very high contrast scene, which is difficult to photograph nicely.

I zoom my kit lens out as far as it will go, just to see how large the players will look. I don’t expect Sports Illustrated will be calling me anytime soon….

Looking across, I take a photo of the seats on the east side, and make sure that I get the part that lists the years that the Longhorns were the National Champions. The shadow of the west side stadium lights are beginning to crawl up the seats on the east side.

Since it is still nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit  (37.8 Celsius), we purchase 3 bottles of water. If you come down to the concession stand during the game, you can still see the game on the TV screen while you wait in line.

We head into the stadium, and walk up the 12 rows to our seats, where my crazy cousin Mike is already there. Mike is always early. Really early.

We are halfway up the upper deck, on the north 10 yard line. We never miss seeing a play, and even if we do, we can watch the replay on the giant TV in the south end zone. The clock under the TV is counting down the time until the game starts (26 minutes from now). The person in the center of the TV picture is Darrell Royal, who was the Longhorn football coach when they won the National Championship in 1963, 1969, and 1970. He was on a golf cart, waiting to be taken to the center of the field for the coin toss right before the start of the game.

Up until two photos ago, I had the ISO setting on the camera at 200, but now that everything of interest was in the shade, I changed it to 400 to gather one more stop of light.

I knew that the lighting was going to be changing on me a lot – from sunshine, to shade, to twilight, to stadium lights. Here is a look to the south from my seat that shows the evil stadium lights that I would have to deal with later.

Looking across the stadium, the shadow of the upper deck that I was seated in was quickly climbing up the seats on the east side.

People wear all sorts of strange items to show their support for the team.

Twenty minutes before the kick-off, the Longhorn Marching Band enters the stadium through the opening near the north end zone. Here they completely fill the end zone.

They begin to march, and quickly spread out and cover 50 yards of the field.

And then they get into the “UT emblem” formation.

When the band plays the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem, we always sing out loud – and everyone else around us does too.

After the nation, the focus of attention changes to our state of Texas. We’ve got a huge state flag that they bring out and spin around before each and every game.

Next comes the school song, which is entitled “The Eyes of Texas”. The fans who are loyal to the school raise their arm and give the “Hook ’em Horns” sign while they sing the words to the song!

With less than 6 minutes before the game begins, the TV screen shows a live feed of the team as they exit the locker room area and prepare to enter the field. All of the players and the coaches swipe their fingers across the tip of one of the longhorns mounted on the wall near the door. (Does this look familiar?)

At the end of a rousing video on the giant TV, the team enters the stadium through a cloud of smoke. The first 3 players always carry the American and Texas flags.

At this point, the stadium is really rocking with excitement and the loud cheers!

The players run all the way to the north (opposite) end zone, where they kneel for a moment in prayer, if they choose to (and the vast majority of them do).

Time for the coin toss to determine which team will get the ball first, and which team will kick-off. They help Darrell Royal shuffle from the golf cart to the center of the field for the coin toss.

Play ball!  The football season is finally under way. Life is good!

As you can see, our seats are on the northern 10 yard line, but we see the entire field just fine.

Cousin Mike sits on the aisle. People walking up and down the stairs in the aisle only block our view of the extreme corner of the south end zone, but only when we are sitting down.

(Honey, Greg Ringer wanted me to take that photo. No, he double-dared me to. Really…)

Half way up the seats in the seats above the northern end zone, they list the years that Texas won the old Southwest Conference, which was dissolved when the Big 12 Conference was formed in 1996.

By now the shadow of the upper deck has climbed almost to the top of the seats on the east side.

Since the light is diminishing in intensity, I change the ISO setting on the camera to 640.

There is still some indirect sunlight coming from the sky, but the evil stadium lights are contributing a larger percentage of the light available.

I cannot see the sunset occurring behind me, but the view to the east is rather pretty, so I take a photo of it.

And again.

Twenty minutes later, the sun had pretty much set, and only the evil stadium lights were providing the illumination needed by the players, and my camera. I performed a custom white balance in the camera, and then took a photo of my ColorChecker Passport.

