Cowboys, Cement Trucks and Undecided

Well, today was actually a fun day, but it was rather slow pickings for something not in previous news cycles. Some days are like that. Still, I had a interesting discussion about photography basics and I even saw a current syllabus given out at a local college. The photographer that was taken the course was understanding of the requirements of the course and  had already shot some of the items. One of his images was very good. What I did find amazing was that the syllabus mentioned the "golden hour" but totally failed to explain what the golden hour was and how it played an important part of photography. The golden hour is technically what is called, "civil twilight", a period after the sun has set but before the Vail of darkness moves in over the light being reflected into space that gives enough light in a spectrum that makes everything "pop" in a picture. Civil twilight occurs twice daily. After the sun sets, and before the sun actually appears over the horizon in the morning, and is that light that lights up where we can see but the suns rays have not reached us just yet. Personally, I like the morning civil twilight more than the end of the day civil twilight. It's just a preference, but it is important to know when it appears and how long it will last. That is published by the Naval Observatory and is a program like sun rise times or moon rise times etc.,etc.

I was photographing a line of rusted panels along an industrial street which is not paved. There is a cement plant at the far end and also BNSF tracks where cars are sorted and moved  into the businesses with sidings. My car was already dirty so it really didn't matter that the dust being kicked up by the cement trucks coming in for re-loads was settling over my car. It's going to get washed off tomorrow with heavy rain and storms tomorrow that is part of the system that brought 10-inches of rain to LA and Southern Cal. We are going to get heavy downpours and winds could reach 70 MPH in some of the storms,

In a cloud of dust and a hardy Hi-Ho Cement Truck.

A family member ask if I would take a group picture on their iPhone at a quinceanera. He ask and I always will take a picture. When he thanked me for the picture of the rather large group, I ask if I could take a picture of  the men's hats. This was a nice hat.

This is the road off Harry Hines into the new Parkland Hospital. The building is so massive and a cantilever building also.I really have been studying the building for that perfect shot. I'm zeroing in on a solution but I'm not there yet. This is the small part of the cantilever structure. The main  part of the building is on top of all this and coming this way to the left of the three rows of rooms that can be seen here. From down town  you really get a feel of just how big $1.3 Billion dollars can build in a hospital of 800 rooms--no doubles-- plus all the other services that go with a major trauma center. The county announced that the old Parkland of the JFK era is up for sale. It includes 12 buildings across the street from this new structure. UT Southwestern Medical  is using some of them and of course, they just built the new William Clements Hospital, a 400 bed teaching hospital less than a mile up the road in the west campus of the Medical District

The Things You See from Afar

Saturday, just before I got so excited about some new technology that was posted earlier, the temperature was the warmest day of the new year. It was 84 F. degrees. That also means a lot of humidity in the air and distance is not as clear even if you do have a 600MM lens.

Almost two years ago, along Harry Hines Boulevard in the Medical District, there was a fair amount of excitement up and down a two mile stretch of Harry Hines. The buzz? It was the announcement that one, Parkland Hospital would build across the street from its historic location a new hospital of some 800 beds. Two, that had hardly had time to sink in when UT Southwestern Medical Center announced that they would be building a new University Hospital at Harry Hines and Mockingbird Lane in the South and West quadrant of the UT Medical School's campus, Medical Center and related care facilities. The hospital would be 400 beds approximately.

In the mean while, construction jobs have hammered out two impressive buildings for Dallas' Medical District . When new buildings go up, there is a faction of people who get excited because they realize sooner than others what a visual impression makes on the success of a new facility.

 As was discovered with the building of the Maggie One (Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge) generally, the public doesn't get excited until they can see something coming out of the ground. When the form of the bridge took shape with the lifting of the final curved fabricated piece completed the arch, people could visualize. The cable stays had not been attached, but that was alright. It was the shape from that people couldn't visualize until it was done. They could then visualize the cable stays in place. With that, they could pass judgment. Now, people use the bridge every day and complain when they can't use it for some reason, like Saturday when the north side lanes were closed for the Trinity Event going on under the bridge as well as up top.

The amazing thing to me was that people were spotting a mystery building seen for the first time from afar. "What is that?", they ask. People were heard saying, "I've never seen that before." or" we need to go check that out". When the event visitors were told that it was the new Parkland Hospital, they were blown away. Some had seen it from the near-by Green Line Dart Station, " but it doesn't look that big from there." one guy said.

Just as the TxDot worker had said to me some four months ago," the people of Dallas are asleep at the wheel".  There is a building sitting out in a field like a white elephant, unmarked and with a very big high rise garage. There probably is not one out of  five hundred people who could correctly identify the building's use let alone find the way in--if you could get that far. Since it's a government facility here in Dallas, I'm not going to be the one to disclose anything else, but the point is.....architecture is important. It establishes landmarks (good or bad) and people should be excited about the city in which they live.

Another example was a city park officials response on Saturday. When ask: "what's all that new concrete about. Is it new trails?"  The man said it's part of the bridge. His rider, came around from in front of the truck with her clipboard and said," No, it's new trails. It's the 4.5 mile Skyline Trail." I then said to her: "so the city really is doing more than what the published reports on the news  are saying, then?" She said, "we let people say what they want to say and in the meanwhile, we just keep moving ahead."

There is no doubt that while Dallas did get caught off-guard with infrastructures after the massive growth following DFW's opening (now some 40 years ago), this is one of the most progressive cities anywhere in the US. It's our city. Be proud of it. Take an interest in what's going on beyond what I call the little distractions of  5K or10K runs.  Did you know that at one time, before the demolition of Texas Stadium, from I-30 and Cockrell Hill from afar, you could see both the old Texas Stadium and the new Cowboy Stadium (now, AT & T Stadium)?

The Massive New Parkland Hospital

The new 4.5 Mile SKYLINE Trail

Didn't know the city had a full size 18 wheeler for "EVENTS"
but on the other hand: How do those stages and risers  get  out side City Hall or in front of Neiman-Marcus for Christmas Parades etc.,etc?

OOPS! Updates and Leftovers

This image is exactly why business insurance is through the roof!

Thanks to the good friends at Talk Airlines.com( this image is copyrighted by its original owner. Any information can be provided by Talk Airlines.Com ) Seldom, do I use someone else's image. However,there are times when an image like this is one of those images that fills the old adage: A picture is worth a thousand words.

A Little Humor

A husband and wife go into this restaurant to be served dinner. After being seated, the waiter comes around and ask,"are you ready to order?" The wife replied that they were and that she would have  the T-bone steak. The waiter said,"vegetable?" The wife looked up at the waiter and said,"He'll have the same!"

New Hospitals

One of the two new hospitals going up in the Medical District. This one is now half complete. It is the new Parkland Hospital across Harry Hines Blvd. from the historic Parkland.
 
The other one is about a mile down  Harry Hines across from the Southwestern Medical School Complex campus. It will be the new teaching hospital for Southwestern. They use the old Parkland and related structures as their teaching hospital currently.

The New Parkland Hospital as seen from the DART Orange Line .

 

American Airlines
American's press package has released a couple of images of what the new look for the airlines could be like. In my previous post I had written that I was hoping for  bright but not white. Well, there is a lot of white paint in the first images! I  certainly hope that this is not the their "final answer" to a fantastic opportunity to be the king of paint!! But, it's starting out the gate to look like American, too, will miss the mark and join United as the second missed mark for new paint!  Tom Braniff was way ahead of his time....now that was  a man who knew how to paint a tail of an aircraft!