Expressway Upper and Lower Decks Vertorama
This is a vertorama (aka a vertical panorama) of I-35 in downtown Austin. It’s comprised of 5 landscape-oriented shots stitched together in Photoshop to make an almost 180 degree vertical view of what one would see if standing on one of the cross bridges. I think I could’ve captured this with a fish-eye lens as well, but alas, I don’t have one. Lastly, I was hoping to make this an HDR, but I think this turned out nicely without.
Misty Texas Capitol
There’s a parking garage at 9th and Lavaca which affords one a great view of the Texas capitol. It’s a great angle for a morning shot because the sun rises in the background. I was hoping for that on this day, but instead the weather decided to be misty and drizzly. I’m glad it was because I think I’m happier with this shot than I would have been had it been a clear day!
8th and Congress
This isn’t a shot that I would normally post, but when I processed it I noticed that there was a kind of cool feature that caught my eye… You see, I took this shot a little hastily on my way to work and as you can tell, I was kind of in the street when I shot it. But, after I processed it, I noticed that there was this shaft of blue light coming from the top right of the shot that I thought was quite interesting. It probably is a sign of a crappy photographer, but maybe it means something else?
Finally Back to Weird
Transition to Full Frame Complete!
I’m so jacked about having a full-frame DSLR with full-frame glass, I cannot contain myself! I never thought I’d actually own one, ever! But, after a few years of waiting, it finally paid off. It’s kind of like buying a luxury car, at least for us.. First you start with a “reasonably priced car” (as they would say on Top Gear) and then trade or sell for one that’s a little nicer and then trade or sell that one for one a little nicer, and so on and so on. After doing that for a few times, you can finally have the car, or in my case camera, that you want. I started with a Nikon D90 (reasonably priced), then went to a Nikon D300s (a little nicer) and now I have a Nikon D700 (luxury – for me anyway)! Granted, I bought it used, but it’s still awesome! Then, I sold my lenses (glass in photographer geek-speak) on ebay and used that money for new full-frame glass. Now I’m in full-frame nirvana! It handles noise so much better than my old cameras and it’s just a better camera all around. From the buffer size and speed to the size of the viewfinder, it’s just great! There are only a couple of things that my old cameras had that this one doesn’t.. The D700 only has one memory card slot. My D300s had a CF and an SD card slot so you could really pack in the pics. The other thing my old cameras had that this one doesn’t is a button for live view. The D700 has live view, but it’s on the select dial on the top and it’s not really easy to get to. I wish I could change one of the other buttons for this. I know you can change the function button, but I have that set for bracketing as most of the shots I take need to be bracketed. If only there was another button.. Oh well. Overall I’m ecstatic!
Finally Back To Weird
Since all of my glass finally arrived, I was just itching to get out there and get some HDRs with the new camera. So, on my way to work Friday morning, I stopped on South Congress Ave in Austin and took a few shots. The conditions weren’t the best as it was very drizzly out there, but I got several shots anyway. This is a shot of Doc’s Bar and Grill.
The last couple of weeks, Austin hosted the big South By Southwest (SXSW) music/film/tech festival. Now that it has wrapped, I think the people at Doc’s are happy. You see Austin has this saying, “Keep Austin Weird” which is pretty much “normal” for Austinites, and I guess Doc’s is happy that things are getting back to “normal”. The other side of the same sign says, “S Bye SW”. That was my other clue. 🙂 To be honest, I’m glad it’s over as well.
Back from Jackson Hole, Wyoming
What a wonderful trip
It’s been a couple of weeks or so since I’ve posted anything to the old blog here, but I have a good reason. A couple of weeks ago, Eileen and I left with our friends, Doug, Tricia, Valerie, Theresa and Ellen for a week of skiing and fun in wonderful Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We had a great time! The skiing was awesome as were the views! Well, it was awesome for some skiers in the group. One of the skiers, Tricia, blew out her ACL in the middle of the trip after um, let’s say “catching some air”. It sucked because ski patrol had to bring her down off the mountain and she couldn’t ski for the the remainder. She took it very well and I think still had a great time as did the rest of us!
Not only was the area at the ski resort beautiful, but the whole Jackson Hole (no pun intended) area is unbelievable! It’s up near Yellowstone Park so the mountain vistas are just awesome! It made for exceptional photography opportunities as well as other great activities. We even took a snowmobile tour through Yellowstone to see Old Faithful! What a blast that was! Anyway, I’ll be putting out more content from this trip in the next few posts. There’s one shot in particular that I can’t wait to post, so stay tuned!