Here is a photo of Texas kicking an extra point after a touchdown.

At this point, I had increased the ISO setting to 800.

Across the way, I noticed that the moon was rising above the seats on the east side, but it was hiding behind the clouds. Here it finally poked out for just a little while.

Half time. The first band onto the field during half time is from the visiting school – if they bring one. The University of Wyoming marching band made the 1044 mile trip (1680 km).

Then comes “The Showband of the Southwest” – The Texas Longhorn Band.

Here they are, in the center of the field.

The next three photos are a sequence from the same original formation, where they write a cursive “Texas” on the field.

When the half time show is over, it’s time for the players to return from the locker room, which of course is done to great fanfare.

After half time, I changed the ISO setting to 1000.

Here was a play where the ball was on the field directly in front of us. Two players later, the Longhorns scored another touchdown.

By 9:18 PM, the moon had made it above the clouds on the horizon. I used the electronic viewfinder to know that an Exposure Compensation of -1 1/3 stops was needed.

Here’s a photo from sometime early in the 4th quarter, when Wyoming was on offense.

After the game, which Texas won by a score of 37 – 17, the players meet at the middle of the field to shake hands.

Moments later, the players head over to the north end zone, directly in front of the students and the band, and the band proceeds to play the school song, “The Eyes of Texas” for the last time of the evening.

Whenever the Longhorns win by more than 10 points or so, many of the fans leave before the end of the game (to avoid the traffic). We almost always stay until the very end – no matter what the score. (I can only remember leaving early twice in 28 years.)

I played with my camera while on the elevator ride down, and decided that I needed to bump up the ISO to 1600, so that I could keep the shutter speed at 1/25 th of a second. I hoped that the in-body image stabilization would do its magic – and it did.

After walking the 4 blocks back to where the bus let us off, we get into the short line to board the bus for the ride back to the intramural fields. This next photo was hand held with the shutter open for 1/5 th of a second.

This last photo, of the bus before our bus, was taken with the shutter open for 1/8 th of a second. That is still remarkable to me, as I could never do that with my Canon 5D Mark II camera!

I know that this story was very long, with a LOT of photos, so I tried to keep the number of words to a minimum. I thought about splitting it into 2 or 3 separate blog posts, but decided this was a story that would be hurt by doing so. I doubt that very many people have actually made it this far, but for those of you who did, I thank you for reading my blog!

Austin, CowParade Austin, Photography, Uncategorized

CowParade Austin Calendar – September – Partying with Pi-COW-sso

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If you have my 2012 CowParade Austin calendar, you probably flipped over to September, saw a very colorful cow, and headed on over to my blog site to see what the story is with the cow named Partying with Pi-COW-sso, which was painted by Allison Gregory.

I count 14 artists that painted 2 cows, no artist painted 3 cows, and Allison Gregory was the only artist to paint 4 cows! I thought I’d use this opportunity to show all 4 of her beautiful cows in this one post. As you will soon see, Allison not only produced in quantity, she also excelled in quality!

You can visit Allison’s web site here, and you can see what she has to say about her herd of cows here.

Besides at the Preview Party in late July 2011, the first time that Dad and I found one of Allison’s cows on public display, it was on the very hot morning of August 20, 2011. It was a cow named Partying with Pi-COW-sso, and it was on display of the front lawn of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.

Obviously this cow’s name involves a play on words involving the famous artist Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973).

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This was the same bright, direct sunlight that I talked about in my previous post about the cow named Cowmaro.

I really liked the bright colors of this cow, but didn’t like how the harsh mid-day Texas sun was washing out those colors.

The next time we found one of Allison’s cows was 2 weeks later, on September 3, 2011. We found 2 of them that morning. The first one was named A MOO-sical MOO-saic.

This was one of only a handful of cows in the entire herd that were in the laying down position.

