As most of my readers already know, I fully support the growth and expansion of the nation's largest light rail system, DART (Dallas Area Regional Transportation) . Not only is it well planned in its stops and connection points, it is a clean and efficient way to move people en mass.
Yesterday, it happened again. While in search of one thing, one finds something else that is much more interesting from a photo shoot standpoint than what one has shot already. It seems that some of my most interesting images have come from just such situations.
Several months ago, DART opened a new station beyond where the blue line ended in Garland. The distance isn't that far being right at the four mile range, but it opens up a growth area with half of it still in Dallas County. The other half is in Rockwall County on the other side of Lake Ray Hubbard.
I headed toward Rowlett to check out the new DART station location before going to the grocery store. I had a vision of the station ending in a parking lot somehow. That vision came from the Orange Line's Belt Line Station on the DFW Airport property. Ironically, the other end of the George Bush Turnpike is within a mile of both the Beltline Station and the Rowlett Station with about 40 miles in between. So, DART has the metroplex well covered.
Come December, a person can board in downtown Rowlett and ride DART with one change at either the Mockingbird Station or the West End Station downtown to DFW Airport's Terminal A. There are only a handful of cities in the US where one can do that. Dallas joins the ranks in December.
Surprise was a treasure hunt find. It brought back a flood of memories from my childhood that had stirred my emotional well. My mom, for years, pointed out to me, her view of what made a place or a thing a good picture or didn't. To this day, I still feel my mom's presence when I can't get my head wrapped around an image that makes it stand out above the competition. Even when I list images, I check out like images with other stock agencies and since I never re-touch an image, ever, sometimes, mine stand out in a "plain Jane" kind of way. In the end, however, my images sell for the reason that I had in mind when that image was shot. That is all that I care about. Someone else spotted that one item or one thought or one uniqueness that separated it from all the glitz and glamor of all the others.
Having said all that, the connection is that my paternal grandfather grew acres and acres of cotton on his farm. As a kid, I bugged my grandfather time and time again to let me pick cotton along with his workers. One summer, he handed me a 14 foot sack and said, "are you sure you want to do this?" I can now say that I probably bit off more than I could chew, but overall, I did surprise my grandfather by hanging in there and filling more cotton in that sack than he had thought that I would.
Part of that experience also won me a trip with my grandfather when it was time to take the raw cotton from all those bags to the cotton gin. It was my second industrial tour. The first was to the dairy farm where we got milk in those big thick glass bottles with the cardboard stopper!
It was the cotton gin in Rowlett that grabbed my focus. Somehow, I got the train leaving the station which sits behind the cotton gin.
Yesterday, it happened again. While in search of one thing, one finds something else that is much more interesting from a photo shoot standpoint than what one has shot already. It seems that some of my most interesting images have come from just such situations.
Several months ago, DART opened a new station beyond where the blue line ended in Garland. The distance isn't that far being right at the four mile range, but it opens up a growth area with half of it still in Dallas County. The other half is in Rockwall County on the other side of Lake Ray Hubbard.
I headed toward Rowlett to check out the new DART station location before going to the grocery store. I had a vision of the station ending in a parking lot somehow. That vision came from the Orange Line's Belt Line Station on the DFW Airport property. Ironically, the other end of the George Bush Turnpike is within a mile of both the Beltline Station and the Rowlett Station with about 40 miles in between. So, DART has the metroplex well covered.
Come December, a person can board in downtown Rowlett and ride DART with one change at either the Mockingbird Station or the West End Station downtown to DFW Airport's Terminal A. There are only a handful of cities in the US where one can do that. Dallas joins the ranks in December.
Surprise was a treasure hunt find. It brought back a flood of memories from my childhood that had stirred my emotional well. My mom, for years, pointed out to me, her view of what made a place or a thing a good picture or didn't. To this day, I still feel my mom's presence when I can't get my head wrapped around an image that makes it stand out above the competition. Even when I list images, I check out like images with other stock agencies and since I never re-touch an image, ever, sometimes, mine stand out in a "plain Jane" kind of way. In the end, however, my images sell for the reason that I had in mind when that image was shot. That is all that I care about. Someone else spotted that one item or one thought or one uniqueness that separated it from all the glitz and glamor of all the others.
Having said all that, the connection is that my paternal grandfather grew acres and acres of cotton on his farm. As a kid, I bugged my grandfather time and time again to let me pick cotton along with his workers. One summer, he handed me a 14 foot sack and said, "are you sure you want to do this?" I can now say that I probably bit off more than I could chew, but overall, I did surprise my grandfather by hanging in there and filling more cotton in that sack than he had thought that I would.
Part of that experience also won me a trip with my grandfather when it was time to take the raw cotton from all those bags to the cotton gin. It was my second industrial tour. The first was to the dairy farm where we got milk in those big thick glass bottles with the cardboard stopper!
It was the cotton gin in Rowlett that grabbed my focus. Somehow, I got the train leaving the station which sits behind the cotton gin.
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| Historic Cotton Gin with DART's new Rowlett Station behind. |
