Category Archives: Downtown

Lockhart BBQ Tour – Part 1

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This blog post is one that I am really excited to share with you! Way back on January 9th, Kirk Tuck put out a blog post announcing that there was an opportunity to sign up for a photography excursion to Lockhart, Texas, which would be lead by Wyatt McSpadden. Wyatt is famous for his photography of family-owned and operated Texas barbecue establishments. He has published a beautiful book on Texas BBQ, named appropriately enough “Texas BBQ: Photographs by Wyatt McSpadden“.

Now I saw that blog post right before Barb called me downstairs for dinner. While we ate, I mentioned that I had seen that opportunity, and that I thought it would be great fun to do. There wasn’t really any discussion, other than Barb told me that she thought I should do it. Right after dinner, I followed the links that Kirk had provided. Even though the event was sponsored by the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), and I am not a member, I had no problem with registering or paying.

Now all I had to do was to wait for a month to pass, which gave me plenty of time to wonder if I had gotten in over my head. I eventually came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to be judged by anyone, and that this could be a golden learning opportunity.

Now nobody judged me that day, but those of you that read this blog post, and see my pictures will judge my photography, even if you are not conscious of actively doing so, and even if you withhold your criticism. And that brings me to my “after trip” dilemma. Do I only show my “best photographs” taken that day, or do I continue my usual blog style of telling a story?

In the end, I have decided to tell the story, which necessitates showing several “filler photos”. That isn’t what Scott Kelby says that I should do. What the heck, this is my blog, and I’m not trying to sell anybody anything. I would like to be recognized as a competent photographer, though….. It’s a dilemma, I tell you!

A week ago today, on Thursday, February 7, 2013, we were to meet a block east of the Texas state capitol building to get on the bus by 8:15 AM. I got there about 7:50 AM, and saw another person walking around with what appeared to be a camera bag and a tripod. It turns out it was Frank Grygier, who I’ve met a couple of other times (both when Kirk Tuck was doing a book signing, or speaking to a group). I was very glad that I had already met at least one other person that was going on this tour. I asked Frank if I could get a photo of him with the Texas capitol building in the background.

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We spotted the bus, and we had to tell the bus driver that she wasn’t where our map said she was supposed to be. We walked across the intersection, and while we were waiting for the bus, I noticed the early morning light was peeking through the clouds just enough to give the capitol building a nice glow.

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And just to document this trip, I walked across San Jacinto Blvd. and snapped this photo of our bus in front of the capitol, with Frank and the driver.

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On the bus, there were the 12 photographers that had signed up for this excursion, Wyatt McSpadden, a couple of people from ASMP that were helping to organize the event, and the bus driver. Fortunately we were going against the traffic as we headed out of town during rush hour. It didn’t seem to take us very long to drive the 35 miles (56 km) to get to Lockhart, Texas.

Lockhart is one of the “Meccas” of Texas BBQ. Our first stop, and the only one that I will cover in today’s blog post, was Smitty’s Market.

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That’s the Caldwell County courthouse with the spire to the left of Smitty’s sign above. That courthouse was only one block away. We had parked in the gravel parking lot by the back door, which you can see in the next photo.

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We all walked around the side of the building to get to the front door.

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Wyatt had told us that we were free to go anywhere that we desired, but to remember that this was a place of business, and this was a regular workday for them. Of course, where there’s BBQ, there’s fire.

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And smoke!

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Now this building was built sometime around 1890, and I believe that they have been smoking meats, as BBQ, for over 75 years. During that time, it appears that they have accumulated some very “interesting” items, such as this deer skull – and what appears to be an alligator skull on top…

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Since I didn’t know what to expect before we went into the place, I had put my Olympus 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 lens on my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera. That’s a versatile lens, but with those small aperture openings, it is considered a pretty “dark” lens. As a result, to get a proper exposure, I had to leave the shutter open for relatively long lengths of time – which required me to also use my little Gitzo GT1542T Traveler tripod.

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I drifted back to what appeared to be the “real kitchen” where they will pull the BBQ out of the pits, and carve it up right there for your take-out orders.

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Evidently, a lot of the other photographers also had the same idea….

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That is Wyatt in the white shirt in the center of the photo above. He was mulling over where to get set-up to show us how he would light and photograph such a scene.