This colorful cow was located on the west side of Congress Avenue, just south of 6th Street, and at the front entrance of One American Center

Even at 9:35 AM, the Texas sun was wreaking havoc with my attempts to photograph the left side of this cow. When I went around to the cow’s right side, it was in the shadows, so I put on my external speedlite and took this photo.

I would have loved to had the opportunity that Kirk Tuck had to photograph a cow such as this using studio strobes and white seamless background. All of the specular highlights from the reflections on this cow really do an injustice to Allison’s work of art.

About 40 minutes later, we found Allison’s cow named “A Psy-COW-delic COW-ssword Puzzle”.

There is a discrepancy in how this cow’s name appears on the plaque underneath the cow, and how Allison spells it on her web site. The plaque uses the word “Crossword”, but her web spells it “COW-ssword”. I’ll assume that the plaque is incorrect.

This cow was located at 419 Colorado St. – at Emmis Radio (KBPA).

Wedging myself right up against the corner of the building, and looking at the cow from the other side, the bright background was incredibly bright. I dialed down the exposure compensation by 1 full stop, and took the next photo. I still had to use some Highlight Recovery (+20 in Lightroom 3) to somewhat tame the very bright background.

The next Saturday morning, September 10, 2011, about 10:30 AM, we found Allison’s cow named “MOO-sy In the Sky with Diamonds”. (I’m sure that’s a play on words from the title of a Beatles song from their psychedelic era.)

This cow was located at East 1st Street & San Jacinto Blvd. – at front entrance to The Four Seasons Hotel. There were a lot of cars, patrons, and bell hops between this cow and the front entrance, which made it difficult to get a photo of this cow without distracting cars or people behind it. I sort of got out in the drive between 2 cars and took this photo with a very bright background. I did use the Adjustment Brush to bring down the exposure by Âľ of a stop on the white car and pavement to the right of the cow.

After the car in front of me moved on, I was able to move a few feet to my right to get this photo with a somewhat more pleasing background. I still had to resort to using the Adjustment Brush to reduce the exposure of much of the bright pavement behind the cow by 4/5 of a stop.

After standing in the direct, hot Texas sun for about 4 minutes, I finally had a very brief moment where there were no people, and only the front of one car protruding into the background. This was my only shot from this side of the cow that was worth keeping.

It was a week later, on September 17, 2011 when we once again ran into Partying with Pi-COW-sso at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.

This time the light was much more favorable. Even though it was 11:05 AM, it was overcast, and so the sunlight was very diffused. Here you can see the base of the large Texas Star behind the cow. This is the photo that I used for “Miss September” in my CowParade Austin 2012 calendar.

As you can see, Allison Gregory uses bright, bold colors. Her use of pseudo-psycheledic patterns and colors really seem to draw me in – about like a moth attracted to a porch light. I personally thought that all 4 of her cows were outstanding works of art!

Thank you for reading my blog. While I know that I am bouncing randomly from subject-to-subject in what my blog posts are about, I would really appreciate hearing from you to find out what you think works well for me, and what you think I should do less of. Just click in the “Leave a Reply” link immediately below (or on the cartoonish “word bubble” way back up at the top of the post – if there is a number in that “word bubble” it indicates how many readers have already left a comment).

Austin, Flowers, Macro, Photography

Macro Photography of My Neighbor’s Flowers

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Last Saturday morning, August 18, 2012, before I had finished typing in my way-too-long part 3 post about my first photo walk in downtown Austin, I went out and took some more photos. I went for my usual Saturday morning walk around my neighborhood, and brought my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera with me.

The weatherman was predicting “a very good chance for rain showers”, and when they say anything that bold in Austin in August, you will take notice, as we rarely get any worthwhile rain in Austin during the month of August. There were a thin veil of clouds, but they didn’t look like rain clouds yet, so I put on my weatherproof 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 lens with circular polarizer, and headed out about 9:15 AM.

The photo above, and the photo directly below are of some strange (to me), yet beautiful flowered plants that are in the front shrub bed right outside of our front door.

