Category Archives: Photography

Pictures I have taken.

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything. ~John Steinbeck

Geometry

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons

Cityline, Richardson, Texas

Baguette

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I was so thin I could slice bread with my shoulderblades, only I seldom had bread”
― Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Cali Saigon Mall, Garland, Texas

One of the goals that I set, years ago, as I started working on my fitness and freedom from automobiles, was I decided never to drive to the grocery store. I pretty much have kept that up. It doesn’t hurt that I have about five grocery stores, of various types, within two miles of my house. I needed some shirataki noodles and tofu, so I rode my bike down to the Cali Saigon mall (I rode my vintage Cannondale – I have put racks and panniers on it to keep my new Poseidon X light).

On the way out of the house, Candy asked me to pick up some baguettes. So after I bought my groceries I stopped by Lee’s Sandwiches for a couple of fresh-out-of-the-oven loaves.

I always feel European riding my bike through my neighborhood with a couple of baguettes sticking up out of my panniers.

And the Nights Will Flame With Fire

Posted on by Bill Chance

“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum

Nancy Best Fountain, Klyde Warren Park, Dallas, Texas

One Friday I took some photos of the new Nancy Best Fountain at the East End of the park.

They played music – at this point it was Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash.

Nancy Best Fountain

Posted on by Bill Chance

“There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.

There are not more than five primary colours, yet in combination
they produce more hues than can ever been seen.

There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of
them yield more flavours than can ever be tasted.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Nancy Best Fountain, Klyde Warren Park, Dallas, Texas

On Friday I took some photos of the new Nancy Best Fountain at the East End of the park.

The kids loved the water and the multicolored lights.

Morse Code

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Code is not like other how-computers-work books. It doesn’t have big color illustrations of disk drives with arrows showing how the data sweeps into the computer. Code has no drawings of trains carrying a cargo of zeros and ones. Metaphors and similes are wonderful literary devices but they do nothing but obscure the beauty of technology.”
― Charles Petzold, Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Pacific Plaza Park, Dallas, Texas

Sawtooth Reflections

Posted on by Bill Chance

“A new social type was being created by the apartment building, a cool, unemotional personality impervious to the psychological pressures of high-rise life, with minimal needs for privacy, who thrived like an advanced species of machine in the neutral atmosphere. This was the sort of resident who was content to do nothing but sit in his over-priced apartment, watch television with the sound turned down, and wait for his neighbours to make a mistake.”
― J.G. Ballard, High-Rise

Downtown Dallas, Texas

When I moved to Dallas, many moons ago, in 1981 – the city center was in a building boom (one of many). Reflective glass hi-rise buildings rose all around me as I walked from the bus stop to my work everyday. I’d go out onto the streets for lunch, eat greasy Chinese food in a little park (if the weather was bearable), and look up at the construction high overhead.

I was fascinated at how many glass hi-rises had curtain walls that were sawtooth-shaped. It easy to figure out why. That shape gives a large number of corner offices – which are loaded with prestige and command a premium price.

For the proletariat eating their egg rolls on the street – they also have cool reflections.

Nancy Best Fountain at Night

Posted on by Bill Chance

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse
Still, it’s so much clearer
I forgot my shirt at the water’s edge
― REM, Nightswimming

Nancy Best Fountain, Klyde Warren Park, Dallas, Texas

On Friday the Dallas Photowalk folks had a sunset photowalk planned at Klyde Warren Park here in Dallas. I took the DART train down there – which was good because the traffic was horrific. We met up at six or so, walked around, took some photos of people taking salsa dancing lessons and then walked down to the new Nancy Best Fountain at the East End of the park.

At sundown the light and sound show surrounding the fountain began. The water shot high in the air and the kids danced around in the water like they were actually having a good time.