I decided to drift around the place on my own for a while and to check back in with Wyatt in a little bit.

One of the cooks had raised the lid on a pit with beef ribs and sausages inside. It was only 9:30 AM, and I was suddenly starting to think about lunch!

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I wandered back out towards the hallway that lead to the front door.

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From literally the very same spot that I took the photo above, I turned around, and here is what was directly behind me.

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Back out in that front hallway, something about that stairway on the left was attracting my attention.

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One of the workers said that we were welcome to go upstairs, if we wanted to. Of course! There was a large dining area with long wooden tables. I put myself next to the large windows (behind me), and shot into the room, which was lit by numerous lovely fluorescent lights. I left my camera’s white balance setting on Auto, and prayed…

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Over by the door that was at the top of the stairs that we had come up, was this old scale. BBQ in Texas is usually sold “by the pound”, and not “by the sandwich”.

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I headed back down to see what Wyatt was up to, and he had a pit master posing in front of his camera. I listened intently as Wyatt explained how he was going to use a remotely triggered flash in a small softbox to the left, and slightly behind his subject. I took this photo with only the ambient light – which was a large window behind me, and lots of fluorescent lights above us.

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Now for the “gear heads” out there, here is something to study for a minute!

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This is the tethered shooting set-up belonging to Taylor Jones of Texas Grip. (Be sure to click on that link after you finish with my story.) Note the image on the screen of that laptop. Obviously, Wyatt’s photo looks waaayyy better than mine! He must have been using a pretty wide angle lens, as he wasn’t very far away from the pit master, and you can see a lot below and above him…. including the fire at his feet.

I noticed that they had pulled up a brisket out of one of the pits, and were slicing it up for a customer’s order. Without any hesitation, I just walked up to the carving table and quickly snapped this photo.

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Back to my spot near the window to watch Wyatt perform some more of his magic.

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And here’s Frank going in for the kill.

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Wyatt had noticed a wall just 7 or 8 feet (2.3 m) to my right that had a lot of light streaming onto it through the back door. Taylor Jones provided a “stand-in” while Wyatt got his lighting set-up the way that he wanted.

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He had Jeff Stockton put a CTO gel inside a remotely triggered softbox in a hallway just to Taylor’s left. It made a very dramatic environmental portrait! (Since I had no way of triggering that remote flash, I simply cropped that hallway off of the left side of the photo above – it just appeared black in my photo.) Here is a “behind the scenes” (BTS) photo with Taylor, Wyatt, and Jeff evaluating the results of their efforts on Taylor’s tethering station.

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I headed back toward the front cooking area, and this pit master was checking on the progress of his ribs. All of the light was pouring in through a door behind him, to my left.

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I went back to the front hallway, and Wyatt had positioned this BBQ customer on a bench, and was about to conduct “class” on how to light this guy in a dramatic fashion.

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Here Jeff is adjusting the position and power output of the flash in the small softbox, while Taylor and Wyatt monitor their progress.

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Now, just to the right of the customer in the previous two photos, James was watching everything through the screen door to the small office.

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James and the owner, Nina Schmidt, offered to take anyone who was interested on a private tour of the areas that most customers never see. Of course I was up for that!

We first went upstairs to the dining area that I previously showed with the long wooden tables. Wyatt noted the “beautifully weathered wall” that might make a great backdrop for some portraits. Here is a photo of Wyatt. Again, there was a large bank of windows to my right, with numerous fluorescent lights directly above. I was wishing that I had brought my collapsible round reflector to bounce some light back onto Wyatt from my left.

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I know that shadows are good, but that is just a bit more than I normally like.

After that, the tour went up to the third floor, where a modern central heating and air conditioning unit had been installed. It was rather odd to see the duct work just running through the middle of walls in a room that still had an old claw foot bathtub in it! (There was much more duct work directly behind me.)

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After that, the tour took us down 3 flights of stairs, down to the “basement”. I don’t know what this old piece of equipment is, but it looked much darker in that dimly lit basement. This was a 15 second exposure, lit by bare tungsten bulbs hanging from electrical cords!