I put on the circular polarizer mainly to cut down on glare, if it did happen to shower. It would also decrease the amount of light coming through the lens, so it would force me to use a more wide open aperture. This 12-50mm lens doesn’t have a very wide open aperture, and you will never hear or read about anyone praising the “beautiful bokeh” that this lens can produce. (Bokeh is the “blurriness” of the out-of-focus areas behind the main subject in the photo.)

I got more than I bargained for. The first 3 photos that I’ve already shown had a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second or slower. It was also somewhat windy. Flowers wagging in the wind and slow shutter speeds don’t work together to make sharp photos. When I put the lens into macro mode to photograph a flower moving around, I always took at least 3 photos, and would later decide which one of the three was the sharpest when I was post processing them on my computer. Some of the flowers at the end of this post I took 6 or 7 photos – hoping to get one good one out of the bunch.

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Now when I left the house, I had the intention of shooting anything with a pattern or color that would catch my intention. I did take several photos of the usual neighborhood stuff: cars, a U-Haul trailer, yard decorations, playground equipment, street signs, fire hydrants, trees, cactus, and of course, flowers.

It wasn’t until I post processed the RAW files on my computer this evening that I realized just how many macro photos that I had taken of flowers, and I decided to put together this post where all of the photos are macro photos of flowers.

The 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 lens is very easy to put into the macro mode, but when you do, the focal length is fixed at 43mm, which is equivalent to 86mm on a full-frame camera. Every photo in this post was taken with the lens in macro mode, and the largest aperture opening in ANY of these photos is f/6.0. The aperture of this next photo was f/8.0.

When shooting macro photography, and focusing on very close objects, there isn’t much depth of field in the photograph. To attempt to get the maximum amount of front-to-back in focus, the photographer will use a small aperture (high f-stop number). That causes the shutter to stay open longer to get an equivalent exposure. That’s not a problem if the camera is on a tripod.

The photo above is the blossom on a prickly-pear cactus.

Now, I was not set-up to do it “correctly”.  I was handholding my camera, as I didn’t bring a tripod on this walk. I couldn’t keep the shutter open very long without causing motion blur in the photo. Besides, the flowers were swaying around in the wind, and that alone doesn’t allow for slow shutter speeds. Faster shutter speeds make the aperture open up wider, and this lens doesn’t open up wide.

Also, I had put on a circular polarizer onto the front of my lens. That cuts down the amount of light coming into the lens by about 1 and 1/3 stops, which again makes the shutter to stay open longer and/or the aperture to be opened up wider.

So, I pretty much had a “dark” lens opened up about as wide as its aperture could open, the shutter speed was still pretty slow (for most of these photos), I was hand-holding the camera, and the flowers were wagging around in the wind.

The photo above was taken when I was on a sidewalk on a high ledge and I could see over the wooden fence around someone’s yard. The blue behind the flower in that photo is their swimming pool.

What I did have working in my favor is the excellent in-body image stabilization of this Olympus camera. In addition, the size of the sensor is much smaller than a full-frame camera, so at the same aperture settings, this little camera will produce a deeper depth-of-field than a full-frame camera such as my Canon 5D Mark II.

It never did rain on me. I never even felt a sprinkle. But less than an hour after I got back to our house, it did start to rain. We got a little more than 0.75” (2cm) in about 2 hours. It rained again that night, as we had a total of 1.25” in less than 12 hours. Very unusual, and very welcome. I’m sure that all of these flowers enjoyed every single drop that came their way!

Architecture, Austin, Cityscapes, Downtown, Photography

My First Photo Walk in Downtown Austin – Part 3

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This is the 3rd and final portion of my story of my first time to visit downtown Austin, with my camera, with the intention of simply walking around and taking photos of whatever seemed to catch my eye.  I had no agenda, no time requirement, and no plan.

I was walking with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera, my four lenses, and a flash in my little Domke camera bag, but I had left my small Gitzo GT1542T Traveller tripod back at the car. In parts 1 and 2, I had used the Olympus 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom lens with a circular polarizer.

