The Chinese Lantern Festival

If you live in the Dallas area and were planning to go to the State Fair of Texas, don't miss the Chinese Lantern Festival which will be there until the fair closes on October 21.

"Never before in the Southwest, the Chinese Lantern Festival is an outstanding visual delight. By day, it’s a collection of architecture, fabric flora, and fauna figures—pandas, flamingos, dinosaurs. A dragon made from 15,000 porcelain dishes!
By night, the festival lights up, setting the lagoon and imaginations aglow. The Temple of Heaven, Statue of Liberty, animated creatures, and a Blossoming Lotus—these are among the 22 dazzling lantern sets in and around the Nature and Science Buildings and lagoon."

Last week I visited the Festival while at the fair with my wife. I took some pictures but it was not the serious photo shoot that I had yesterday. Several other photographers that had been at the Cottonwood Art Festival last weekend were with me.  The crowd at the fair was huge since it was fair day for the Dallas schools. I think every student in town was there. Trying to take photos on the Midway was difficult. It was more like a cattle drive.

Fortunately, my main interest was shooting the Chinese Lantern Festival and it did not disappoint. As the lights started coming on at 7 pm it was hard to decide what to shoot first. I think I could make ten visits and still shoot new compositions each time. 

Photographing the Lantern Festival is an HDR photographer's dream. Shooting subject matter like this after dark is perfect for bracketing a range of exposures and combining them for your final image. You can capture a lot more detail than you could with just one exposure.

 The "Tunnel of Light" is the last part of the Festival that you walk through before you get to the exit. I decided to have some fun while zooming my lens during the exposure. Maybe I should do this trick more often!

The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Photo Book!

I just finished a book of my photographs of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. It contains 40 pages of images I have taken of this new icon in the Dallas skyline. I have shot the bridge under a variety of conditions, from a flooded Trinity River to the fireworks during the opening weekend celebration. You can preview all of the book here. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3409682?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=140x240

Hope you like it!

The Traveling Man at the Deep Ellum Dart Station

Across the street from the Dart Station in Deep Ellum is the 38 foot tall sculpture of "The Traveling Man". I did several things a little different for this image. A 10 second exposure was made possible by adding a polarizing filter and a 9 stop Nuetral Density filter to the camera lens. This was also shot during the middle of the day. What appears to be a very long train behind the sculpture is actually the Dart Train as it went by during the exposure.

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge with Fireworks!

Happy Fourth of July!

I actually shot this last March but the colors of the fireworks were just too good not to show it on the Fourth of July! Have a great day everyone!

The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Reunion Tower, and the Hyatt Regency!

I shot this several months ago but I am heading to the same location on Monday and Tuesday nights. A full moon will be rising in line with these two Dallas icons and I hope to get some interesting images including it. Wish me luck.

Dart's New Uptown Station

Uptown Station

A few months ago I noticed some neon lights along Central Expressway near the Lemmon Ave exit. They didn't use to be there. I soon found out that it was a new Dart Station for the M-Line Trolley that goes up and down McKinney Ave. Last night I photographed the station for the first time and I did get a shot that included the trolley. While writing this post I did a search for some information about the station and came up with something interesting. http://www.dallasvoice.com/gay-photographer-held-gunpoint-cityplace-dart-station-refuses-give-camera-10117972.html This happened just a few days ago. If I ever get robbed, raped, or murdered while out shooting I hope they just refer to me as "a photographer".

The Flooded Trinity River!

MHH Bridge Reflected in the Trinity River

My wife thinks I am obsessed with photographing the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. I do have a desire to photograph it under a variety of conditions. There is about a million different ways to shoot the bridge and I am only about half way there. I also have a separate gallery of photos of it now on my web site.
Monday night and Tuesday morning we had well over 4 inches of rain. I knew this would flood the Trinity River and provide an opportunity to photograph the bridge reflected in its swollen waters. Tuesday and Wednesday evening found me doing just that. I was more pleased with the second nights efforts. I liked the compositions better and the sky also seemed to put on a better show.
 The top image was shot first. The bottom image was shot about 6 minutes later and is a good example of why I sit in one spot and shoot different compositions as the light changes. The Bank One Tower (green building) had just turned its lights on. That is the main reason it wasn't included in the previous shot. The scene had also become darker and I needed 4 bracketed exposures to create the second version. The most interesting change was the color of the clouds. It was now 25 minutes after sunset and there was heavy cloud cover to the west, which is behind me. Within 3 minutes the clouds picked up a dull pinkish look which wasn't there just a few minutes earlier. I might be inclined to think it was some very late sunset color but I really think it was the lights of the city starting to reflect off the clouds. Thirty minutes later when it was completely dark, the clouds still had some of that color in them.

