Category Archives: Photography

Pictures I have taken.

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

Stay Open, Forever

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.”
― George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Zahir

Opening & Closing
Fritz Bultman
Bronze, 1975
Poydras Street, New Orleans

Looking at the photo I took, I had a hard time making sure I had the title and sculptor right. Photos online looked so different. I realized that the sculpture looks completely different from various angles.

Now I need to go back. I need to go back, walk around the sculpture, and look at it from all sides. Shame it’s in the middle of a street – I’ll have to risk it.

Everything Conceals Something Else

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Downtown Dallas

Made of Earth and Rain

Posted on by Bill Chance

“At night I dream that you and I are two plants
that grew together, roots entwined,
and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,
since we are made of earth and rain.”
― Pablo Neruda, Regalo de un Poeta

Petrified Wood Gas Station,
Decatur, Texas

Ghosts Of Our Old Loves

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes

Nasher Sculpture Center
Dallas, Texas

So They Don’t Kill Me

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The bulls are my best friends.”
I translated to Brett.
“You kill your friends?” she asked.
“Always,” he said in English, and laughed. “So they don’t kill me.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

The Running of the Bulls,
New Orleans

Love Wins

Posted on by Bill Chance

“In the end, love wins. It does win. We know it wins. When a person dies, love isn’t turned off like a faucet. It is an amazingly resilient part of us.”
― J.K. Rowling

French Quarter Levee, New Orleans

No Cyclist Can Truly Feel Safe

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I delve into the mysterious and counterintuitive world of helmets and high-visibility gear later in the book. But it’s worth immediately noting this: while they’re not inherently bad, they’re less a safety device for cycling than a symptom of a road network where no cyclist can truly feel safe.”
― Peter Walker, How Cycling Can Save the World

Sculpture by Paul Perret, 1984,
Helmet by me,
French Market, New Orleans

Sculpture by Paul Perret, 1984,
Helmet by me,
French Market, New Orleans

Cannot Tame That Lawless Stream

Posted on by Bill Chance

“One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver—not aloud, but to himself—that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at.”
― Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Natchez Paddlewheel, New Orleans

Seven Points of View

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I assert that the art of sculpture, among all the arts connected with design, is at least seven times greater than any other, for the following reason: why, sir, a statue of true sculpture ought to have seven points of view, which ought all to boast equal excellence.”
― Benvenuto Cellini, The Autobiography Of Benvenuto Cellini

Gymnast, by Enrique Alferez, bronze, Poydras Street, New Orleans

In the City of New Orleans there is a fantastic arrangement of sculpture along Poydras Street. Walking down and back from my son’s apartment to the Running of the Bulls I took photos of a few of them that I’ll share with you.

The first one that I noticed was a beautiful bronze woman in an athletic, dancelike pose, rising above the median only a few feet toward the river from where my son lives. Looking it up, I wasn’t too surprised to find out it was another work by Enrique Alferez like the nearby Lute Player and David – which I wrote about the last two days.

Alferez has work all over the city.I must make a list and try to get to some more the next time I visit.

A Conversation at Molly’s

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The beauty of Molly’s is that it is not, whether in the daytime or at night, the exclusive preserve of an age or income group. Unlike the sterile night scenes of pretentious San Francisco or New York, Molly’s (and most other New Orleans bars) welcomes all ages, all colors, and all sexual persuasions, provided they are willing to surrender to the atmosphere.”
― Andrei Codrescu, New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City




A conversation between my son, Lee, and the bartender at Molly’s, Decatur Street, New Orleans