You can find Part 1 here, and you can find Part 2 here.

At the end of Part 2, I was on Lamar Blvd. at Whole Foods Market and I had just sat down to change my lens.

Here is the map for the route back to my car at Willie Nelson Blvd. (East 2nd Street) and San Jacinto near the Austin Convention Center.

I had 12mm, 25mm, and 45mm prime lenses in my bag (24mm, 50mm, and 90mm equivalents on a full-frame camera). Based upon my experiences over the previous 75 minutes, I thought the 12mm would be too wide-angle for the majority of the shots. I also knew that I would be walking towards the east, into the morning sun, and I was probably going to encounter lots of backlit subjects. I thought that I would not be shooting as many buildings, but rather architectural features (portions) of buildings and try not to include the sky in the frame, so I opted for the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens.

Here is the top of the 41-story Spring Condos , which was 2 and a half blocks away.

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At the corner of Lamar Blvd. and West 5th, sits this old Chevrolet farm truck and the Whole Foods Market signage. I had backed up as far as I could without going over the curb and into this very busy intersection.

I would have liked to include more of the truck and its surroundings, but I was not going to risk going out into the traffic, and this 45mm lens does not zoom.

A block east of Lamar, on the south side of 5th Street is the 29-story Monarch Apartments.

I exposed for the building, and let the sky overexpose, which I somewhat corrected later when I postprocessed the RAW file in Lightroom (using the Adjustment Brush with -0.66 Exposure and +50 Saturation on the sky).

I walked about a half block before coming up on this sheltered bus stop. I set my little Domke camera bag on the bench, next to an empty Coke bottle (where in the heck to you even buy Coke in a bottle anymore? – I assumed Whole Foods Market). My intention was to get a photo of the artwork on the wall that also had some “lovely” graffiti on it.

Once again, I couldn’t seem to get everything into the frame, and I really didn’t want to back into the busy street traffic. I never could get any angle that would have the reflection go away from the front of the artwork.

I decided right then and there that the 45mm lens wasn’t helping me to get the photos that I wanted to get. It was simply too much telephoto for me right now. I changed to the Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 lens, and then went back to the exact same spot where I had taken the photo of the Monarch Apartments with the 45mm lens, and took this photo.

It definitely included much more into the frame. I wasn’t certain that I liked this better yet or not, but I was going to work with it for a while.

Here’s a photo of the back side of the Whole Foods Market headquarters office building.

Moving east on West 5th Street, just before the bridge over Shoal Creek, these wildflowers were growing where the street crews had not mowed. I set the aperture to f/1.8, which was almost as open as this lens can get, just to see how the shallow depth-of-field would look.

Just past West Ave, this “Old and New” caught my eye.

That is the 360 Building, located between 3rd and 4th Streets, towering over the old-style building on 5th Street.

Walking past Rio Grande and Nueces, and looking back over my right shoulder I saw this interesting view of the 360 Building.

In the next block, across from the U.S. Post Office, in the Republic Square Park, the Farmers Market that I told about in Part 1 of this too-long story was in full swing, and it appeared that they had a very good turn-out of customers. It looked like it would be more difficult to photograph now than when I had walked through there just 50 minutes ago. Note to self: get there when they open at 9:00 AM for the best light, and the fewest people.

Nearing Guadalupe Street, I came upon this view of the Frost Bank Tower, that seemed to have the reflection of another building in it, near its base.

Also note the lack of people on the sidewalks. This had pretty much been the case my entire walk, except in the Farmers Market and near the front of Whole Foods Market. I never really encountered any people at all. Maybe this town parties late into the night, and doesn’t get out and about until noon on the next day?

At the corner of 5th and Guadalupe, this caught my eye. I’m not sure why, but for some reason I like this photo.

Lavaca is the name of the next street after Guadalupe, and that building occupied the entire block along 5th Street.

Before coming to Lavaca, looking across 5th Street, I thought this view of the 56-story Austonian towering over Rebels Honky Tonk might make a nice “old and new” photo.