Tram Building
This is the main building at the bottom of the mountain that houses the tram that takes you about 4000 vertical feet up to the very top of the mountain. You get dumped off on a run called Rendezvous which a wide open black, but it isn’t too difficult as long as the wind isn’t blowing too hard and it isn’t snowing. 😉
South Walk-up at Texas Capitol
Superbowl Weekend Coming Up
Super Bowl Weekend! Woohoo! It’s always exciting to watch the two best teams in the NFL play for the ultimate prize. There’s nothing like American football, no? It’s the best! However, this year, I’m not really too enamored with either team vying for the bragging rights of “Super Bowl Champions!” The Niners are OK because they have a good coach and their young quarterback is fun to watch. Other than that, meh. The Ravens on the other hand are aging, have a good coach as well as a good defense led by someone who was accused of being involved in a double-murder a few years ago. Again, meh. When all is said and done, I will probably root for the Ravens because their head coach – John Harbaugh – is the older brother of the Niners head coach – Jim Harbaugh – and has been in the league a few years longer. Therefore, the older brother must win! Otherwise, I hope it’s a good game like the last few Super Bowls have been! Are you rooting for a particular team? If so, who and why?
Restaurants Banning Food Photography in New York
Did you know that food photography by restaurant patrons was a phenomenon? I know some people who like to take pictures of their meals, especially if it’s really good, but apparently some restaurants in NYC don’t like it. Maybe it makes the chefs work harder to present their meals or something? Whatever. Another reason why New York City is a great place to visit, but not a great place to live…
South Walk-Up at the Texas Capitol
I took this shot during the same visit as the shot in my previous post. This one was a bit more tricky to process and has a bit more noise in it, but I like how it turned out anyway.
Moon Over Courthouse
OK, yesterday I put out a pretty bad video. However, this one here is much better. It’s a video of someone’s house that has been decorated with tons of lights and synced to music. I’m sure you’ve seen many of these before, but this one seemed better to me. Maybe it’s because everything is covered in snow or something. I don’t know, but I like it. Hope you do to…
Sam’s No3
Across from where we stayed in Denver is a great restaurant called “Sam’s No3”. It sits on the corner of 15th and Curtis. Eileen and I ate breakfast there the first and last mornings of our trip. I can’t tell you how other meals are, but if they’re anything like their breakfasts, you’ll be impressed! They had a wide variety of stuff and huge portions! I’m not trying to shill for them, but we really enjoyed it. I liked it so much that I thought I should at least get a shot of it, especially at night. It has this old 50’s era diner look to it which I think is cool. What do you think?
View of Downtown from Millenium Bridge, Denver, CO
The Millennium Bridge is pedestrian bridge that allows people to walk above railroad tracks and connects the Central Platte Valley neighborhood with the Downtown Pedestrian Mall. I took this shot the night of October 3d when there were so many thing to watch on TV. However, those things didn’t interest me on this day! But the thing was, a cold front had blown thru Denver that day and the night was pretty cold and windy! So, I didn’t stay out too long!
Running a Red Light at Larimer Square
Larimer Square (which I think is really a street, but called a square) is a stretch of road that lasts for about a block on the west side of Denver and is packed with lots of cool restaurants and markets. The thing that really caught my eye were the flags and lights strung across the street. I tried to capture those as well as I could and I was also able to catch a taxi running the red light while crossing 15th St.
Texas Capitol From SoCo
Ahh, the things I do for getting a nice shot… Well, I guess “nice” is relative, but I digress.. This shot was taken from South Congress Ave looking north through downtown Austin to the Capitol Building. As you can see I stood in the middle of the road to get the shot. “What a death-defying feat of uncommon bravery,” you must be thinking to yourself.. Well, stupid maybe, but not that brave. Really there wasn’t a lot of traffic on this morning so it was pretty easy and non-eventful to get this shot. Here it is..
Also, South Congress Ave or SoCo as it’s known in these parts has some eclectic (aka weird) shops and boutiques that the trendy patronize. It’s an interesting area. Click here to see some examples to which I refer…
Enjoy the shot and thanks for dropping by!
Austin From The 1st Street Bridge
Here’s another take of downtown Austin that I shot from the 1st Street Bridge. I took this shot after having driven in to Austin for work that evening. When I was through working, I thought I would shoot it up in the city a little bit before coming home. While I was on the bridge, I met another photographer by the name of Jennifer who was taking some shots of the Hyatt on the river for her marketing firm. She was dressed to the nines as she came out from a party at the Hyatt. She said she wanted to get some shots of the building and the city for the occasion. It was a nice little visit. She also told me that as I was taking this shot, a little rat ran right by my feet! Thank God I didn’t see that because I may have wound up in the water below! 😉
Austin Skyline and Contest
Contest
In a few days I will be announcing details to give away an Apple Airport Express! Anyone out there in need of one?
Austin Skyline
Last Tuesday, my good friend and co-worker Van Sutherland and I ventured out to one the of the better places in Austin to get a good shot of the skyline. This was from a part of Zilker Park called “Lou Neff Point”. As you can see, one can get an awesome view. As we were shooting, lots of other people with point and shoot cameras and smartphones were shooting from the same vantage. I hope their shots didn’t come out as good as ours because that would mean I don’t really need this big-ass camera. Actually, that might be a good thing! They can get pretty heavy after a while! 😉 Anyway, Van and I shot here before a couple of years ago and we thought it was a good time to do it again. Last time the skyline was still changing a bit. Now, it’s pretty much done for a little while. There are more hotels slated to be built so it will change again soon. When that happens, it will be time for new shots!
That’s about it. Check out Van’s site to see his shot as well! I think it’s better than this one!
Evan's Expo 