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I was tired of the long shutter opening times, and so I finally changed my lens to one with a much more appealing maximum aperture of f/1.4. Here, as I was changing my lens, I was talking to Frank, who seemed content to watch what I was doing. I asked if I could take his picture, and he seemed OK with that. Unfortunately, I had left my aperture setting on the camera to a rather “dark” f/5.6, so my handheld photo of Frank was very blurry. I instantly recognized my mistake, and pleaded with Frank for a “do over” (very unprofessional). I opened up the aperture on this Panasonic/Leica 25mm f/1.4 lens to f/1.6, which let me take this handheld photo at 1/15th of a second (ISO was 200).

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The light in the above photo was entirely from fluorescents, and it appears that Frank was pretty much centered between two of them.

OK, it was about 11:15 AM. Time to actually eat some of this great BBQ for lunch!  Smitty’s brought us all of the brisket, ribs, and sausage that the 15 of us could eat. It was served on plain butcher paper, and the only eating utensils that we were given was a small plastic knife. You eat this kind of barbecue with your hands.

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We enjoyed a half hour of pure BBQ heavenly bliss! We still had two more establishments to visit on this Lockhart BBQ Tour.

I hope that you will return a few days from now for Part 2 of my Lockhart BBQ Trip story. (It should be posted by Monday, Feb. 18th.) In that next post, we will visit Kreuz Market (pronounced “Krites”), and Black’s Barbecue.

Thank you for visiting my blog!

Photo Walk on the University of Texas Campus

20121215_UTexas_Walk_003I’m still trying to get into the new rhythm of how we will operate going forward at the office, but my weekends have been just fine. This past Saturday, on December 15th, before the sun came up, I was in my car headed toward downtown Austin. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was headed, but I was eager to do some of what Robin Wong calls “Shutter Therapy”.

Now Robin lives in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia – which is a densely populated city. As a result, Robin has become an outstanding “street photographer”. I am anything but that. At any rate, I was hearing the siren’s song to go out and photograph whatever seemed interesting to me at the time.

Although it had not rained in Austin since October 26th, it was drizzling enough that I had to use my windshield wipers while heading south on U.S. Interstate 35 just as the skies began to light up from the quickly approaching sunrise. The temperature was unseasonably warm – it was 66 degrees (18.9 C), so even though it was drizzling intermittently, I knew that I wouldn’t need my jacket. I decided that instead of heading to downtown Austin, I would check out The University of Texas campus.

I was glad that I had my weatherproof Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera, and the equally weatherproof 12-50mm f/3.5 -6.3 lens. That’s a “dark” lens, and the sky was dark with clouds, so I knew that even though the image stabilization of this camera is outstanding, I was going to use my small Gitzo GT1542T Traveller tripod.

I got out of the car at the Joe C. Thompson conference center parking lot right at 7:15 AM, which was 5 minutes before the official time of the sunrise.

Since I was going to be using a tripod, I set the ISO to 200, which is the lowest sensitivity that the E-M5 allows, and turned off the fabulous image stabilization. I set the mode dial to Aperture Priority, set the focus mode to Single AF, and turned on the self-timer for 2 seconds. I put the White Balance on Auto, and started walking toward the LBJ Library and Museum. I took the photo above at the official time of sunrise, which was 7:20 AM.

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I had no plan for a route. I was just going to go where my feet followed my attention.

This is from the southwest corner of the LBJ Library.

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Stairs heading down.

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Reflection of UT Tower

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There was nobody around. I literally mean nobody. The street beside the Performing Arts Center was like something out of a post apocalypse movie.

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This is where the Texas Longhorn play football. It is the Darrel K. Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium. This is the view of the northwest corner of the stadium.

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Across the street, out front of the Performing Arts Center is the interesting arrangement of bells.

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The official name of the stadium.

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At this point, I decided to do a custom white balance in the camera. I use a simple WhiBal card to do that.

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This photo was taken just after I set the custom white balance in the camera. I might just need such a photo to see how closely the camera and Adobe Lightroom agree. I also used this photo to set the white balance for the photos that I had already taken (but I didn’t do it for the opening photo).

High on the east side of the stadium.

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To take the photo above, I had climbed up to the top floor of a parking garage across the stadium. I had never been up there before, so I walked to the south while still on top of the garage. As I approached the south end of the stadium I got a pretty nice view of downtown Austin, which is about 15 blocks from where I was.

