Okay, downtown walkabout time...
It has been YEARS... like maybe 20 or so, since I was last wandering around anywhere near downtown Austin. I generally avoid big cities because I am not a big fan of congestion and crowds. I got that out of my system living in NYC and LA. Anyway, I was actually kind of looking forward to this evening because I've never done any kind of urban walk around, alone or with other photo nerds. We found a place to park and walked over to this pedestrian/bike bridge. Fluger or Phluger Bridge? I don't know. It's Austin so I figure it is likely spelled weird. We dodged the bikes with blinking lights to get on the bridge and setup our cameras.
I started out at f/2.8 and then started stopping down to get more DOF and also to get the star bursts on the lights. Most of the f/2.8 shots sucked and I nuked them.
A few shots of the bridge behind us. Light trails don't work well edge on...
Still on the bridge, but over the street instead of the water
The straight part of the bridge
The Motley Crew
We eventually wandered back over the bridge and down the street to a big hill. There is a concrete sidewalk that spirals to the top of the hill where there is a concrete bench that goes around the top. This gives a nice view looking back over the river toward downtown. The few shots I took there just didn't do anything for me... So I looked behind the hill to see what might be there,
Done with the hill, we wandered back across the street toward the river and followed a path that eventually led to the statue of Stevie Ray Vaughn. I still remember being in L.A. and getting the news of his death. Most of the people there were like, "Stevie who...?"
Rusty working his magic
It was pretty chaotic light wise with six or seven people trying to shoot the statue at the same time, some with flashes and others doing long exposures with flash lights to paint the statue. It seemed like every time I looked in one direction or another a flash would pop off and blind me
The two shots above were almost black when I pulled them into Lightroom. I cranked up the exposure and BOOM, there was my shot!
I'l like to say I planned it that way, but...
Done with Stevie, I wandered over to have a look across the river and work on getting some decent skyline shots with the water in the foreground. Back on the bridge, there was a train bridge blocking the view and the light on the water just wasn't very pleasing.
The D750 has a "Night Vision" setting. It is not real night vision. It is just a setting that cranks the ISO to 112000 and writes a black & white JPG to the memory card. However, it can give some pretty cool images despite the fact that they are NOISY!!
Bill, Scott, Rusty, and Casey
The decision was made to head for downtown. We'd visit the graffiti park and then the Capitol, before calling it a night. We started back toward Scott's suburban and this little scooter came whizzing by us. At first, I thought it might be pizza delivery since the tail bag was so BIG. Turns out it is Chinese food.
We reached the park and were warned by Scott not to leave our stuff laying around unattended. There were people all over the place. It is an interesting spot. I got lazy though and didn't feel like digging out the flash. I stuck with the night vision setting and long exposures.
People everywhere, many spray painting. The sounds of shaking rattle cans of paint were echoing among the slabs of concrete.
Scott trying to set up for his LOVE shot.
EVERYTHING gets painted!
I was hoping that person with the flash light would wander around a bit more and make a cool light trail. Apparently they were not receiving my mental transmissions
Some scale. See the kids above that face with the gas mask? Speaking of that image, it appears in several places and is the same in each. It does not look like a free hand image. I've no clue of any possible significance of the image.
This is for Scott. Clarity to 100!
No clarity adjustment
Apparently, some of the "artists" get a bit philosophical at times...
Don't ask... It is just some bizarre statue on top of a telephone pole
We headed over to the Capitol building to find that it is surrounded by construction equipment and TONS of scaffolding! Nonetheless, we grabbed our gear and wandered around for a bit.
Something to do with Cuba, but I neglected to read the plaque
Did I mention LOTS of scaffolding?
It looks like they are replacing all the windows
Park area in front of the building
Probably the best image I got of the front.
This shoot just SCREAMS, "Get a tilt shift lens!"
No clue, just an old building back behind the Capitol
We regrouped with Duke and Casey. They had wandered around the back side of the Capitol. Then we drove back over to where Casey had parked so we could drop him off before heading back to Rusty's place. I think it was sometime after midnight by the time we got back to his house. Rusty made some killer Margaritas, we had a great bull session, and then Scott and Duke left. The rest of us were soon out for the night.
I got up later than I had planned, but it was nice to sleep in. I think I got on the road just after noon. One the way home, I did spot a few interesting places that might be cool to revisit with the cameras when I have time to stop. One is in Coupland. Lots of oddly carved and shaped chunks of granite. Another was somewhere along FM 112 near Lexington where there are a couple of really cool old cars begging to be photographed. Then there is an interesting old tractor collection somewhere on FM 696 between Lexington and Hwy 21. Never enough time... never enough time...
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