Flooded River Reflections

The last image was shot after all the deep blue had left the sky.  This was from a spot I had not shot from before. I think it made a nice addition to my collection.

MHH Bridge Arch and Cables at Night

Celebrating the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge!

I spent Saturday evening at the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge celebration. It probably is the last time I will get to shoot on the bridge without dodging cars or being hassled by the law so I was definitely wanting to take advantage of that chance. Conditions were good, giving me some warm light on the arch right before sunset. There was also a small moon which is visible in the first image. They had extra spotlights on the bridge so it became very brightly lit as soon as the sun had set. It made quite a contrast with the deep blue sky at dusk, which can be seen in the second image.

The city was going to put on a fireworks display at 9 pm. I had a rough idea where they would be shooting them from but wasn't exactly sure where I should set up in order to include the bridge and fireworks. As you can see, I guessed correctly. I actually have four or five that I really like which show different colored fireworks and different lighting on the bridge.

This last image is cropped from one of the shots that included fireworks. I wish I had a second camera shooting full frame images of just the arch of the bridge during the ten minutes of the show. The lighting and the smoke were constantly changing making for a cool variety of looks to the bridge. 

The Opening of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge...Nearly!

The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge

This weekend the City of Dallas will celebrate the opening of this Santiago Calatrava designed suspension bridge. http://www.mhhbridgecelebration.com This event was planned many months ago and I am sure they were committed to having the festivities even though the official opening of the bridge has been delayed until the end of March. I didn't think they would finish the roads around the bridge in time. Saturday is a free day to explore the bridge. I will be there with my camera. They have not been allowing people on the bridge and I am one of the many photographers that have been itching to get some images taken from the bridge. There is no sidewalk on the bridge and I don't think it will be a very safe place to shoot once the bridge does open for traffic.

I shot this image back in December of 2011. It was the first time I had seen the bridge with the lights on.

The Dallas Farmers Market

Dallas Farmers Market

In the last few days I have made several trips to downtown Dallas around sunset. Sometimes I feel the Weather Gods see me coming with my camera. I don't know how many times conditions are looking quite promising only to have the light and the clouds fizzle out instead of offering a glorious pink sky. That's OK though! I'm getting to where I like shooting the night lights long after that pink sky would have faded anyway. I've heard it called "The Blue Hour" but it sure doesn't last for an hour. I might call it "The Blue 30 Minutes" at best. That rich blue sky is hard to get until it starts getting fairly dark but then you seem to lose it after it gets too dark. 

Downtown Dallas From Ruibal's

It's surprising how quiet it is down by the Dallas Farmers Market in the evening, even during a weekday. You are so close to so much rush hour traffic but most of it bypasses this area. It makes it a pleasant experience for me as a photographer, especially when I need to run across a street to get a different view of something.

Chase Tower

The top two images were shot on my first trip to the Farmers Market last week. The timing and the light were fairly close on both. It was amazing to me that I could get a shot of the flowers at Ruibal's and keep it free of poles and wires that are so hard to keep out of other views of the skyline from this area. The "Chase Tower" was shot on a different night on the other side of downtown from the Farmers Market.  The electric blue accent lighting on the building is fairly new. It sure adds a nice touch to photographs of the building.

Reflections of the Mercantile Tower

This last image was made yesterday evening. While looking at some of the images from my first visit to the Farmers Market last week, I noticed that the Mercantile Tower would reflect on the side of the Comerica Bank Tower. I had taken that image with a much wider angle but yesterday I put on my 180 mm macro. It is made to do its best at close range but it also does a great job on farther away subjects. I am quickly becoming convinced that it will give me a sharper image than my 100-400 mm would have if zoomed out to the same focal length.

To Crop or not to Crop?

 Last week I posted a selection of images of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. One of them was this top image but I had cropped it right at the base of the arch. It also had a little more contrast and saturated color. This version is pretty true to how I remember it. I'm possibly having second thoughts about the first version. After looking at the raw file again I am starting to like my shadow running towards the arch of the bridge. The man that is taking a picture doesn't bother me that much. I did slightly crop the left side to remove a distracting person that I still don't want in the picture.

This second image is nothing more than a crop of the first one. I also like it this way but I still tend to be partial to a version without people. I think the shadow of me and my tripod would be enough. What do you think? Which version do you prefer?

My work on display at the Gardan Cafe!

On Monday I set up a display of my work at the Garden Cafe. This East Dallas eatery is open 6 days a week for breakfast and lunch. My work will showcased until March.

One of the my new images shown will be "Five Clay Pots". Instead of presenting this on canvas without a frame I have printed this one on a heavy photo paper. The paper was mounted to gator board, given a clear UV coating, and then put in a classy walnut burl frame with linen liner. I really like this look and will do other images this way.

