The Dallas Photowalk MeetUp Group met up today for a scavenger hunt. I didn’t get much rest last night, and so I sort of mumbled my way through it, but I did manage to capture 8 out of 12 things in one picture (the 365 shot for today, above), another 4 in this one…

and the final two here:

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8. ISO100, 1.6 seconds (AP mode), f/22, -1EV, minimal processing in Aperture.

If you’re curious, here’s the full list:

Red
Big
Soft
Money
Water
Reflection
Triangle
Parallel
Place to sit
Arch
A cover
The letter “R”

As you may have noticed, some of my finds were a bit more conceptual than others…

I attended the Ciclovía Dallas on the Houston Street Viaduct today (for those of you in the New York metropolitan area, this ‘Houston’ is pronounced ‘Hyoo-stun’ and not like the Houston (‘Howsden’) Street in lower Manhattan…) as a nominal part of the North Texas Photo Explorers Meetup Group (though I didn’t see any of the group, not that I’ve met any of them before).

The event itself was much smaller than I expected, or maybe the viaduct is just so large that it made everything look very small… I’m not sure how well it was publicized, and I didn’t see any of the usual East Dallas cycling suspects, so I suspect attendance was fairly low. Also, there were facilities and services for maybe 2500 people (at the very outside), but everything was so spread out and jumbled that it looks like this was … Read More »

from the Grapevine, TX photowalk.

D7000, Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 ai, ISO100, 1/4000, f/2.8.

Good times at the Grapevine photowalk with the Dallas Photo Walk Meetup group. I spent the vast majority of the time wandering around by myself and marveling at the changes a little town can undergo in just a few years.

Most  interesting to me—and not pictured, unfortunately—there were numerous instances of fresh sidewalk throughout the quaint-ish downtown. While it’s great to see a community keeping up with its infrastructure, for sure, these newly replaced/repaired/added sidewalks were pressed with a mold of some sort that adds some texture to the fresh concrete and appears designed to make the sidewalk look like it’s of the period. This is also all well and good, except the sidewalk that they replaced actually was of the period.

Why not just put in new sidewalk? In 10 years it’ll look weathered and be worn smooth and not look … Read More »

I came across an oddity in Dallas county… the Spring Creek Forest Preserve in Garland TX, of all places.

So Momma and I went out there (all 10 minutes from her North Dallas abode) and wandered around for a few hours.

From the time we left the car (about 9:15am) until we were leaving (about 11:45am), a tent meeting was going on at the horse farm next door. It began with a prayer meeting: scary screaming and wailing, punctuated by cries to the Lord. This was followed by some singing, which I missed most of due to the loud Rock and Roll I listen to so much of the time—and have for such a long time—and partly due to the distance between us and the meeting. And the last 3/4 of the walk we were accompanied by a fire-and-brimstone, scorched earth, come-to-Jesus sort … Read More »

From the ‘Dallas Blooms’ photowalk, with thanks to Greg D of the DFW Photography Club of Texas MeetUp group…

365.80 Ohne Titel

D7000. 75-150mm E Series, reversed. ISO400, 1/125 (AP mode), f/8.

The Dallas Blooms photowalk went down today, organized by Greg D of the DFW Photography Club of Texas MeetUp group, and held at the Dallas Arboretum.

I took the D7000 and 75-150mm E Series (mounted in reverse…), as well as the Ricoh 35 ZF. I finished a roll of Fuji Pro 400H and started a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus, and will post pictures once I get around to getting the film developed.

I set the reversed 75-150 to f/8, and the ISO to 400, and let the camera decide on shutter speeds. All in all, it did as expected: overexposing by 1/4 stop most of the time, which gives some nice wiggle room, while also creating some nice blown highlights occasionally.

And the 75-150 performed admirably as a walk-around lens. Previous photowalks have had only the Sigma for company, and I’ve goten quite … Read More »

When I uploaded and started looking at the photos from today’s photowalk in McKinney, TX with the Dallas Photo Walk MeetUp group, I realized two things: 1) I’m getting a bit better, but not much, and 2) my photos from photowalks all pretty much look the same.

So I need to do something to shake things up. But what? Shoot in full manual instead of Aperture priority? Tried that in the Worldwide PhotoWalk a few months back, and may try it again, but don’t really know what that would help. Pick a focus to stick to, say ‘textures’ or ‘shapes’ or somesuch? This might help, if I went on photowalks more often than once a month or so, but the occasional-ness of the walks means that any lessons I learn from one walk are largely forgotten by the time the next … Read More »

So last night I was out shooting the Fort Worth skyline with the DFW Photography Club of Texas MeetUp Group, and I set the white balance to florescent to give the sky a nice blue color and generally brighten everything else up (a nice trick, as long as there’s not too much tungsten or acid-based lights around).

I shot full manual all night, and remembered to switch to Aperture priority for today’s Bishop Arts PhotoWalk with the Dallas Photo Walk MeetUp Group, but I forgot all about the florescent white balance…

Oh well. It made for some nice skies, anyway…