True Blue

Shot on the road to Alabama.

The Deers of my Youth

This photo of a deer hung in my bedroom as a kid -- probably for the first seven or eight years. What's unusual is that this picture does not come from my home in Alabama -- it comes from a bathroom in some east Texas gas station. Given that the picture showed up in my bedroom in the 70s, I'm now legitimately curious about its origins.

I'm not saying my parents were inspired by the decor of a Texas bathroom; rather than a lot of people must have loved this deer.

Bonus tip: The artist painted this photo of a deer from a photo as his model, or through analyzing a lot of wildlife photos. The giveaway is the out of focus background -- not something we see with our eyes in day to day life, but something you see all the time shooting with a long lens.

Shippin' Out

We left Austin in the morning, headed across east towards my home town in Alabama. Standing between us was Houston and Louisiana -- which we felt like we could do standing on our heads after West Texas.

Puttin' On the..

If you don't come to Austin to see Stephen (and who wouldn't do that?), come to see the Alamo Drafthouse. These guys, particularly the 6th street location, is awesome.

Here's the elevator pitch:

"Imagine if your movie theater was run by nerds with good taste in movies, and they served alcohol and good bar food."

It's hard to go wrong in a theater with drinks -- given sufficient alcohol, most movies are watchable. :)

They also really care about the quality of the movie watching experience: this story broke right after we left, and that gives a flavor for the type of establishment they want to run.

Miss B

Despite the wait at Chuy's being more than an hour long, B responded with her typical grace. ;)

Chuy's

We really want to try 'official' Tex-Mex while we're in Austin, so Stephen mentioned this place, which can accurately be characterized as "One of those places with crazy crap on the walls". Basically, my takeaway was that If Chuy's is Tex-Mex, then it's Mexican food with every cream/sauce/whatever as heavy and rich as possible.

I think my one sentence Yelp review would be this:

"If you would like to eat Mexican and contract gout, then this is the place for you".

Austin Lights

After Stephen's, we came back to our hotel. B did her 'early to bed' thing, and I was back out on the streets of downtown Austin. Stuff was really starting to pop -- just enough light from the bars, and just the right number of people to have that moment when stuff was happening.

Naturally, this was when my camera decided to break. :\

This is one of the last usable exposures I got from the evening -- was trying to capture the mood of the night life.

How's Annie?

Annie is one of Stephen and Belinda's dogs. I believe Betsy and Annie have a certain wild symaptico that really shown through as the night progressed. ;)

Green Bean

Last cute photo of Harper, I promise. :)

Also, at least two things about this photo are a lie.

Stephen vs. the Potaotes

Apologies for not having a better picture of Stephen -- the focus was subtly off on most of the others I shot.

The trip through Austin wouldn't be complete without writing something about my best friend Stephen. Stephen is my oldest friend -- I've known him since the second grade. The most important (really, only) thing you need to know is that we started talking from the moment we met, and we simply haven't stopped in the nearly thirty years since then.

Actually, the most important thing you, the reader, need to know is that if he offers to grill and bake potatoes for you, you should definitely say yes.

Carson Hope

Carson Hope is Stephen's young daughter. As you can tell in this photo, even at a young age she is quite the creature of manners.

In the Kitchen

In my heart of hearts, I believe that Stephen bought his house on the strength of the reflected light into his kitchen.

Pictured here are Carson (more on her later), Stephen's friend Chris Maynard, and Karen's kid (whose name I can't for the life of me remember).

Mothers & Daughters

Harper is an energetic kid, but Belinda somehow managed to keep up with her. :)

Apologies for some of the soft focus here -- reviewing my images from Stephen's house, I see a lot of focus errors creeping in. Given that the mirror in my camera broke about an hour I left, I think that may be a potential culprit.

Harper Grace

Harper is Stephen's oldest daughter. Along with being extremely well-read for a three year old, she apparently is already trained in preparing homemade ice cream. 2/2!

Now a little bit of photographer wisdom:

Kids are cutest when they're between the ages of 2-4. Too young, and they don't look enough like people to really trigger the cute centers of our brain. Too old, and they look too much like regular people -- they don't hit the 'tiny.. awwwwww' center of the brain anymore.

Harper is in that sweet spot, so she spent the night basically being adorable (and making homemade ice cream).

Oxy

Our real reason for visiting Austin was to visit Oxy, who now spends all her time in a closet and e-mailed me (she has a gmail account at oxy.cat@gmail.com) that she was lonely. Naturally, Betsy and I went to visit her, and...

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Ok, actually, we went to visit my best friend Stephen, who lives in Round Rock, right outside of Austin. The above mentioned story was meant to warn you that the next few posts will all be photos from Stephen's house, which means: largely photos of his cute family and (generally) cute pets as well.

