Category Archives: Photography

Something Else That’s Weird But True

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”
― David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Then and now, the view of the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge from the Continental Bridge Park

December 23, 2014 – Time Gaines Momentum

View of the Trinity River and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge from the Continental Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas

View of the Trinity River and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge from the Continental Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas

May 17, 2015

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Trinity River Flood Stage, Dallas, Texas

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Trinity River Flood Stage, Dallas, Texas

With Cities, It Is As With Dreams

Posted on by Bill Chance

“With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. 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 from the Commerce Street Overlook (Please click on image for a larger version on Flickr)

Downtown Dallas from the Commerce Street Overlook
(Please click on image for a larger version on Flickr)

Before and After – Bench

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.”
― Langston Hughes

I like to ride my bike in the Trinity River Bottoms and take a rest on one of the benches that are spotted along the trail. I took these less than a year ago. You can see the Continental Bridge Park in the background.

My Xootr folding bicycle, Trinity River Bottoms, Dallas, Texas

My Xootr folding bicycle, Trinity River Bottoms, Dallas, Texas

Continental Bridge, Dallas, Texas

Continental Bridge,
Dallas, Texas

Now, the water is rising.

The bench is swallowed by the rising water. Taken from the Continental Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas

The bench is swallowed by the rising water. Taken from the Continental Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas

I see on the radar that there is another giant storm to the Northwest – this area drains into the Trinity. The river isn’t finished going up.

The Great Floodgates of the Wonder-World Swung Open

Posted on by Bill Chance

“…the great floodgates of the wonder-world swung open…”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, from the Commerce Street Viaduct Dallas, Texas (please click the image for a larger and better version on Flickr)

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, from the Commerce Street Viaduct
Dallas, Texas
(please click the image for a larger and better version on Flickr)

After the Uptown Cyclovia on Sunday, I rode my bike down to the Trinity River – visiting the flood stage water at several places. It was quite a sight to see. I filled up my digital card with photos – I’ll be putting them up here as I process them.

This photo I took at sunset from the sidewalk along Commerce Street. The sun just peeked out from under the clouds for a few seconds.

The blog format can’t do this photo justice – Please click to visit on Flickr.

When A Happy Thing Falls

Posted on by Bill Chance

“But suppose the endlessly dead were to
wake in us some emblem:
they might point to the catkins hanging
from the empty hazel trees, or direct
us to the rain
descending on black earth in early
spring. —

And we, who always think of happiness
rising, would feel the emotion
that almost baffles us
when a happy thing falls.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

Saturday, at the brewery tour at Four Bullets Brewery, they had, as is common at these sorts of things, a number of games, including the grand hipster pastime of Giant Jenga.

I always like to watch this and always try to photograph the moment when the pile of wooden blocks falls.

Giant Jenga requires careful planning.

Giant Jenga requires careful planning.

She was able to remove this piece.

She was able to remove this piece.

But if fell later as they tried to move another piece. Note the rare "suspended section" of blocks. I'm not sure of the physics of leaving a few behind for a handful of microseconds.

But if fell later as they tried to move another piece. Note the rare “suspended section” of blocks. I’m not sure of the physics of leaving a few behind for a handful of microseconds.

Some old images of falling Giant Jenga.

The end of a game of giant Jenga - Community Beer Company, Dallas, Texas

The end of a game of giant Jenga – Community Beer Company, Dallas, Texas

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

She Spent Hours On the Riverbank

Posted on by Bill Chance

“She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims…”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

Downtown Dallas, Texas

Downtown Dallas, Texas

Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

Posted on by Bill Chance

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
—-William Blake, The Tyger

tyger

Simply Look At Its Biggest Buildings

Posted on by Bill Chance

“If you want to understand what’s most important to a society, don’t examine its art or literature, simply look at its biggest buildings.”
― Joseph Campbell

Architectural Detail, Dallas, Texas

Architectural Detail,
Dallas, Texas

In Dialogue With Pain

Posted on by Bill Chance

“It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.”
― Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness

Arts District Dallas, Texas

Arts District
Dallas, Texas

“Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendencies which in other domains will lead us to marry the wrong people, choose inappropriate jobs and book unsuccessful holidays: the tendency not to understand who we are and what will satisfy us.”
― Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness

Not the Shadow Of the Past Nor the Shadow Of the Future

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Trinity River Dallas, Texas

Trinity River
Dallas, Texas