On the southeast corner of West 5th Street and Lavaca sits Antone’s, which is a famous blues club here in Austin.

Here’s a view of The Austonian from Colorado and 5th Street.

I was approaching Congress Avenue, and the Frost Bank Tower sits between 4th and 5th Streets on the west side of Congress Avenue.

The sun was shining on the other side of the building, so I thought that I would walk over there and see how it would look from that side. To get there, I had to cross Congress Avenue. Half way across, I stopped for just a couple of seconds and took this snapshot of the Texas State Capitol Building, which was 7 blocks north of me. (Remember that I had the 25 mm lens on.)

On the southeast corner of 5th and Congress, at the base of the Frost Bank Tower is the Mexic-Arte Museum.

Along 5th Street, they have this painted on the side of their building.

Just a little bit east of that painting, was this “til death do us part”.

With all of the white wall in the scene, I did add +2/3 stop of exposure compensation to the exposure. The electronic view finder on the mirrorless Olympus camera makes it very easy to “pre-chimp” a settings change like that. I’m still not sure what to think about lipstick on a skull…

Looking up, here’s a view of the northeast corner of the Frost Bank Tower. It looked much better on the sunny side of the building.

Another half block east on 5th Street, between Brazos Street and San Jacinto Blvd, I walked into the Bank of America parking lot, very near the drive-through tellers, and took this photo (also shown as the first photo in this posting).

That’s the 56-story Austonian on the left. It is 683 feet (208 m) tall, and is located on the other side (west) of Congress Avenue, and north of Willie Nelson Blvd (2nd Street). In comparison, the Frost Bank Tower 515 feet (157 m) tall with 33 floors.

OK, so I had satisfied my curiosity of what the Frost Bank Tower would look like on the sunny side, so it was time to head south of San Jacinto Blvd, and back to the CR-V.

Just north of 4th Street, I passed by this threaded stud protruding out of a brick wall. After 10 steps or so, I stopped, turned around, and went back to it.

Just to make it somewhat interesting, I opened the aperture all the way to f/1.4 to get the shallowest depth of field that I could with this lens.

At 4th Street, I looked to the southeast, and took this photo. I’m not sure if they are businesses or residences.

There is a new building being constructed on the east side of San Jacinto Blvd, between 3rd and 4th Streets. I do not know what the building will be when it is finished.

Looking back over my right shoulder, this caught my eye.

Just a bit more south along San Jacinto Blvd, I snapped this “two in one” kind of photo (left and right).

At the corner of 3rd Street and San Jacinto Blvd, I stopped next to a group of construction workers who decided that they needed to all stop talking and watch me. I figured I had better do something to justify carrying this camera and camera bag, so I simply looked up, snapped this photo, and proceeded to walk away from them.

On the south side of 3rd street, I thought this looked kind of cool, with the base of the crane in front of The Austonian.

Half way between 3rd and 2nd Streets, on the east side of San Jacinto Blvd. was this big succulent plant with some pretty flowers beneath it. Even though it was all in direct sunlight, which is usually the worst light for flowers, I thought I’d at least try to see if I could get a decent photo of it.

These flowers were in the parking lot on the north side of P.F. Chang’s restaurant.

The Honda CR-V was parked around the opposite side of P. F. Chang’s on Willie Nelson Blvd (2ns Street).  But before I went to the car, I took this final “architectural” shot looking east on Willie Nelson Blvd, just so I could later compare the differences in the lighting from when I had started my walk 2 hours and 15 minutes earlier.

And finall, my trusty Honda CR-V.

So what did I learn from my first experience of a downtown photo walk?

1. That walking towards buildings, with the sun to your back yields a higher percentage of nice photographs.

2. There are very few people on the streets in the downtown Austin area on a Saturday morning.

3. The 45mm lens (90 mm equivalent) had too much telephoto reach for me to deal with on this initial excursion.

4. While this walk took considerably longer than my normal Saturday morning walk, I would say that the perceived amount of exercise was much less. I did so much starting and stopping, hovering around looking for the best angle to photograph from, that I never felt like I got my heart rate and breathing up to an aerobic level.

