April Steps Fell, Weather brought shut-in days. Happy May Day, Too!

Springtime in Texas is mixing up the cold air with the warm moist Gulf air inflow, but it was still, a pretty good month weather, health and sales wise over all. And, I'm even ready for National Turtle Day this month on Thursday, May 23rd. 

Thistle's are amazing weeds. The geo-patterns and colors just don't come to mind when you think of a weed that grows along fences, around construction sites or in a field that has been unattended for a while.

If Something Moves You, Photograph it!

 This could well be a father's statement to his daughter who just sent me an image that she took. Having said that, I hope she's checking out the blog, for sure. 

I'm very comfortable with my style looking back at many years of images. Twenty-three years ago, when I did the initial research on a name that I wanted to use it was an image of a distorted reflection--- in other words, people have an image of a paparazzo in their heads that isn't really what I wanted to convey. In fact, the ideal was to distort that image that people had with the name in their minds, with the actual end result being nearly a 180-degree turn from what people would be thinking. Hence, the birth of dallaspaparazzo because it would be of things in a high density population and urban setting. People were not the focus at all.

All these years later, I have had a more clear focus on light, textures, angles, materials and structural elements. To paraphrase an article that I found on the web in the early 2021 during the pandemic the article was more like I had envisioned the end result of our name some twenty years before the article was written. 

My mother did amazing things in abstract designs long before they were fashionable. I have always been a big fan of abstracts and when I can photograph something that has endless possibilities of abstractness, I can sit for hours looking at what I see physically and how it looks mentally. In short, I am not afraid to shoot something 'off the wall' odd or strange whether people understand it or not. In fact, go to a museum and look at a famous artist painting. People see different things. With me, composition rules go out the window. My intention is to see how long it takes someone to mention that they saw much the same as I did when composing the shot. Sales is the barometer of that process generally. 

At this writing, images that I shot on a streak of creativity are selling off the wall (pardon the pun) within days of them being published. And in that same vein of thought, last week I sold an image that was shot 19 years ago for the first time. Unusual to have such a vast spread of time of images to be  analytical of one that jumped off the shelf and another one that sat in a server for all that time but had the same results. I love to see those things,  I then go out and photograph point-counterpoint shots again.

One of my old friends and also an AP photographer, once told me that there is no incorrect way to create an image. You see something that moves you, shoot the darn thing. I have long remembered Steve's firmness when he said that to me. He was an amazing man with a camera. He is also the man that would walk out on a steel beam 60 stories up to shoot steelworkers sitting on the beam eating their lunch, just to get a shot that "moved him". That was the point where Steve and I drew the line. He knew better than to ask me to do that and I knew better than to take the bait. I was not going out on a steel beam 600 feet up in the air to get a shot. That's why they make long glass that fit camera bodies. 

Over the years another thing that I ran across in one of several articles Google turned up in a search, answered my question with many references: The common misconception is that Urban photography and Street photography are interchangeable. They are not. They are two separate entities by definitions. 

"Urban photography serves as a representation of contemporary life in a city space, Street photography is a visual documentation of society within public space." Judity Ruiz Ricart, Wix.com/blog/photography/urban-photography, Feb.10, 2020.

Many argue that street photography should be considered a sub-genre  of urban photography. It has always been: it all depends on who you ask. Which was exactly what Steve had told me years earlier in one of those times when he left his comedy side and became a teacher with firmness in his voice. 

My point to be made here in mutual agreement with Steve (R.I.P you old West Virginia Boy) and Google found article by Judity Ricart, is that I have not been as analytical about street photography and urban photography as I should be or

as I have been about the term in which images sell (that's the old Marketing side me of rearing it head). And that was triggered when my daughter sent me her image with the caption, "See I can take good pics too".

In short, the creative juices are flowing again like an open tap. I am anxious to see what appears in the lens when I can get back out there. 

Wildlife Images are interesting in urban nature settings.