Oxy is notable because she was Stephen's pet when he lived with me, and she and I established a special bond: She would do horrible things, and I would coo to her in order to be an enabler. I'm not saying you could prove I had anything to do with this, but by the time Stephen left, Oxy would reliably claw people in the house whenever they laughed. So, I'm not saying I trained her to hate human happiness, but...

The Shallow End of the Pool

The top of our hotel had a hot tub (which I've already discussed my love of) and a pool. B spent some time up here sunbathing, and I went up for a dip in the hot tub. (She maintained that stepping into a body of 100+ degree water when it was 95 degrees outside was "too hot"!).

It was an interesting scene up there -- lots of kind of terrible Spring Break type people having cans of cheap beer in the pool. I couldn't quite figure out what the 'scene' here was -- the hotel was too pricey for random college kids, and they all seemed too old to be here as part of a family deal.

I ended up concocting an elaborate theory that they were all tasteless scions of noveau riche oil barons, or hipsters living high off Dell money.

B, Reflecting

We clambered up to the top floors and watched the Mariachi band from above. I would like to say Betsy was rapt by the band, but I think this may have been her bored face -- however, the distance in this 14mm shot allows me to project emotions I'd like onto the scene. ;)

Fun story about the capitol: As we entered it, we had to walk through a metal detector. Betsy stopped and said, "Oh, do I have to give up my knife?" when her (largest you can get) Swiss army knife set off the detector. "Nah", said the guard, "That's not nearly big enough!", as he made bowie-knife shaped motions to indicate the largest-sized weapon allowed inside.

Fortunately, unlike one of the towns in Utah we drove through, owning a weapon was not required, but I felt a little under-equipped the whole time I was there.

The Dome

Everywhere you go in the state capitol, you can look around and see the star of Texas. Most prominently, it's up at the tippy top of the giant dome, which you everybody rubbernecks for when they walk in (assuming there's not a mariachi band already there distracting people, that is).

Mariachi Jam

The first thing greeting us as we walked under the dome of the Texas state house was a mariachi band, jamming out in grand form.

The Confederate Dead

Monument from near the entrance to the Texas Capitol.

The Capitol

I grew up in a state with pretty boring capitol buildings, and I've never been to DC, so I have some sort of pent up demand to explore vaguely Greco-Roman domed buildings.

The Texas Capitol is made from this really cool reddish stone that looks very cool at sunset, but somewhat disagreeable in direct sunlight (at least, to my picky tastes).

The Old Pecan Street Cafe

Our favorite breakfast in Austin was at the Old Pecan Street Cafe. Not only did it have great pecan-y waffles, they had cool carvings and fountains in the limestone walls of their courtyard.

Sixth Street Tarot

Betsy, for all her many virtues, has one vice: she's an early sleeper (not that I blamed her after the trip across Texas!). After she dozed off, I slipped out of the hotel to walk around downtown Austin and get some pictures.

Our hotel was right by Sixth Street, which is sort of the main artery for the flow of night life through the downtown. Lots of bars, lots of clubs, and (most importantly) lots of people.

I've never really been much for loud bars or clubs, but the crowds of people going in and out of them generally end up doing really interesting things as the night progresses. On a previous trip to Austin, I'd seen it filled with a motorcycle rally, and had had a lot of fun shooting that, so I was curious to see what it was like before Memorial Day.

The answer is: sort of an upscale Bourbon Street (but with fewer raw oysters and less grain alcohol). Lots of people, lots of stuff going on -- I went back here every night I was in Austin, and would have shot there more had my camera not broken mid-visit.

Outside Manuel's

Betsy and I have a long & proud tradition of fancy dinners, and Manuel's hit the spot. Upscale Mexican, and we had fun comparing it to the Mexican we'd recently had in Santa Fe.

The Omni

The day of hard drive paid off, and we made it to Austin with plenty of time to check into the Omni Royal and have a fancy dinner down the street at Manuel's.

The Omni was a nice hotel, although since it was right before Memorial Day, it had kind of a spring break atmosphere. Its only real sin in my mind was the presence of the dreaded low flow shower head -- a vital piece of information most travel sites are missing, truth be told. ;)

Smoked BBQ Country

You could also reliably chart the progress of civilization through Texas by the signs promising BBQ. Betsy seemed a little unimpressed -- I believe there may be some contention between the Carolinas and Texas as to the best bbq.

Windmill Country, Take Two

As we got closer to central Texas, we started to see more windmills. As I mentioned near the start of the trip, I'm in love with these things -- they're so unlike something I'd see on the landscape when I was younger, and they're very elegant in motion and not.

I had hoped to get a juxtaposition of one of the numerous Ten Commandments billboards that dotted the landscape and a windmill so I could have make a "Windmills of the Gods" title, but I'll take what I can get. :)

Welcome to Texas

We drove across the entire country, and West Texas was the only place we got pulled. We got off with a warning (I think the amount of crap we had in the back seat backed up our story about moving across country).