5. That it takes 3 times as long to write about a photo walk than it takes to do a photo walk.

I can easily see myself returning multiple more times to downtown Austin to wander around with my camera. I’ll probably zig-zag around, making an effort to walk a different route each time. I highly doubt that I will write about any of those future walks to the level that I documented this one.

For anyone who actually read all of the words that I wrote, I thank you for doing so, and I ask that you write a quick comment letting me know what you think I could do better (including my photography).

I promise that I will never, ever make another post this long again.

Thank you for visiting my blog!

Architecture, Austin, Cityscapes, Downtown, Equipment, Photography

My First Photo Walk in Downtown Austin – Part 2

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This is the continuation of my story of my first time to visit downtown Austin, with my camera, with the intention of simply walking around and taking photos of whatever seemed to catch my eye.  I had no agenda, no time requirement, and no plan.

I was walking with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera, my four lenses, and a flash in my little Domke camera bag, but I had left my small Gitzo Traveller tripod back at the car. I had the Olympus 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom lens with a circular polarizer on. This was my first time at this game, and I wanted the versatility that the zoom lens would offer.

During Part 1 of my story, which you can read here, I had travelled the route shown here:

I had just made it through the Farmers Market in the park between 4th and 5th streets, just west of Guadalupe, and was heading toward the corner of San Antonio and West 6th Street. This entire post is only going to take me west on 6th Street to Lamar Blvd., as shown on this map:

It was still before 9:00 AM, but the sun had been up for 2 and ½ hours already. The summer haziness in the air was still keeping a “warm glow” to the morning sunlight – but I knew that would quickly end.

Now moving west, I had the sun coming up from behind me. Just a half a block east of San Antonio St, I passed  the Austin Wine Merchant store.

Reminder: You can always view any photo at a larger size by just clicking on it. You will then need to use your browser’s “Back Button” to return to my story.

Across the street, looking to the south, you can see the 44 story 360 Building with the 360 Condominiums.

At the next corner, which is Nueces Street, sits the Star Bar.

While standing in the exact same location, I turned around to look back toward the buildings that I had walked beneath earlier (in Part 1). That’s the 56 story Austonian on the left.

Moving just 100 feet or so west past Nueces St, and looking toward the southwest, I zoomed my 12-50mm lens all the way out to 50mm (100mm equivalent on a full-frame camera) to compress this view of the 29 story tall Monarch Apartments above Walton’s and The Hoffbrau steak house.

The next intersection would be Rio Grande Street, on the northeast corner, sits Katz’s Deli, whose slogan is Katz’s Never Kloses. The only problem is that they went out of business a couple of years ago! That’s too bad, as it was a very popular place to go after the bars on East 6th Street had closed. I believe a lot of people got sober enough to drive home after eating some great New York style deli food at 3:00 AM.

From that same intersection, I crossed 6th Street to walk on the south side of the street, and as soon as I got across the street, I saw this unusual scene.

That is the Monarch Apartment building towering over Gatti’s Pizza. I wanted to get the tennis shoes in the previous photo, but I liked the composition of the next photo much more, so here it is, too.

Now, just behind Gatti’s Pizza on 6th Street, I came upon this faded set of stairs, complete with graffiti, a ripped poster, and littered with plastic drinking bottles. I intentionally put my shadow right where you see it in this next photo.

No, that’s not a cowboy hat. It’s an Australian Barmah Canvas Drover hat, which I bought from a street vendor at The Pecan Street Festival way back in May of 2007. It has served me very well, and I could tell lots of photography-related stories about that hat, but not in this blog post!

Standing in virtually the very same spot, I simply turned around to see this magnificent little mural on a concrete wall that is only about 6 feet tall (2m).

I don’t believe that I had ever seen that piece of art before, simply because the traffic on 6th Street is one-way going west, and you have to look to the east to see it.