                                   I still have to pinch myself that I caught this capture a few years back, like pre-Covid days. I found the chip still in my old Nikon camera the other day, much to my surprise. It says a lot about the battles the animal kingdoms deal with. Here the hummingbird is protecting his nectar source from a bumble bee that was trying hard to drive the hummer away. Luckily, I was focusing on the shot when the hummer did an about face and pretty much told the bee that he would be speared with that beak if he tried it again. Combat awaits but never took place. However, it was a capture that I am proud to say that I took the shot.

                                   A Plano Coyote takes a leisure rest in a front yard.

Then, just day before yesterday as I am leaving the house, I saw a feral cat a couple of doors down chasing something in the tall grass from all the rain. Stopping, to see what was going on, the cat came up with a squirrel. It was lunch time. Had I stopped to unpack the camera, the shot would have been lost anyway. The cat was looking at me with the squirrel in his jaws. Had he felt threatened, he would have run. It was best that I just kept walking. What's the old Texas Poker phrase? "know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em".

Lately, it just seems to me that seeing such things are on the rise. One, because of the stupendous growth in population of humans in Texas and two, the animals are loosing ground for native habitat. And just yesterday on the news, The Trinity non-profit that controls the land between the Maggie 1 and the Magge 2 bridges between the levees announced that the money is now in place to begin the long awaited park on the western edge of downtown. When it was announced during the building of each of the two bridges (Maggie 1 is the one arch and Maggie 2 is the double arch bridges that cross the Trinity River) there was a lots of excitement stirring. It seemed to fade a bit after a period of time, but things developed here and there that seemed to garner a bit of hope left that eventually the park would come to life as planned. Groundbreaking is set for this fall we are told. Oh! Maggie came about as a nick name for Margaret. Both the bridges are names after women with the first name Margaret Hunt Hill and Margaret McDermott. The single arch Hill bridge was first and the double arch McDermott was build second. Hence Maggie 1 and Maggie 2. It is an easy way to remember which one is which   being so close together. During the construction of the Maggie I, daily shots in the progress were made over the course of construction and are published through our agents. 

The wildlife scene changes a bit in this area with water fowl, but it is also on the migration route to the Great Trinity Forest, a 6,000 acre hardwood forest in Southeast Dallas. It also is the largest hardwood forest in the United States. Here, the bob cats, coyotes and other things seek safe harbor from all the growth driving them south as the Metroplex grows North into vast farmlands.

If Dart ever gets service out there, I would love to return to the Trinity River Audubon Center. It is a birders paradise. Also, the AT&T trail connects to the tail system. The last time I was there was when the PGA golf course was being constructed, from the AT&T trail, I got a shot of the #5 flag on the green. When it opened, one year of the Byron Nelson was held there after leaving Cottonwood in Irving and before moving North, closer to the new PGA headquarters and new courses.

                    Yes, even these little creatures are having a bad time with urban sprawl.

    One thing about the Monk Parrots is that their colonies in the Urban Scene are growing.
 

 

Construction Zone

 Saw the National Weather Service Summer Forecast yesterday. It ain't pretty. More Hot than the two record years of the past. That set the time clock ticking to switch from Spring Backgrounds to Summer. If it is going to be as hot as the NWS thinks it will, I have two choices, get out before the sun comes up and shoot until it starts to feel like Texas--that's 10 AM forward. Or, prepare to be under the AC for the duration of the summer.

It Rained all night. It Rained all day. Loud Thunder and Lightening Rumbled Sleep Away.

 Over 2-inches of rain since late afternoon yesterday. Rain with high winds. Falling temperatures came as the cold front passed and weather system became a slow mover. The low tonight will be 49°F. Two days from now it will be back in the high 80's. But the kicker is that after three days of nice weather again, we are in for another round of 4-days of rain. 

It might be better to go to Sam's club and buy a canoe and rain gear, Then, I can forget about the buses and train schedules.

It might even be to my advantage because I could get to places in the canoe that I have not seen. Of course, I am kidding. I had enough canoe trips at summer camps in southern Michigan. I'd get up at 5:30 AM and paddle around the lake before breakfast. My wife and the kids were not big canoe fans. The peace and quiet of the morning as the sun came up is one of my favorite times to be out in nature. The birds sing sweeter songs, the light paints the surrounding landscape like a Norman Rockwell canvas. The stillness of the water is like a mirror and to me, it's a perfect start to the day. 