I actually thought about how risky it would be to take a picture of even the guy's car, and Betsy was a little worried I shot even a picture of the side mirror. Stories like this one bear out the wisdom of this -- plus, who really likes to nibble on CF cards anyway?

Silo Town

West Texas went like this: Nothing, nothing, nothing, small town, grain silo, hey, a cow!

As we blasted across the state, I started imaging what we could do to make such a trip productive. Maybe, perhaps, one could stop at every grain silo on the highway, and do a photo study of each one. Sadly, when we finally got to a spot with adequate cell coverage, I found out that Becher & Becher had beaten me to it.

Guilty confession: I find their visual studies a little highbrow and sterile. You want an awesome picture of a silo, check out Brad over at All City, who nailed it.

This Way to West Texas

We left Santa Fe and headed off on our longest drive -- twelve hours on the road to Austin. To get there, we would have to first cross West Texas.

You know how people blank out experiences which are too traumatic? I wish there were something like that for really boring experiences, because that's what West Texas was like: Hundreds of miles of nothing, with the occasional cow or grain silo to break things up, and the fool's promise of more than one bar of cell coverage as we drove.

The Band at Tomasita's

We spent our last night in Santa Fe at a place called Tomasita's -- where we also got to hear an all-female mariachi band.

Hot Tub Love Affair

Along with my favorite dSLR, I also brought a "fun" camera along with me on the trip -- the Fuji Instax. With the death of Polaroid, it's the last mass market instant camera you can buy in the US. It's sort of big and bulky, and there's some sort of weird pent up demand for instant film -- if you bring this thing out, people will invariably ask you about it.

Dozens of people asked us about the Instax on our trip. To Betsy's awakening horror, she realized that I implicitly viewed each and every one of these people as an opportunity to essentially recite the Wikipedia article on the Instax.

Inside me beats the heart of a docent.

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That brings me to another thing dear to my heart -- hot tubs. My first encounter with a hot tub was on a trip I went on with my parents into the mountains of northeastern Alabama and southern Tennessee. I was an easy kid to bring on a road trip: as long as I had a book to read, I was very happy.

Except, my parents decided to have us hike up to the top of all these mountains. The lesson they took from growing up in what is basically a swamp is that they should go to places where nature is pretty and high and walk all over it. The lesson I took from nature is that it's full of stinging insects, alligators, snakes, and the very real possibility of hypoxia on a too-tall mountain top. E.g., I've hated hiking (and still do, though I'll do it to get somewhere pretty).

The real 'vacation' for me was that our hotel in Tennessee had a pool and a hot tub. I remember how awesome it was to sit in it as a kid, and then to read my book at the time -- a giant, phonebook-sized copy of Asimov robot stories. My crowning achievement for the trip was convincing my parents that I was happiest reading (possibly in the hot tub), and that I would be very, very happy if I could just read while they hiked.

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So, flashing forward to the present, every time a hotel has a hot tub, I would agitate to go sit in it. I love the bubbles, I love the smell of chlorine, and I think about how awesome it is to be in a hot tub rather than being on a hike. :)

Our awesome hotel in Santa Fe had this hot tub on the roof, and I nagged Betsy into going. The only problem was that Santa Fe was 65 and super, super windy when we went, so it was an exercise of staying in the tub, then running inside once we were done.

For this photo, I told Betsy to get down at eye level, and I tried my best to pop my head over the surface of the pool. The composition is mine, but I'm convinced she gets a better look out of me than anyone else -- normally I'm at a loss in front of the camera, but she took what was one of the best instaxes of the trip right here.

The Streets of Santa Fe

Saw this picture this morning, and it made me sentimental. Saw lots of silhouettes like this on my trip. :)

Sunset in Santa Fe

After Taos, we made our way back to Santa Fe, and spent the night out (another) really fun Mexican restaurant. While Betsy called her mother, I took a few shots of the city in the glow of the setting sun.

The Church at Ranchos de Taos

Ansel Adams did a famous series of pictures of the Taos Pueblo back in the 1920s, and published a book entitled Taos Pueblo. Notably, he has a photo from outside the pueblo (and in fact, right on the edge of Taos) of the Rancho de Taos church. I've wondered about why he did this for some time, and it was enough to catch a glimpse from the road to understand why.

After I visited there, I found a great reference for Adams' feelings on the subject.

Even today, surrounded by the clutter of development, I felt a similar sentiment -- there is a quality of plain perfection to the geometry of this church that drew me in.

Notably, Adams chose to keep the sky light in his version of the church. All I could think of was the contrast between the light tones of the church with a dark, polarized sky converted to black & white.

