Kim’s is another landmark that I could never get good pictures of because of cars. For a while, it was run down, and the pics would have been cool, but there were always cars blocking it. Then they closed it, and started to tear it down before I could get pics. Now it is restored and looking like new.
Another place I have had trouble photographing is George’s. It seems every time I go there, the parking lot is full. Also, many angles are impacted by power lines. So, Christmas Day was the time to try and finally get a usable picture.
There are some Waco Landmarks that I wanted to get pictures of, but I have always had problems because of cars parked in front and around them. Christmas Day was the perfect time to deal with that because there would be no cars to block my shots. The first of those places was The Health Camp. Here are to versions of it.
And an impressionist version.
When I was in High School, we hosted a foreign exchange student from Germany for a year. Over the years, he kept in touch with us. He has recently retired and wanted to come back and visit again. So last weekend, I went to Chicago were we all visited. Chicago was beautiful (as odd as that may seem). The trees were spectacular.
On Saturday, we went into the city. This was a fountain in the courtyard of the Chicago Art Institute.
We went to Grant Park. This is a shot of Buckingham Fountain.
One of the newest attractions is “The Bean” in Millennium Park. This is a highly polished chrome sculpture shaped like a bean. Everything reflects off its surface. Here is a picture of “The Bean.”
We went on a fantastic boat tour on the Chicago River where we could see all the various Chicago Architecture. Towards the end of the tour, we went out to the mouth of the river and turned around. Looking back, you can see the who skyline, and it was really quite impressive.
I took Joe and Mathias to see a football game in the new stadium last Saturday night. I was able to get a couple good pictures from inside the stadium. This one is from the very top of the upper deck seats.
It is apparent it was an overcast night. In fact, it rained quite hard when we were getting to the stadium. As the night went on, though, the clouds opened, and I got this shot of the stadium with a quite prominent moon.
Baylor has built a new football stadium on campus. Everyone has been eager to take photographs of it. I have a couple in my own style. Here is my picture of the stadium.
It is am impressive facility. I wanted to go a little beyond the normal photograph, though, and I took pictures of the old Floyd Casey Stadium and superimposed on into the reflection in the water. I call this “Now and Then.”
The Heart of Texas Professional Photographer’s Guild holds monthly competitions. For August, the theme for one of the competitions was “Around in Circles.” Bryant Stanton is a local artist who works in metal and glass. He was commissioned to do a chandelier and a sculpture for the new Science Building at the Community College. His sculpture was in interpretation of the Double Helix. I decided to work that up as my entry for the competition. This was my final product, and it won the competition.
We took another cruise last week. This one left from Montreal and went to Quebec City, Charlottetown, P.E.I., Halifax, N.S., Bar Harbor, ME, and Boston MA. This is a lighthouse in the harbor outside of Bar Harbor.
There were several really interesting places, but while we were in Halifax we went to “Peggy’s Cove.” I had never heard of it, but it turns out to be a place where many photographers have made some really good images. Peggy’s Cove is a small fishing village with probably not more than 20 houses. We were told the lighthouse there is the most photographed lighthouse in the world. When we got there, a piper was standing in full Scottish regalia. The picture I took had dozens of other people in it, but I managed to remove them in photoshop.
Friday, Debbie drove her mother up to Iowa. When she got there, she texted me that there was a field of sunflowers on I35 in Itasca that were amazing. So, Saturday morning I drove up there. There were actually several fields on both sides of the highway.
When leaving Sam’s the other day, I noticed the junk yard on the other side of the street, and thought the rusting old truck between two railroad cars made a pretty good image of contrasting colors.
I then drove up Elm Avenue again and saw an old, abandoned fast station that I thought would also make a good image.
Decades ago, there was an all Black college in that part of town called Paul Quinn College. There are still buildings that remain, and many of them have been renovated for use as schools. But this one had not.
