Category Archives: Photography

Pictures I have taken.

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

Clarinet in the Park

Posted on by Bill Chance

I went for a bit of a walk in the very picturesque Prairie Creek Park here in Richardson. The place was crawling with photographers – most of them pros, lugging huge lenses, and carefully posing children, couples, or recent graduates along the rocks of the waterfall or in the fading patches of bluebonnets and other wildflowers.

Off to the side, a man was sitting on a metal park bench playing an ancient metal clarinet. He had a bag of sheet music at his feet and he’d select a piece, clip it into his music holder, and then play. Nobody was paying any attention to him.

Except for me.

Pet Parade

Posted on by Bill Chance

A while back I wrote about our little daytrip down to the Deep Ellum Arts Festival. We always try to go around noon on Sunday because that is when the Pet Parade is, and the guaranteed cornucopia of dogs makes Candy happy. She likes the canines, I get a kick out of the hipster doofuses. The parade was led by a parrot riding a remote controlled toy jeep.

I dug through my files and copied some of the photographs onto a thumb drive to transfer over to Candy’s computer for her enjoyment and thought I’d share them with y’all.

My son Lee (visiting from New Orleans for the weekend) and a new friend.

After a while, do people start to look like their pets?....

The Kiss

Posted on by Bill Chance

While I was sitting alongside the reflecting pool listening to the music I looked up and there was this blonde woman wearing a white skin-tight stretchy shiny Spandex dress running barefoot as fast as she could down the middle of Flora street with a pair of heels clutched in her hands. She was trying to smile but was obviously upset at being late for something. Her legs were moving as quickly as they could, but she was slowed by that dress. Nothing much could move above her knees.

A few steps behind her, walking leisurely, but more or less at the same speed, was another woman, casually dressed, carrying a bundle of flowers and walking a beagle on a leash. She had a big grin watching her friend try and hoof it.

I wondered what was up, and then looking down the street in the distance by the Meyerson Symphony Hall I could see the last of the sunlight glinting off a tripod and a woman with a big camera pacing around. The woman in the dress was late for a photo shoot. Looking closer – I spotted a man in a suit.

Maybe wedding photos; maybe engagement. I don’t know about the beagle – maybe the dog would be in a few shots. I saw them start to set up and shoot some down by the Symphony Hall and then they were lost in the distance.

I didn’t think about them for a while. I was enjoying the music – but for some reason I turned my head and there they were, right in front of me. They had moved down and were taking pictures in the middle of the reflecting pool. I guess the photographer was at an angle where the crowd listening to the music didn’t appear in the background.

They were almost finished. I raised my camera and only had time to squeeze off a couple shots.

It would have been cool if they had dragged that dog out there too.

Reflecting Pool

Posted on by Bill Chance

A photographic technique I like is to shoot an object’s reflection in a pool (specifically the one in front of the Winspear Opera house here in Dallas) then flip the image. For reference I like to leave a little strip of the original object, upside down, at the bottom of the photo.

I liked it when I used it a while back in a photo of a bicyclist crossing the pool. Last Thursday, at it again, I took a picture of a little girl running across the very shallow pool and I was very happy with it.

I’m sure I’ll do this again – so I hope y’all like it.

Kids love the reflecting pool. The water is less than a quarter inch deep.

The aluminum grid of the Winspear Opera House sunshade - very high overhead, reflected in the pool.

Standing on the edge of the pool.

Savor Dallas Wine Stroll

Posted on by Bill Chance

I was really struggling to come up with a birthday present for Candy. I was going to get her a Keurig single cup coffee machine, but right before I went out and bought it she developed some stomach problems related to coffee and told me she would have to quit drinking it. So I was back at square one.

Surfing around the web and checking facebook I came across an upcoming event here in Dallas that I, frankly, had never heard of. It was called Savor Dallas – and it is a multi-day, multi-location, celebration of food and wine and stuff like that. One event was called the Arts District Wine Stroll.

The Stroll was billed as:

The popular “Arts District Stroll” sets the stage for the two-day festival on Friday, March 30th, 5-7pm, where guests can enjoy wine and food tastings in the Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Meyerson Symphony Center, and the Winspear Opera House. A group of the popular new Food Trucks will be selling their goodies along Flora Street during the Stroll.

So I guess it is something like a pre-paid pub crawl, except with a little more class.