The rain also cancelled the 40-miles of trails at the Blue Bonnet Festival in Ennis, Texas today.

Headed out to Deep Ellum today after talking with the Muralist yesterday on a bus route.

 This was my third weekend in the Art's District Train Station and it was more wild that the past two. It didn't take long to figure out why. The past two weeks the girls Volleyball playoffs were being held at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and today was the final weekend. While waiting for the Green line to Deep Ellum, suddenly, I was surrounded by three full teams of the competition when I heard a guy say, do these trains all go the same direction? He later said that he was from out of town and needed some help. I explained to him the difference of the four lines and where they went and teams were trying to get to the Convention Center via train. When the teams got on the right side of the platform, I could see the Green Line inching it's way toward me. Reaching into my camera cart, I pulled out a bus route schedule that had a map of the train system. As I gave it to him, he was full of joy. 

When I got to Deep Ellum, the Baylor station was my target.  I would not have to walk as far to Rudolph's to see the mural that was painted on the back of their building as the muralist had explained to me yesterday. Walking past Paula's business, there was a note taped to the door that her mozzarella was being sold at Rudolph's in the next block. Paula started that business in early 1980's. Most of the afternoon was spent walking down Elm, crossing over to Main and coming back up Main before rounding the corner where Tree's (the music venue) once stood, with my full intentions of boarding the train at the Deep Ellum station. That station  had been built over the two tunnels that I will always remember being there and the paint parties that were held. I had to get my notes out as to the early date of 1911 beginnings of the Boyd Hotel, one of the few remaining cast iron front buildings. My notes come from the time that I was working a project to secure a grant to be given to the Deep Ellum Foundation from the Walmart Foundation. It was a joy to go to that Board Meeting with the grant to Deep Ellum. I have so many memories of Deep Ellum in a whole different light than most people do and I consider myself to be very fortunate to have that knowledge. Yes, even where all the broken beer bottles were on a Monday morning when I started my trek gathering the info needed for the grant and talking with the shop owners. 

So, I noticed so many changes today, new places, old buildings that were getting face lifts and somewhat loosing the old character of Deep Ellum, though that will never totally happen. The new characters just add more layers of history to the tale.

Since the Elm Street Upgrades, now, along the side walks are flower beds with native Texas wildflowers and prairie grasses. There are many metal backed benches in place now, as well. 

Of course, to me the big changes is that it took Deep Ellum over 100 years to get it's first high rise and now they sprout up as urban development. The pollinators were busy doing what they do best on these beautiful flowers.

Hesperaloe parviflora (Red Yucca)

 The afternoon was spent experimenting with a new-found setting on the big lens of the camera and a parking lot that is packed with flower beds of Red Yucca blooming. A Serendipity find.

Weather update for this weekend: 89 to 48 on Monday. That is a high today and a low beginning on Monday after 1-3 inches more of rain. The roller coaster in the sky overhead is on the move. It's Springtime in Texas. 

Buc-ee's is now a big bucks employer as it is now being reporting at $18 and change minimum wage at this super store of on- the- road travel stops. You have never seen as many gas pumps in on location and inside you would think that you had stepped into a Walmart in square footage, more if you add the food service section. They hold some records, folk's.

Had a nice chat with a mural artist that has been painting in Deep Ellum since 1980s. He was telling me that he had just finished a mural  on the back of Rudolph's Meat Market that has been operating since the1890's from the same location. Great family, too. 

Paula Lambert has been making Mozzarella cheese just down the street from Rudolph's. Paula is such a nice lady. And----her cheese is out-of-this world, no kidding. Two stops on Elm street and you could have one heck of a dinner party that everyone would like.

Deep Ellum has changed a great deal since 2001, but overall, it's still a great entertainment district of historic significance. It's been a while since I have photographed there. In the past it was during the Arts Festival. It was the hat that the mural artist was wearing today that  got my attention, asking him if he remembered when they painted the tunnels in Deep Ellum before Dart filled them in for the first of two Deep Ellum train stations. The muralist had abstract paint colors allover. One of my favorite designs!