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Going just a little further, I could now see the Texas State Capitol Building, which is about 8 blocks away.

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Looking back toward the stadium, I was surprised at just how much I could see “inside” the stadium!20121215_UTexas_Walk_055

 

Here’s a view of the inside and the outside of the east side of the stadium.20121215_UTexas_Walk_062

 

This is the back side of the GIANT scoreboard, which is also a video screen.20121215_UTexas_Walk_064

 

Back down on the street, I looked back to see the garage I was on top of, and the stadium across the street from it.20121215_UTexas_Walk_070

 

Walking around the south end of the stadium, I passed the truck that carries the football team’s equipment to many of the away-games.20121215_UTexas_Walk_071

 

Pedestrian ramps on the west side of the stadium.20121215_UTexas_Walk_081

 

Time to leave the stadium, and head west on 21st Street. Across from Gregory Gymnasium, I caught this view of the UT Tower.20121215_UTexas_Walk_085

 

As I passed the Red McComb’s School of Business, this statue in front of the autumn colored trees caught my attention.20121215_UTexas_Walk_088

Another 1/2 block took me to the east side of Littlefield Fountain, which is a monument by Italian-born sculptor Pompeo Coppini.

The fountain was built with money from a $250,000 trust established by Major George W. Littlefield as a war memorial.  It was unveiled in 1933, at a time when the Old Main Building was still in use.20121215_UTexas_Walk_100-Edit

The bright gray sky and the light stone tower, with the dark live oak trees, seemed like I good opportunity to play around with the camera a bit. The photo above is an HDR photo.

A view from the side shows the cascading fountains.20121215_UTexas_Walk_127

Up the stairs to the tunnel of trees.20121215_UTexas_Walk_112

 

The main administration building is at the base of the UT Tower.20121215_UTexas_Walk_155

 

Turning around, you see the George Washington statue in the foreground, and the Texas State Capitol Building, 9 blocks away.20121215_UTexas_Walk_157

 

This is an HDR photo of the southeast corner of the UT Tower.20121215_UTexas_Walk_159-Edit

 

Architectural details are always interesting!20121215_UTexas_Walk_166

 

Rusty balls (with pennies glued to them).20121215_UTexas_Walk_169

From the East Mall Fountain, which is under renovation, I saw this view of the northwest corner of the stadium. It was 10:15 AM, so I had been out for exactly 3 hours – and my camera battery had finally ran out. After I changed the battery, I decided to try and get a better photo of the stadium from this position, but I was shooting almost directly into the direction of the sun, and the sky above the stadium was very bright, while this side of the stadium was in the shade (well, as shady as it gets on a very overcast day). The result was the rather unartistic HDR photo.20121215_UTexas_Walk_181-Edit

 

At the base of the northwest corner of the stadium, it is revealed where the “Texas Memorial Stadium” name comes from.20121215_UTexas_Walk_189

Here there is a statue of a World War I soldier, and on the wall behind him is a metal plaque (bronze ?) that has etched into it all of the names of the American soldiers that were Texans that died in World War I.20121215_UTexas_Walk_201

 

Walking across the north side of the stadium, you pass the emblem of The University mounted on the doors to the north entrance.20121215_UTexas_Walk_209

 

As my journey was coming to an end, I stopped and took another look back towards the UT Tower.20121215_UTexas_Walk_215

 

Up the stairs at the base of the LBJ Library and Museum.20121215_UTexas_Walk_225

 

My lonely Honda was waiting patiently for me, after my 4 hour walk.20121215_UTexas_Walk_231

This was certainly not my usual aerobic Saturday morning walk, but it was a fun one.  I like being a tourist in my own town.

Later that same evening, the Lady Longhorn volleyball team won the National Championship, by beating the lady Oregon Ducks in 3 straight sets. Congratulations!

Whenever a team wins a national championship, The University of Texas will light the entire UT Tower top-to-bottom with orange colored flood lights.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Texas Longhorns vs. Wyoming Cowboys Football Game

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!

My First Photo Walk in Downtown Austin – Part 3

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.

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.

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!

My First Photo Walk in Downtown Austin – Part 2

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…