Put Your Money in Your Shoes...

Hearing a song about a specific place has always been intriguing to me. When I hear a song about a place, I tend to try to put myself in the shoes of the artist and picture what it is that inspired (or serves as the basis for) the song. The first time I heard Fran refer to Deep Ellum in Dallas, TX, I immediately starting singing The Grateful Dead's version of Deep Elem Blues in my head.

Knowing that it's likely that the Grateful Dead are not the first band or artists to perform the tune, I decided to do a little research. What I found was a wealth of information about Deep Ellum and the song itself. For instance, according to this website, the song dates as far back as the 1930's and the area of Dallas known as Deep Ellum has played host to such blues legends as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Leadbelly. The area saw a resurgence during the 1980's and 1990's but now has a reputation as a pretty rough neighborhood. In walking the sidewalks of Deep Ellum you can see the shell of what was once a lively and thriving area. This picture should demonstrate just how prevalent live music was in Deep Ellum's most recent heyday. I saw this telephone pole on a corner that used to be within a block of no less than 10 live music venues.

However, the front windows in most of the bars that were known for hosting live music now display posters alerting passers-by that zoning restrictions have impacted the nightlife and urging voters to restructure the zoning in the area. What is also evident in roaming Deep Ellum is that the locals have maintained a strong affinity for the area and really want to see another period of resurgence in Deep Ellum in the future. Many of the murals that I saw while there made reference to "The Good Ole' Days" and urged residents and supports to "Keep Deep Ellum Alive" as well as letting them know that "Deep Ellum Lives."

Long story short, I had the opportunity to roam around Deep Ellum taking pictures when I visited Dallas this week and I got some nice pictures of some of the "local flair", so to speak. Enjoy.

Dallas

Fran and I left Lubbock last Friday, headed to see her family in Dallas for a few days. I made sure to take my camera because I've been wanting to fool around with some extended exposure photography, and with a city skyline at my disposal, I thought this weekend would be a great opportunity.

Monday night Fran and I headed to the city with the intention of finding a decent spot to shoot some night skyline shots. What we ended up with was a parking spot atop the courthouse parking garage at the southern end of the city. With the exception of some ambient light pollution from some billboards and some street lights, I managed to find a decent line of sight and get a couple good shots from the garage:

After leaving the garage, on advice that I found on the web, we headed to the berm that runs along the Trinity River Greenbelt Park to try to shoot the skyline. If you've ever been to that part of the Dallas area, you probably know that it's not the greatest neighborhood. Since it was midnight, the road was closed, and we were parked on the side of the road we decided to shoot rather quickly and just settle for whatever we got. I managed to get a couple shots that I thought were decent, but none that were ideal. Regardless, here is one of the night shots of the skyline that I got.

Tour de Tejas - Phase I

Well, Spring Break has arrived...and not a moment too soon. Of course, as I departed on my "Tour de Tejas", which was to take me from Lubbock to Austin to San Antonio to Rockport to South Padre Island to Rockport and finally back to Lubbock, the skies opened up and proceeded to dump rain on us from Lubbock to San Antonio. I had hoped to spend lots of time shooting Austin and San Antonio, but the weather just wouldn't cooperate.

I did get my first taste of 6th Street in Austin, but was rather unimpressed. By the time I was headed to my hotel at the end of the night I felt like 6th Street was no different than the strip in most college towns....with more neon. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time, and the people were nice, I just expected more. Additionally, I was lucky enough to encounter someone that should have their music fan license revoked. I was standing in a bar with my girlfriend, surrounded by guys in Stetson hats, cowboy boots, and the occasional frat boy in a Ralph Lauren hat and pastel oxford shirt when I suggested to the "DJ" (read: fat guy in a UFC t-shirt with his laptop hooked to the bar's sound system) that he play some Allman Brothers rather than the worst rap music on the planet. To this he replied, and I quote, "I don't have any country music on here." To this I replied, "you're fired." Seriously, in Austin, TX of all places, a guy considers the Allman Brothers to be country music? I thought Austin had a reputation for its great live music and great music scene in general; I happened to encounter the biggest douche that city I guess....I digress. Here are some pictures from the first leg of the tour.

Frost Bank Building - Downtown Austin
























Random night shot - Downtown Austin
























Old ass church - Downtown Austin
























The tip of the rotunda at the Capitol Building - Downtown Austin







































Fence around the Capitol Building grounds - Downtown Austin
































The view from my parents' back porch - Key Allegro in Rockport, TX

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil

Hear no evil

See no evil

Speak no evil

God Bless Photoshop

I recently received a couple pieces of very sage advice from a friend. He told me that utilizing the camera raw setting on my camera would allow me to do much more with my photos than just using the JPEG format. As such, yesterday I stopped by the Tech baseball game against UT Pan Am to attempt some action shots. The first picture is an original JPEG image from the baseball game. The second image has been slightly cropped, and touched up using Photoshop Elements and then converted from raw format to JPEG format.



After I left the game, I headed south, out of town, with the intention of trying to shoot my first West Texas sunset. I've seen the sun set in West Texas an awful lot of times, but every picture I've ever taken of the sunset here just didn't do a very good job of demonstrating just how beautiful they can be.

The second piece of advice that I received was to fiddle with the white balance in my pictures while shooting lots and lots of pictures of the same scene. It's not very easy to perfectly capture the scene you envision on the first exposure. So, I pulled my car over to the side of the road, set up my tripod, plugged in my shutter remote and started shooting. Here is one of the pictures I snapped. Once again, the first image is the original JPEG and the second is the raw version, touched up with Photoshop and then converted to JPEG format. Enjoy

Shutter Speed & Aperture Experimentation

I had a little bit of fun with the camera and tripod tonight. This was just the result of taking a single picture of a building in my apartment complex (seen above) and then messing with it in the Canon software that came with my camera. Then I stitched them together and came up with the picture below...it's a collage so to speak.

The first of...well...many?

So, I'm new to the blogosphere and, quite frankly, this blog will really only serve one purpose.

I recently acquired my first digital SLR camera after spending a few years trying to hone my skills with a 35mm SLR (to no avail). Luckily for me, a good friend (http://todd-duane.blogspot.com) of mine is an incredibly talented photographer and has provided me with the inspiration to once again pursue the art of photography with some fervor. Of course, I'll never be a well-trained professional photographer, or win any awards for my photography, but what I hope to accomplish is to offer all of you a chance to watch me develop my skills.

As I shoot more and more pictures and acquire more nice equipment, I'll continue to post my pictures here and talk about the experiences I have while taking those pictures and hopefully, over time, I'll get more creative, more artistic, and better. With that said, allow me to lay down the benchmark for my improvements. These are a few pictures of my best friend Auggie:



















Here's Auggie wondering why the black thing in my hand is flashing at him incessantly.



















And, here's Auggie showing off his athleticism. The rest of the pictures were taken while I was goofing around with the new camera the night I got it.



























Over exposed....but, I'm still learning!!

Anyway, you've seen the benchmark now, and I hope that you will check back periodically to keep tabs on my progress as I hope to absorb as much information as I can from various sources and put that info to good use in developing my skills as a photographer