Well, it looks like we might be on to something here. Walking around the Dallas Arts District, visiting four beautiful public buildings, all designed by Pritzker Prize winning architects, while sampling food and wine along the way. Meanwhile the usual flotilla of Food Trucks waits along the route in case you don’t get enough along the way.

That sounded like a plan to me – so I logged in and bought a pair of tickets online (good thing I didn’t wait – the event sold out a few days later).

The event ran from five to seven – only two hours long. We didn’t want to waste any time, so I took a half-day of vacation from work and we decided to take the DART train down there to avoid any traffic or parking hassles. We arrived at the Winspear Opera house right at five o’clock, had our tickets scanned, received a green wristband and a wine glass, and we were off.

The thing was great. There were over fifty spots pouring out samples of wine spread among the four locations and a healthy handful of food spots. We hit the Winspear Opera house first (an excellent sake there, in addition to the wine), then moved next door to the Meyerson Symphony Hall. These were crowded, but the lines moved quickly and we were able to sample a good selection of wine and some excellent food.

I carried my camera and a small Moleskine Notebook with a matching fountain pen. I tried not to take too many pictures – it was really hard to hold a wine glass, little tray of food, and steady the camera enough to take decent photographs. I was going to take notes on particularly good wines – wines that Candy liked – I’m not a good judge, I like everything,… but it wasn’t really necessary, we simply picked up brochures and business cards from stuff we liked.

After the Meyerson we walked down to the Dallas Museum of Art. I liked it the best. Because it was down on the end and a longer stroll than the others, it was by far the least crowded and there weren’t any lines at all.

Best of all, though, they had a Tequila Sampling station. There were two attractive young girls in white skintight spandex minidresses mixing various tequilla concoctions and pouring out trayfulls of shot glasses for us to snatch up and sample. Some of the mixes (coconut and grapefruit juice) were a little off – I much preferred the straight, smooth tequila – but it was all pretty damn good. I could have parked myself in front of the tequilla sampling place, while waiters kept coming by with strange little hors d’ oeuvres – like lamb on plantain chips or oysters in tiny ice cream cones – all night long.

But it was time to move on and we walked next door to the Nasher for the final half-hour of the festivities. The Nasher garden is a perfect spot for something like this – a healthy crowd milling about the grass lawn of the garden, sheltered by the groves of perfectly groomed trees, sipping wine and eating food while about a billion dollars of modern sculpture looks on.

I slowed down on my alcohol consumption there – only trying a couple of wines – but there was some really good food. I had never had tuna tartare tacos before – and they were very good. I hate to say it, but with all the fancy top-shelf restaurants demonstrating their wares, I think the best thing I had was the tomato basil soup with mini croissant from La Madeleine. It was exactly what I wanted right then.

Everybody seemed to be having a blast. It hit just the right note – fancy enough to enjoy a special night out, but not too upper crust to be unpleasant or stressful. Candy made some new friends and I enjoyed the very diverse and interesting crowd. I even liked the fact that at two hours it was fairly short. It seemed to end right at the right time, we had all had our fill but didn’t get too worn out yet.

I’m definitely going to give this a shot next year. I’ll have to remember to get tickets early again – I’m sure it’ll sell out. It would be nasty if the weather was bad – you wouldn’t want to stroll around in the rain or a storm…. but if that happens I could simply find the tequila place and stay right there.

The crowd milling around in the Winspear Opera House, sipping their wine

In the Winspear Opera House - the wine folks would only pour a taste, but the beer people, like these Stella Artois reps, would give you a whole bottle poured into a big cup. Yeah!

In the Meyerson Symphony Hall.

At the Meyerson

Wine at the Meyerson

The light pouring into the Dallas Museum of Art

The Tequila girls at the Museum of Art

Tequila

One of the nice things at the Museum of Art is they had some semi-live music - a guitar player using some pre-recorded backing. It was very relaxing and everyone hung around and talked.

Pouring wine while the folks from Rush Hour, by George Segal, look on.

George Segal, Rush Hour

The happy crowd in the Garden at the Nasher Sculpture Center.

The Nasher Sculpture Garden

Hanging out at the Nasher on the stone wall in front of The Bronze Crowd, by Magdalena Abakanowicz.

Bronze Crowd, by Magdalena Abakanowicz

Folks at the Nasher

Making Tuna Tartare Tacos

I can’t say we tried everything they had on the Stroll – but I know we tried most of it.