 Five Clay Pots

 

 I also have five pastels on display.When I was 6 years old I took some pastel lessons from an artist that lived down the street from our house. Over the years I haven't worked with them very much but recently I have picked them back up. I think its a talent that I need to spend a little more time on and give it a chance to mature. What do you think?

 Sea Oats and Sand Dunes

Pastel on sanded paper!

Some of my favorite images from 2010!

For my final blog post of 2010 I decided to look through the images I took during the year and pick out some of my favorites. Sometimes at art shows people ask me what is my favorite image. Usually I mention  one of the better images that has been taken on my most recent trip. I've looked at the older images quite a bit and the initial thrill has worn off. My choices here were probably influenced in much the same fashion. The first three are from my recent trip to California. I photographed Lake Tahoe, Mono Lake, the Alabama Hills and Death Valley. The weather was a little questionable at times but I did get a few nice ones.

Dusk at the Tufas

Mono Lake Sunset

 Tahoe Fog

 Badwater Salt Flats

The next three images were created while spending some time in Alabama and Florida between my two November shows. The Little River Canyon is definitely worth another visit because better timing would have given me a lot more good shots. It wasn't really a good year for the fall color and I was also about a week late. Because of this I decided to spend several days at Pensacola Beach. It is a great area to photograph and I could have chosen more images from my time there.

 Sea Oat Sunset

Fence and Dunes

 Little River Falls

The next two images were created while I was in the Lincoln, Nebraska area while participating in several art shows. Did mention that I love Google Earth. That's how I found the "Old Nebraska Church".

 Barn and Storm Clouds

 Old Nebraska Church

For the first time in several years there was a great display of wildflowers in the Texas hill country. I was able to spend several days there and had good conditions to shoot in. I could have chosen more than I did from that trip.

 Fish Hatchery Fence

 Hill Country Spring

Reunion Tower is a favorite area in downtown Dallas to shoot. The NBA banners put on the buildings for the all-star game made a great image. The reflections of the tower is an angle I have never seen in any other photos.

 Reunion Tower and NBA All-Star Banners

 Reunion Tower Reflections

 A record 12 inches of snow! Turtle Creek and the Dallas area may never look this way again. Almost had a tree limb break and fall on my truck while shooting at this location.

 Snow at Turtle Creek

 Gary, Dan, and myself drove up to the Tishomingo Wildlife Refuge near Lake Texoma in Oklahoma for this last shot. I had several variations of this which were also nice. Special thanks to Dan who was running around in the dark structure firing off different flashes with colored gels attached.

 Tishomingo Deserted Building

Everyone Have a Great 2011!

Snowmageddon! New record snowfall for Dallas!

On Wednesday I saw a tweet from Pete Delkus one of the weather guys at channel 8. "snowmageddon is on the way!!!!!!!!!!!!" A few tweets later he said we should get 1"-3". HA! If he had said we would get 10"-12" we would have all thought he was nuts but 36 hours later he would have looked like the weather genius if he had. I woke up Thursday to see that an inch had already fallen. The forecast still called for snow all day. Well, I don't think it stopped until around 2am Friday morning. We ended up with 11.2 inches for the day which broke the old record of 7.8 inches. We must have had another 1.3 inches after midnight which made the total for the storm 12.5 inches. That was also a new record.

Bird Houses on our Fence

The temperature was at or just above freezing the whole time it snowed. There was little wind and this wet snow stuck to the trees and bushes like crazy. It seemed every little twig had at least 2 inches clinging to it. Bigger limbs had a lot more.The more it snowed the more incredible all the trees looked. Around 11:30pm we noticed that it seemed really bright outside. Much brighter than earlier in the evening and much brighter than when I got up the next morning. The clouds must have been just right so that the lights of the city were reflected right back at us. The front of my house was photographed at 1:45 am. I actually had to darken the exposure some to make it look more like night. The light had such a great quality to it I almost got in the car and drove around to find something else to shoot.

 

My Back yard

  

 My Front yard

I headed out early Friday morning. Fortunately the temperature was still  at 32 degrees and not the 29 degrees they predicted. The roads were slushy but not frozen solid. Driving was not a problem. Everything looked awesome. I first stopped where the road crossed White Rock Creek. I got a few photos of this area where a trail follows the creek. I then got back in the car and headed to Lakeside Park located along Turtle Creek. Many limbs had broken off the trees in this part of town but I was still able to get some good shots of the trees reflecting in the creek. While I was out shooting I heard several loud cracks as another limb broke and fell to the ground. When I got back to my vehicle a limb was now laying in the street about 10 feet behind my truck. The snow was now starting to fall off the trees pretty quickly. I knew it wouldn't last forever. I did get one last shot of a dock at White Rock Lake.

The Trail near White Rock Creek

  

 Another View of the Trail near White Rock Creek

  

 Turtle Creek

 

Dock at White Rock Lake