Just a half a block ahead is West Avenue, and one lot south of 6th Street on West Avenue is Frank & Angie’s Pizzeria. I’ve never eaten there, but I liked the way the still early sunlight was illuminating the colorful sign, and the shadows of the non-lit neon tubes.

Back onto 6th Street, a half block ahead, just before Shoal Creek is the historic Hut’s Hamburgers. I’ve heard about this place for decades, but I’ve never been there….  and probably won’t for quite some time, given that Barb and I rarely eat red meat anymore.

It was now 9:00 AM. Every photo in this post so far had been taken in 11 and ½ minutes (and I had been walking for exactly one hour now). I am not bringing this up to impress anyone, other than to reveal just how much there is to see in this crazy town in just 3 and ½ blocks on one street – and not even in the heart of the city. I have shown 12 of the 24 photos that I had taken in that brief time, and 17 of them are worth keeping.

It is worth mentioning right here that this is not “art photography”. At least I don’t consider it that. If I was attempting to create art, I would not be buzzing about like a bee, jumping from one flower to the next in rapid succession. The vast majority of the time, I use a sturdy, bulky tripod when I photograph. I use it not just to keep the camera rock steady, but by using it, it forces me to slow down and be much more deliberate in my approach. This handheld flitting-about was something relatively new to me, but I was having a very fun time doing it!

Even though I wasn’t thinking of “creating art”, I was trying to create somewhat pleasing compositions, and proper exposures. My real goal was just to get a feel for what it’s like to shoot in an urban setting, and get to know the lay of the land. I was definitely a tourist in my own town!

Just past Shoal Creek and the next intersection, which is Wood Street, is GSD&M. This is a local Advertising and Marketing firm which is known internationally.

Checking out the GSD&M web site reveals a very impressive array of clients!

And here’s their front entrance.

Directly across 6th Street from GSD&M, on the south side of the street is the world headquarters of Whole Food Market.

Whole Food Market occupies and entire city block, bounded between 5th and 6th streets, Bowie Street on the east, and Lamar Blvd on the west.

Barb and I have only bought our weekly groceries here one time. It was quite an experience! We came on a Saturday morning, and parked under ground in their parking lot. It was very enjoyable, and the food is great, but this is a 25 minute drive from our house, and there is another one of their stores up in “our neck of the woods” in northwest Austin. Even so, we only shop there for very special occasions, like when we have a dinner party.

Walking a half block west, toward Lamar Blvd, I came to these stairs which take you up to the front surface parking lot. I thought the ironwork was interesting, so I tried to make an interesting composition that included it.

And just before 6th Street and Lamar Blvd, at the northwest corner of the entire block that Whole Foods Market sits on, there was this beautiful Pride of Barbados plant (thanks Diane!). Even though it was in direct sun, and I knew that would “wash out” some of the color of its very vivid flowers, I still thought it was worth photographing.

Across the street is one of Barb’s favorite stores, although she rarely makes it to this downtown location. (For the very same reason why we don’t come to this Whole Foods Market.)

Standing at the corner of 6th and Lamar, and looking northwest, there are two other businesses that are iconic to Austin: Waterloo Records and Amy’s Ice Cream.

Yes, we have an honest-to-god record store here in Austin, although I’m sure that they sell many more CDs than they do vinyl records. Everyone who lives in Austin has heard of Amy’s Ice Cream, and it is very highly regarded by all proper citizens. 🙂

Walking about 50 feet south on Lamar Blvd, and looking to the southeast, you get a very nice view of the 41 story Spring Condos building. It’s nice to see the construction cranes rising into the Austin sky again.

This was as far from my car as I knew that I was going to get. I had been walking for only 1 hour and 10 minutes. I had been using the same 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 lens, with a circular polarizer, for the entire walk so far. I had been carrying my small bag with 3 other lenses in it, and there was a reason that I had brought them with me. So it was here that I sat on a little bench and put on a different lens.

To be continued…