Wines at the Savor Dallas Wine Stroll:
14 Hands Winery
Abbazia
Alexjandro Fernández
Apothic
Becker Vineyards
Black Oak
Bridlewood
Cambria
Carmel Road
Chateau Ste. Michelle
Columbia Crest
Comenge
Concannon Vineyard
Condado de Haza
Cupcake
Darcie Kent
Dow’s
Edmeades
Edna Valley
Emilio Moro
Fall Creek Vineyards
Farrier
Flip Flop Wines
Frei Brothers
García Figuero
Ghost Pines
J. Lohr Vineyards
J Vineyards
Lapostolle Winery
LeBaron Ranch
Les Cadrans de Lassegue
Louis M. Martini
MacMurray Ranch
Matarromera
Montecastro
Murphy Goode
Neige
Ortega Fournier
Prats + Symington
Protos
Red Diamond
Ritual
Santa Cristina
Selección de Torres
Sequoia Grove
Twin Springs
Veramonte
Viña Arnáiz
Vizcarra

Water Supplied by:
FIJI Water

The Tequila
1800 Tequila

Sake:
TY-KU Sake

Beer:
GreatBrewers.com
Hoegaarden Beer
Leffe Blonde
Shock Top
Stella Artois Beer

Food:

Meso Maya
La Madeleine
Texas Spice
Jorges Tex-Mex Cafe
Garlic Expressions
Pho Colonial

Flower Flats

Posted on by Bill Chance

Down in the Dallas Farmer’s Market there are a couple of plant shops that specialize in bedding plants – annual color. The plants are laid out on the sidewalk in flats and make a beautiful, colorful, carpet.

Blue

Yellow

Purple

Red

People in the Farmer’s Market

Posted on by Bill Chance

A couple weeks back I spent some time on a nice day shooting some pictures in the Dallas Farmer’s Market with a friend. One subject that I didn’t get enough shots of (except for the fashion shoot next door) were the people down there. Tonight I was digging around in the photographs and found a few – thought I’d stick ’em up here.

A lot of families down buying vegetables.

Nice hat.

These boys were excited about getting some ice cream.

Note the flower petals on the ground.

After their ice cream - the boys had to pose for pictures. The sugar was having its effect.

Shopping for vegetables, trying out samples.

The Light First

Posted on by Bill Chance

In looking around this interwebs thing – looking at photographs trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong and what I can do better – I came across the bromide, “Find the light first, the background second, and the subject third.”

I thought and thought and it finally began to make sense. Find the light first.

The problem in that here in Texas, the light is either blinding nuclear-hot sunlight, or the pitch darkness of night. Either one – except for a few tiny minutes at sunrise and sunset. This time of year the sunsets aren’t very interesting because of the lack of (or complete coverage of) clouds. Still, maybe there is something.

I’m often driving to work at dawn. Going west, I saw a distant skyscraper illuminated by the orb just peeking over the horizon. It was lit like a fiery finger pointing skyward. Ordinarily, I never even notice this building, but today, it was all in alignment and the orange sunrise was bouncing off the glass just right…. I thought about that and realized that it was the equinox, so the sun would be rising exactly east-west. Though that would mean nothing downtown – I realized that the President George H. W. Bush Turnpike tollroad ran east-west as it crossed highway 75.

I had been walking under there a while back exploring a new trail that has been built under the highway. I was taken aback by how high the tollroad soars as it goes up and over. The High Five near where I work gets all the attention, but the George Bush interchange is as dramatic in a more stark and brutal way.

So that evening, a few minutes before sunset I loaded my camera and tripod up and drove to the Plano Parkway exit – right behind the big Fry’s Electronics store. There’s a parking lot there, under the tollroad, and I lugged my stuff a bit into a weedy field and set up directly under the roadway far overhead and pointed my camera due west, right into the setting sun.

I set up for three exposures per shot on the tripod – then merged them with the HDR software. Since traffic was going by on each image and they would not match, the cars became ghosts in the final tonemapped images. Since a highway interchange isn’t very interesting by itself I played with the parameters until I came up with a hyperactive, over-saturated, surreal result.

Which is what I wanted. Find the light first.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

So I have my light. And I even have a background. What I’m lacking is a subject. Pictures without anybody in them can be fun and pretty to look at but they aren’t good enough. They don’t tell a story. I need to figure out how to get people into these HDR composite images – I haven’t seen many people try that. I can’t figure out how to get something interesting – something that tells a story – how to get someone to stay perfectly still while I shoot the multiple exposures.

Something to think about and to work at.