He had this to say about his decision:

He described how he had used yellow and red filters before in many images in special high-altitude light of the Southwest. "But on this occasion some gentle angel whispered 'no filter' and I obeyed." Taking the shot with no filter allowed the blue sky to appear quite light, and the shadows were softened... A darker sky would have depreciated the feeling of light."

Needless to say, I had no such gentle angel.

Taos Dogs

Like a lot of more rural places in the desert southwest, Taos Pueblo was lousy with desert dogs.

Taos Shops

There are residential dwellings in Taos Pueblo, but the ones you're given access to are primarily used for shops. I was a bit more interested in people who really lived in the village, but either that's something you don't get on the dime [1] tour, or they just keep to themselves.



[1] Not really a dime. Also, they charge you $6 per camera. Betsy snuck hers in though, since she was less obviously "carrying". ;)

Taos Crosses

Detail from the top of the church in the Taos Pueblo caught my eye.

Taos Pueblo

The biggest attraction in Taos is the pueblo that gives the city its name. Looking at it, you would never guess the village is just over a thousand years old, and has had people living in it continuously for all that time.

Taos First Baptist

Our second day in Santa Fe, we took a day trip up to Taos, a town about an hour and a half north of Santa Fe famous for its art & pueblos. Our (frequently insightful) concierge pointed out that it was "A lot like Santa Fe, just smaller". At first I thought she was being some sort of oddly snobby Santa Fe partisan, but it turned out she was totally right.

Taos has a famous church that Ansel Adams photographed, but I shot this one since I was amazed at just how pueblo-y Taos was: Mcdonalds, all the local stores, the Baptist Church -- you name it.

At the Market

So, I was really excited by the idea of Santa Fe's native arts market. Unfortunately, it all seemed to be the same stuff -- dashing my dreams of becoming some sort of guy-who-haggles-for-unique-things-in-a-market.

San Miguel Mission

San Miguel Mission claims to be the oldest remaining church in the United States, and is built like a pueblo on the outside. Of the 'famous' churches in Santa Fe, it was my favorite -- probably because it was a fusion of pueblo architecture and Catholic architecture.

The Loretto Staircase

One of the Things to See in Santa Fe is the Loretto Chapel, which houses a 'miraculous' staircase built by an itinerant carpenter who showed up in town on a mule.

It turns out, Betsy and I had both heard of this staircase, and (perhaps tellingly) had both seen it on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries as a kid.

Unfortunately, the staircase isn't as cool now as it used to be -- when it was built, it didn't have a banister, owing to its novel design. They added one later for 'stability and safety', and now it seems more like a normal spiral staircase.

The actually disturbing thing is that B remembers the theme to 'Unsolved Mysteries', and could actually whistle it on command. That, of course, is why I love her. :)

B Hooded

If Betsy seems a little browmpy here, it's not just from excess photography (a definite possibility even in the best of times), it's that we just saw the Georgia O'Keefe museum, which was a little underwhelming. I'm a big fan, and I was expecting rooms of Georgia O'Keefe -- what we got was one room, and then an exhibition of American painters and their use of photography. Which, given my monomania about photography, you'd think I would love. It was interesting, but.. I could see that sort of thing at SF Moma. I wanted more O'Keefe!

Later in the day, we complained to our concierge about this ("needed more O'Keefe!"), and she commiserated. "That's a frequent complaint from guests", she said.

The other reason Betsy was wearing her hoodie: It was actually cold in Santa Fe. Not only was it cold, we were actually briefly hailed on while there -- we had expected desert conditions, but apparently the weather was wonky everywhere we went.

St. Francis Cathedral

Most of the churches in Santa Fe (and surrounding environs) are built pueblo style. St. Francis was instead built by French architects in the Gothic-Revival style, and it really shows inside. They had a huge font for holy water -- not sure what the deal was, but out came the wide lens when I saw it. :)

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Snow, Nor Imperial Storm Troopers

As I said, evidence of Santa Fe's creativity was everywhere, including, apparently, the mailboxes.

The Man in the Window

Same premise as below; gender inverted.

The Woman in the Window

When we woke up in Santa Fe, we went to a breakfast place recommended by our concierge and our guidebook called Cafe Pasqual's. Very good breakfast, and my first indication of how ubiquitous the art community was in Santa Fe -- even the menus there were festooned with art. I would go so far as to say, on average, that the art hanging on the walls of a bathroom at a bar were likely to be better than most of the fancy art installations in some other cities I'd been to.

Our table was by a window, outside of which was a USA Today (yech) news stand. People would come, pause, stare at the news, and it would be like they were peering in at us. I shot a series of strangers doing this, trying to turn the tables on the photographic problem.

Three Rivers Brewery

This is basically a guarantee: If you're in Farmington, New Mexico, and you want good food and even better beer, go to the Three Rivers Brewery.

Sunset on the Road

Making up for the all-too-quick sunset on Shiprock. :)